Tip Culture: How Much Is Too Much?

Tipping used to be simple. You sat down at a restaurant, ordered a meal, and left 15%. That was the cultural standard—something your parents and grandparents did without a second thought. But in 2025? Fifteen percent isn’t even on the table anymore. Now, we’re staring at screens that demand 20%, 25%, even 30%… and sometimes they don’t give you a lower option at all.

Somehow, a gesture of gratitude turned into an expectation, and now it feels like an extra tax on the middle class.

From Gratitude to Obligation

When did tipping stop being about saying “thank you” and start being mandatory? It’s not just sit-down restaurants anymore. Coffee shops, bakeries, sandwich counters—everywhere you go, a screen swivels around asking for a tip before you’ve even tasted what you bought.

And here’s the kicker: it’s not optional in the cultural sense. If you press “No Tip,” there’s that awkward pause. That unspoken judgment. You feel like a bad person, even though all you did was buy a muffin.

Europe vs. America

Travelers often bring up Europe when this comes up. In most European countries, tipping isn’t expected because the workers are actually paid a living wage. Imagine that. You pay the menu price, you enjoy your meal, and you walk away. No guilt, no second tax, no mental math.

So why not here? Why don’t American restaurants and service businesses just pay their people properly? The answer is simple: capitalism in overdrive. Businesses lean on tipping because it keeps wages artificially low while transferring the burden onto customers. And who carries that burden most? Regular, working, middle-class people.

The Growing List of Tipping Expectations

It’s not just food and drink. Here’s where we’re tipping now:

• Restaurants – 20% minimum, often higher.

• Coffee shops & counters – Tip for drip coffee? Yep.

• Bars – $1–2 a drink used to be normal. Now it’s 20% on cocktails that cost $18.

• Valet – $5 is the new $2.

• Hair salons – 20–25%.

• Tattoo artists – Yes, we expect tips too (and as tattoo artists ourselves, we admit we like them).

• Services across the board – Movers, delivery, the person who clips your dog’s nails.

The list grows longer every year, and the pressure gets heavier.

The Hidden Tax of Everyday Life

Let’s zoom out. We already get taxed by our government. We get taxed on bridges, roads, tolls. We pay sales tax, income tax, property tax. Capitalism taxes us again on everything we buy, sell, or use.

Now add tipping on top of it all. It’s become a second, private tax system that nobody voted for—but everybody feels. And it’s aimed directly at the middle class, the people who already carry the weight of every other system.

So… Where Do We Land?

Here’s the twist: even with all of this, we’d rather be good tippers than bad ones. As a former restaurant owner and a working tattoo artist, we know firsthand how much those tips matter to people’s livelihoods. We’ve lived on them. We’ve been grateful for them.

The point isn’t to stop tipping. The point is to recognize how broken the system is. Tipping shouldn’t replace fair wages, and businesses shouldn’t outsource their payroll to guilt-ridden customers. But until something changes, we’ll keep tipping well—because kindness beats bitterness, even when the system feels unfair.

Final Thought

Tip culture is getting out of hand, no question. But maybe the deeper question is this: how much can we ask of people before the system collapses under its own weight?

Until then, tip your server, tip your barista, tip your tattoo artist. We’ll keep tipping too. But let’s not stop asking the hard questions about why the system is built this way in the first place.

👉 Listen to the full conversation on Middle Minded Podcast Episode 7: Tip Culture, where we dive even deeper into the madness, laugh at our own experiences, and wrestle with the question: is generosity becoming another burden of capitalism, or is it the last human touch we’ve got left?