Davidson Brothers, the Glens Falls brewery and brewpub that at the beginning of 2016 instituted a no-tipping policy, abandoned the experiment after a year, according to a story in The Chronicle, a Glens Falls weekly newspaper.

The brewpub abolished tipping in an effort to manage a state-mandated increase in minimum wage and to try to even out the disparity between tipped front-of-house servers and nonservice employees who are prevented by law from sharing in tips. Davidson initially imposed an 18 percent surcharge on customer’s bills, then rolled the cost into higher food prices. While staff appreciated the change, according to The Chronicle, customers were uncomfortable. Last month, the brewpub dropped prices and went back to allowing tipping.

In the past, only a very select group of high-end restaurants — the former Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, Per Se in Manhattan and The French Laundry in California — operated for many years on the no-tip/automatic-surcharge model. However, responding to mandatory higher minimum wages for tipped employees and other changes in the industry, a growing number of restaurants are adopting the policy nationwide, but not locally, at least in part due to perceived customer preference for tipping.

When I took a poll about this a year ago, 42 percent of more than 1,100 respondents said they would be less likely to patronize a restaurant that abolished tipping, 28 percent said their patronage would not change, 15 percent said they would be more likely to dine there and 14 percent chose the following answer: “Damn it, I should be able to directly affect the income of waitstaff through my capricious moods and whims even though I don’t for any other service professionals!”