Is the no-tip movement at restaurants reaching, well, a tipping point?

In recent years, such renowned restaurants as Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York and French Laundry in Yountville, Calif., Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., and Grant Achatz’s Alinea in Chicago have put no-tip policies in place. So did the recently closed Linkery restaurant in San Diego.

Perhaps the policies at these establishments shouldn’t come as a surprise, since restaurant patrons are increasingly saying they don’t like to play the tipping game. A solid majority of Americans — 75% — say they tip less than the customary 20% when dining out, according to a new survey by vouchercloud.net, which researches consumer spending habits. Additionally, the website reports that 46% of Americans say they are tipping less in general than they did five years ago.

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Scott Rosenberg, owner of Sushi Yasuda, another no-tip restaurant in New York, believes that diners are simply tired of the meal-ending ritual of “grading” a server and then doing the math based on that judgment. “The meal should be there for you to enjoy without doing this calculus,” says Scott Rosenberg.

To be clear, such restaurants are still paying their waiters — and the customers are still paying for the service as part of the overall bill. When Scott Rosenberg did away with tipping some months back, he raised menu prices by 15% to cover costs.

But there’s a reason beyond customer preference that restaurants are going no-tip. At a time when dining establishments have come under fire for issues relating to how tip money is split among employees — in many eateries, gratuities are shared with support staff or even managers — there’s some thought that a no-tip policy may be the quickest way to avoid headaches and potential legal complications. For example, at Starbucks SBUX, -2.07% , the issue has become so thorny that baristas have sued to win back millions in tips that they allege were unfairly divvied; one case is currently making its way through the courts.

In that light, eliminating the whole issue of gratuities looks like “a win for the restaurants,” says management and strategy consultant Abhay Padgaonkar.

But tipping has its defenders. Without such a reliable system of accountability, high-level service could be compromised, says Edward P. Foy, Jr., owner of The Chateau on the Lake, an American-European upscale restaurant in Bolton Landing, N.Y.

Even some servers point out that accountability can sometimes work to their advantage: With tips, there’s the potential to make more money than might be possible under a flat-wage system. “Getting rid of tipping would be horrible,” says Jenn Harris, a waitress in Solana Beach, Calif.

There’s also the issue that old habits are hard to break. While tipping is not necessarily standard in other parts of the world — most notably, some Asian and European countries — it’s long been part of the American dining system. “Even if you changed the server’s mentality toward how they are compensated, it is almost impossible to rewire the American customer who thinks they have to leave ‘something’ at the end of the meal,” says Carolyn Richmond, a New York-based attorney with Fox Rothschild who specializes in the hospitality industry.

That’s indeed what Scott Rosenberg of Sushi Yasuda discovered after establishing the restaurant’s no-tip policy. Patrons were still leaving money on the table, resulting in instances of waiters having to track them down outside the restaurant to return the cash. But Rosenberg says that customers have gotten more accustomed to the policy over time and are better appreciating the point.

“It just seems like a more transparent way of operating a restaurant,” Rosenberg says.

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How much to tip everyone