Ken’s Pizza in Burlington, Vt., takes the unambiguous approach to prodding stingy Quebec customers to tip: “Tipping is not just something you do in a canoe,” the menu reads.

The perennial issue blew up again recently when two waterfront restaurants in the Vermont city owned up to adding an automatic surcharge to cover the tip they weren’t expecting “foreign” customers to leave.

“It is people from foreign countries. And since most of our foreign customers come from Quebec . . . ” said Leunig Bistro owner Bob Conlon.

But Conlon, a 30-year veteran restaurateur in Burlington, disapproved mightily when a couple of fellow restaurateurs started letting servers automatically add on a tip when customers’ accents suggested they were non-Americans.

“Giving servers the option is discriminatory and bad business,” Conlon said.

Still, restaurant owners told the Star some of their Quebec customers, including regulars, are cheapskates.

“Just last evening, I had a group of eight walk out and not leave enough for the bill,” said one restaurant owner who wanted to remain anonymous. “The best thing people can do when they cross the border is read the rule book.”

Splash at the Boathouse stopped allowing servers to add the surcharge after a controversy erupted in July. A customer who lives in the U.S, but is originally from France complained at getting an automatic 18 per cent gratuity after speaking French at the dinner table.

The gratuity was removed; she left a 15 per cent tip, Vermont’s Seven Days reported. Some servers are even calling it a “Queeb tax,” it said.

A server at Asiana Noodle Shop in Burlington said adding the tip onto the bill is “up to the servers. I don’t do it but other people will if it’s someone who didn’t leave a tip the last time they were here.”

Conlon said he prefers gentle persuasion, tacking a line to the end of a bill that does the math for a 15, 20 and 25 per cent tip.

Ken’s Pizza’s menu spells out, “We recommend 18 per cent,” and despite the canoe reference does address the tip reminder to “Canadians and Europeans.”

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While tipping customs are similar between Canada and the United States, servers’ wages are not. Vermont allows a “service or tipped employee” to be paid $4.10 an hour, while the minimum wage rate for employees receiving tips in Quebec is $8.35 an hour.

As the Ken’s Pizza menu explains it: “A majority of our staff are college students and depend on tips to help pay their way.”

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