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Hospitality Leadership Through Learning
Faculty & Research

Race Differences in Tipping: Questions and Answers for the Restaurant Industry

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Vol 6 No 1
By: Michael Lynn Ph.D.

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Executive Summary: A widespread perception in the restaurant industry is that Black patrons tip less than do White customers. As a result, many waiters and waitresses dislike waiting on tables of Black parties, resist being assigned to serve Blacks, deliver inferior service to those black customers whom they must wait on, and refuse to work in restaurants with a large Black clientele. In turn, these attitudes and behavior reduce Blacks' patronage of table-service restaurants, contribute to discrimination lawsuits against restaurants, increase costs and reduce profits of restaurants with large Black clienteles, and deter restaurant chains from opening units in predominately Black communities.

This report draws on the available research to pose and answer questions about race differences in tipping and about what servers, restaurant managers, industry organizations, and restaurant chains could do about those differences. The available research indicates the following:

  1. Tips from Blacks are, on average, lower than those from Whites;
  2. Black-White differences in restaurant tipping are not caused solely by race differences in socio-economic status;
  3. Black-White differences in restaurant tipping are evident among the middle-class as well as the lower-class;
  4. Black-White differences in restaurant tipping do not disappear when both groups get comparable service;
  5. Blacks tip less than Whites even when the server is Black;
  6. Blacks are much less familiar with the 15- to 20-percent restaurant tipping norm than are Whites;
  7. Blacks tip less than do Whites in many (but not all) other service contexts; and
  8. Asian-White and Hispanic-White differences in tipping are smaller, less robust, and have drawn less attention than Black-White differences in tipping.

The research findings suggest that restaurant managers, executives, and the industry as a whole should try to educate all of their customers about restaurant tipping norms. Such an educational campaign could involve informational brochures in restaurants, as well as an industry-wide effort promoted by trade associations.

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Comments

I find your article on serving black patrons intriguing. However perhaps more important is the policy of tipping at all.
As an Australian I find the amount of tipping in America difficult to handle. I am aware that tipping is ingrained in the U.S. In Australia we do not normally tip unless it is for exceptional circumstances and certainly some occupations such as hospitality housemaids, hairdressers and taxi drivers do not normally get tipped.
In the United States this is not so and I must confess there are certain times when one can ascertain the advantage. That applies mostly to courteous service. But it is getting rather ridiculous when you receive a bill which states you are automatically billed 15% and then at the bottom there is the opportunity to tack on another 10 to 15% tip. This must make it difficult for your tax man to make a reasonable assessment
I find it equally difficult to be expected to tip almost every hotel staff member for doing what they are paid to do.
In Australia we have a different approach in that all staff are paid an award wage. That wage is based on an analysis of what the worker has to do and what is a reasonable recompense! Certainly we are moving away from award wages to negotiated contracts but we are certainly not moving to a situation where many staff members are paid a pittance and have to build their salary up by what is virtually begging.
But the real problem at the moment is articles like yours putting on or trying to emulate what is happening in the United States.
Jim White

Motel Design Consultants

I feel that the whole issue surrounding tipping should be reviewed. Wait staff should be paid a proper salary and tipping discouraged in order to elevate the status of wait staff to that of valued employees. Service could then be standarized for all customers and all staff would be on equal footing.

Nora Freund class of 1960

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About Michael Lynn Ph.D.
Dr. Michael Lynn is a professor of consumer behavior and marketing at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. He received his Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the Ohio State University in 1987, and has taught in the marketing departments of business and hospitality schools since 1988. Dr. Lynn paid his way through school by waiting tables and bartending. This experience sparked his interest in service gratuities (tipping), a topic on which he has over 35 published academic papers. His other research focuses on consumer status and uniqueness seeking. Dr. Lynn is the past editor of the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, and is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Academy Marketing Science, which gave him an outstanding reviewer award in 2006.