I can’t second this enough. Even our US friends hate the system, but they can’t seem to break free of it. The owners like it, because they can pay their workers less than $5 per hour. The workers like it, because they’re holding out hope for that rare super-tupper who gives them a week’s wages in a single order. But the customers hate it.
Having to spend brain cells all the time on whether you need to tip and how much to tip is such a hassle if you don’t come from that culture. And the tips are significant - adding $10+ to an order after a meal is not unusual. We aren’t talking a couple of dollars, here.
One thing I noticed this trip is that just about everywhere, they’ll tell you how much a 15%, 18% or 20% tip would be on the bill or on the screen if you’re paying via a console so you don’t have to do the maths yourself very often anymore.
The thing which really stings is that their food and drink prices are starting to look like ours but it’s USD so with the AUD being worth ~64c to their dollar, meals and those tips are insane. I would not recommend Australians take a trip over there right now unless they’ve got plenty of money to spend, unless they eat and drink on the cheap by cooking for themselves or doing the cheapest fast food only rather than any sort of table service. I’ll give you our most extreme example, even though this meal was comped by the casino for us so we only paid the tip. That meal where I had Petunia the fancy steak… that was $70 for my steak + $10 or so for the mac and cheese side + $20ish (from memory) for my drink. All up our bill was $300 + $50 tip for 3 of us which was only like a 16% tip. I’ll do you the favour of converting it and tell you that it’s $543.61 AUD.
Back down to earth, I could not go anywhere for a sit down meal which came to less than around $40 AUD for myself after tax and tip. Whether that was a basic bacon and eggs type breakfast or something for dinner. Another fun example is I took 2 short taxi rides in Vegas which cost me $70 AUD total. I think the amount on the meters were around $18 USD each but then add your tax and tips. Absolutely insane. I am lucky enough that I have plenty of disposable cash so I simply wasn’t keeping track of how much I was spending, but just being mindful of it. I don’t know and I don’t want to know how much that trip cost me, even though I could easily look and figure it out.
Yeah the few times I ate at a place with table service in the US it would add up very quickly. Plus the tipping would add to the anxiety. Food truck/street food type things seemed more affordable than Australia though.
Only reason I would consider visiting without stacks of cash is because I have several relatives over there (who all earn very well).
I can’t second this enough. Even our US friends hate the system, but they can’t seem to break free of it. The owners like it, because they can pay their workers less than $5 per hour. The workers like it, because they’re holding out hope for that rare super-tupper who gives them a week’s wages in a single order. But the customers hate it.
Having to spend brain cells all the time on whether you need to tip and how much to tip is such a hassle if you don’t come from that culture. And the tips are significant - adding $10+ to an order after a meal is not unusual. We aren’t talking a couple of dollars, here.
One thing I noticed this trip is that just about everywhere, they’ll tell you how much a 15%, 18% or 20% tip would be on the bill or on the screen if you’re paying via a console so you don’t have to do the maths yourself very often anymore.
The thing which really stings is that their food and drink prices are starting to look like ours but it’s USD so with the AUD being worth ~64c to their dollar, meals and those tips are insane. I would not recommend Australians take a trip over there right now unless they’ve got plenty of money to spend, unless they eat and drink on the cheap by cooking for themselves or doing the cheapest fast food only rather than any sort of table service. I’ll give you our most extreme example, even though this meal was comped by the casino for us so we only paid the tip. That meal where I had Petunia the fancy steak… that was $70 for my steak + $10 or so for the mac and cheese side + $20ish (from memory) for my drink. All up our bill was $300 + $50 tip for 3 of us which was only like a 16% tip. I’ll do you the favour of converting it and tell you that it’s $543.61 AUD.
Back down to earth, I could not go anywhere for a sit down meal which came to less than around $40 AUD for myself after tax and tip. Whether that was a basic bacon and eggs type breakfast or something for dinner. Another fun example is I took 2 short taxi rides in Vegas which cost me $70 AUD total. I think the amount on the meters were around $18 USD each but then add your tax and tips. Absolutely insane. I am lucky enough that I have plenty of disposable cash so I simply wasn’t keeping track of how much I was spending, but just being mindful of it. I don’t know and I don’t want to know how much that trip cost me, even though I could easily look and figure it out.
Yeah the few times I ate at a place with table service in the US it would add up very quickly. Plus the tipping would add to the anxiety. Food truck/street food type things seemed more affordable than Australia though.
Only reason I would consider visiting without stacks of cash is because I have several relatives over there (who all earn very well).