HERE’S A TIP FOR THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: SIT IN ON A SECOND GRADE ARITHMETIC CLASS

9/22/18

I wrote the following letter to the Wall Street Journal last month in response to an article in one of those cutesy-pie weekend sections about a restauranteur who thinks tipping is a bad idea.   Not surprisingly for a number of reasons, the paper didn’t run it, but I thought my readers would enjoy it.   Another reason I am running it is to burnish this blog’s frequent characterization as “eclectic.”

8/25/18

Danny Meyer, the restauranteur behind Shake Shack and the Gramercy Tavern, is advocating the elimination of the centuries old custom of tipping wait staff at his, and presumably all, restaurants.   (“A Restaurant King Fights a Lonely War on Tips,” Exchange, 8/25-8/26/18)   Among the reasons that Mr. Meyer provides for eliminating a practice that has worked well for so many years is that tipping “forced diners to end every meal with a math test.”

At Shake Shack, a hamburger costs what an entire three course meal costs at the local diner my family frequents.   At Gramercy Tavern, a meal for four can easily exceed a typical family’s mortgage payment.   Both of Mr. Meyer’s establishments, one can thus easily conclude, are favorites of New York’s most sophisticated, most highly paid luminaries, including the masters of the universe who, by some strange twist of fate, find themselves in charge of the nation’s finances.  These geniuses consider calculating 20% of, say, $500 at Gramercy Tavern, a “math test”?   Apparently so, because, according to the Journal article “Many diners seemed thrilled to stop calculating tips…”   Maybe it would be easier for these whiz kids if someone explained that one can calculate 20% by taking one tenth of a number and doubling the result, but, then again, maybe not…math is so hard.

Don’t worry, America; your money is in the hands of those who consider calculating simple percentages a “math test.”