Additional Coverage:
- Fuming restaurants impose higher gratuity on World Cup visitors after ‘disgusting’ tips (themirror.com)
In response to some World Cup visitors leaving shockingly low tips, several U.S. restaurants in host cities have increased their automatic gratuity charges.
Teneshia Murray Butler, owner of the Atlanta-based T’s Brunch Bar chain, shared with Axios that she raised her restaurants’ standard automatic tip from 18% to 20% during the tournament. She emphasized the importance of supporting her servers, calling them “the quarterback to the rest of the team” and expressing that the change was meant to show she values their hard work and income.
Similarly, Jessica Ordeñana, a bartender in New York City, noted that her establishment implemented an automatic gratuity for tourists, although it sometimes gets overlooked during busy World Cup game days. She recounted an incident where a large group watching Argentina’s match left only a $4 tip on a $300 tab, calling the gesture “really, really disgusting.” Ordeñana highlighted how crucial tips are for service workers, even as the amounts can be unpredictably low.
The tipping tradition in the U.S. often puzzles international visitors, many of whom come from countries without a similar culture. In American cities hosting World Cup events-such as Atlanta, New York, Boston, and Los Angeles-foreign fans are encountering a system where tipped employees may earn as little as $2.13 per hour, with tips expected to bring their pay up to at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25.
This practice traces back to Medieval Europe, where tipping began as a bonus to servants. However, its adoption in the U.S. took a darker turn after the end of slavery, becoming a mechanism that effectively kept Black workers in poverty, according to the Shriver Center on Poverty Law. Saru Jayaraman, co-founder of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, explained that tipping in the U.S. evolved from an extra reward to a fundamental part of workers’ wages-a legacy rooted in systemic inequality.
Meanwhile, labor actions tied to the World Cup have also brought attention to wage issues. At Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, where eight matches including a quarterfinal took place, unionized servers authorized a strike shortly before the tournament started, demanding better pay. The threat of a walkout was withdrawn after management agreed to a 30% wage increase.
Saru Jayaraman, now president of One Fair Wage, expressed hope that the World Cup sheds light on the precarious financial situation of tipped workers. “Your tips go up and down, month to month, shift to shift, season to season, but your bills don’t go up and down, they just go up and up,” she said, underscoring the instability many in the service industry face daily.