Tipping culture stems from the tipped employee minimum wage, and general inequality in the US. If you want tip culture to change, start pressuring your legislators to get rid of the tipped minimum wage.

you realize that this is a function of the point of sale machine, not the mechanic specifically asking for a tip, right? a lot of these machines do not have a way to bypass this screen, so typically the merchant will either swing the screen back around or explain the situation.

It sucks because there's definitely a bit of a food desert over here but the brands they carried and prices that came with it I felt mismatched for the area they're serving. I like the store but found myself only going for emergency stuff as a non driver to save a trek to somewhere further out, or to get fresh vegetables for a dish instead of making the trip to Price Rite or Walmart. The shelves when I go in there have gotten emptier, the store feels dirtier, and the employees all seem miserable to boot.

Trader Joe's felt like the nail in their coffin as you can get some of the Whole Foods style bougie shit like Urban Greens sells but still have affordable options. Urban Greens just became less affordable for the people who benefit the most from the location and the people who can afford it have more options in Whole Foods and now Trader Joe's.

The debate on wages effecting prices has been happening for a long time. The federal minimum wage hasn’t increased from $7.25/hr I’m decades. There are lots of studies and data. I’ve selected A study from Perdue showed that raising prices from minimum wage to $15 would only increase prices 4.3% that means your example of paying $13 for a meal instead of $10 would in reality cost the customer $0.43 not $3 and to raise wages to $22/hr it would increase prices 25% that would be $2.50 vs your example of $3. The fact is asking customers for a %15 tip for limited service instead of owners charging something like 4.3% for a real wage is providing cover for bad business owners to pay poorly and to ask customers to cover the cost of their wages while they stuff their pockets. It’s unconscionable to defend the rampant tipping that goes on. I’m sick of hidden costs and surprise tips for tbh fa that aren’t too based work

Yup, what a nice place to work too.

Unsubtle homophobia has entered the chat.

Damn. I wasn't just imagining this. Thanks for posting.

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It is a lot easier to live here than Jersey City.

Harsh but fair. And you're right. I was half worried I'd be out on an island with my stance here.

Tipping for pick up is a hell no. I remember seeing a tip jar on a lemonade van before. In my mind monkey see monkey do. Same with the change cup screw that.

>Most importantly it's located in a food desert. It's one of the few places to get fresh food in the west end.

If anything, this should be the non-starter for donating. When they're in a situation where they shouldn't really have any way to fail? Crowdfunding isn't going to save them. The best case scenario is you end up like the suckers who gave $40,000 to Bucktown and they couldn't last 6 months after.

At a certain point, an operation needs to sink or swim and Urban Greens just announced they don't know how to swim

From the ProJo a few months ago

They dug their own grave. If a grocery store can't survive in a food desert, they have no business keeping their doors open.

I went several times when they first opened and they were reasonable, fresh, and clean. I've heard that's changed quite a bit over the past year or so.

There's plenty of places that would love to do that, but it's actually less beneficial to the workers because of our culture. Customers are more willing to pay $10 on a meal and tip up to $3 sometimes than they are willing to pay $13 for the same meal.

You lose clientele, you can't afford as many workers, and now people don't have jobs.

Unless something changes from all the way at the top either legislatively or culturally, tips allow workers to get a fair and livable wage.

A restaurant I've worked for splits their tips evenly and treats it more like a team effort in order to be able to raise EVERYONE'S wages. With tips everyone makes $10 more and hour than their hourly wage. If you got rid of the tips, raised prices, and then raised wages, business wouldn't be able to afford paying the same amount. Instead of $10 more an hour, you'd get maybe $5. Which is still good, but definitely a pretty steep drop in hourly gains.

Customers are more willing to pay a sticker price of X amount and then pay other taxes and fees on top of that than they are willing to pay a higher sticker price.

Americans have been conditioned by our culture to view prices that way. I mean look at everyday purchases, nothing has tax factored in already at retail.

It would take a long time and a huge cultural shift for Americans to be able to see the same plate of food or product they used to get for "$10" suddenly being $13 or even $15.

I don't think tips should exist at all, but the fact of the matter is that this is how American society developed and there'd have to be a lot of heavy lifting and huge sweeping changes that go beyond the individual level to make it change.

If there's an option to tip, I tip. The ONLY time I may not is if it's a retail item I'm purchasing at a restaurant and I'm not purchasing anything else.

It's a great place for sure. A daily stop for me.

Most importantly it's located in a food desert. It's one of the few places to get fresh food in the west end.

All that said, I'm torn on donating. The place was run poorly imo for many years. Board positions, volunteer positions etc were filled w friends of management/owners where more qualified people were overlooked because they didn't "know someone".

The place is really needed, I just wish they kept John Santos around and let him run it the way it should have been.

What a bummer. It's far from perfect but having a grocery store on the West side with local produce/meats/etc has been amazing these last few years.

I hope they can survive.

I used to feel the same way until recent years. It doesn't matter if the place isn't giving you full service, that tip is still what makes the workers' wages livable and sometimes even kinda good.

It shouldn't be that way, but we'd need a huge culture change for a shift away from it. A lot of times it's actually easier for employees to make more money by having tips than by raising prices and wages.

A restaurant I've worked for uses tips as a vehicle to make everyone's wages higher. It's more of a team effort for everyone to benefit instead of it being so transactional.

Service workers have to put up with so much shit and so many horrible people. They deserve the extra dollar on your $7 coffee drink. Even if all they did was ring it up and give it to you. That tip usually goes to everyone.

It goes back to the person making your coffee, to the person cleaning up the counter where you spilled some coffee on the way out, etc etc.

Haha I will! And yes exactly. Not our circus not our monkeys. Like sure maybe sometimes she's "looking" for it, but as we've already said, people on here fixate on everything she does. Like she could just post a funny shitty review that any other business would also post and suddenly it's an obsessive post about how awful she is.

People have bad days and good days. I also don't take kindly to speaking unkindly to employees and I have been to both establishments enough that I have witnessed her getting a little agitated with an employee. But I've never heard her say anything despicable. Is her tone not the nicest? Sure. Those conversations shouldn't take place in front of customers because it makes everyone involved uncomfortable.

But I've definitely noticed her kindly ask her employees to step to the back now whenever she wants to give feedback and speak more timidly and try to be conscious of her attitude. I always sat right at the first seat at the bar at Little Sister.

I've become pretty chummy with all the employees there now and they all seem to like her a lot more than past employees have. So maybe she's being more conscientious of how she's coming off and what her intention actually is?

Either way I'm not here to psychoanalyze a restaurant owner. It's just frustrating that people on this sub can't see their clear bias in how they react to her. It's not that she does nothing wrong, it's that the way they treat her and react to her is incongruent with how they would act if the same exact actions were taken by a white dude.

It's like the whole Amber Heard vs. Johnny Depp situation. The way people behaved towards Amber Heard while maybe "deserved" was still completely different to how they behaved towards similar accusations about Johnny or other men throughout the years. It's like it goes overboard but you can't get through to people and show them their bias cus they can argue that whatever is being done by the woman (or minority) is still BAD. So they "deserve" it.

Same concept as to how latinos and especially black people get heftier prison sentences. Sure they committed the crime, but the treatment against them is still way worse than it would be if it were a white man.

I mean imagine Trump behaving exactly like Milena. He'd look like the most well behaved orthodox Amish timid boy you've ever seen compared to his usual antics.

Lol sorry my adderall juuuuust kicked in.

Well they probably need to be outside of the building to patrol

Just google Providence food scene, plenty of articles from the globe, NYT, eater, Forbes etc. Travel and Leisure readers voted it the #1 food city in the country 5 or so years ago. I don’t think that’s true, but obviously it has a foodie reputation outside of the state.

Through the front doors then a right to the main area and go all the way to the back right.

You have an opportunity to link something to back your claims. Otherwise you're just kinda speaking with unbacked authority.

Edit: bro replied then either blocked me or deleted the account? Interesting

If they don’t provide table service they shouldn’t be asking for tip their employer should be paying fair wages. That said I’m a sucker and end up wasting 15% just picking up items at a counter with no interaction

This was in MA not Providence.