Happycamper
SBH Insider
Sorry this is so long. I'm using it to formulate my thoughts before replying to Sella's request for feedback.
Our meal at Sella's was great. Good food, good service. Surprising and inventive bold flavors. But the whole thing almost blew up at the end because of a last minute and forceful demand for a tip.
Tipping on St Barth seems to be a real cross-cultural confusion so I don't blame the restaurants and French servers who get it wrong, but really they do need to work on getting it right for their American customers.
The rules of politeness for tips in the US:
1) NEVER ask for a tip. Allow the customer to imagine he gives it freely without coercion.
-A server may draw smiley faces, kittens and hearts around the tip line but only in exuberant penmanship.
-Ice Cream scoopers are allowed to have a bucket labeled "College Fund" or similar tongue-in-cheek tip jar. (One busy take-out spot had a "Emotional Support Jar.")
2) Always act like the customer has tipped generously, even if they haven't.
-A sever may follow a welching diner out onto the sidewalk yelling insults, but ONLY if they never want to see that customer again, which is fair, because they don't. Conversely, not tipping at least 10% in the US is basically a dine and dash. If service is truly horrible then talk to the manager--don't just sneak out.
3) Tips must go only to staff and never to owners or management.
-Exceptions are made for shift 'managers' at chain restaurants because they are really glorified servers and have no cut of the restaurants profits.
In that light, here was my experience at Sella's last week (loved the food, I'll say again.) After a very nice meal with lovely service by a lovely crew, we asked for the bill. And waited and waited and waited. Finally, the bill arrives in a box. I had my credit card ready in my hand to signal we'd need the machine, and we waited and waited and waited until finally a more senior man arrives, who we had never seen before, and seeing nothing on the tip line he says "what about the tip?" "I thought we were in France," I said. "Yes, but didn't the servers do a good job?" "Yes. They were great. But I will follow the French custom tonight," I said. "No tip?" he said. "No tip," I said. Massive eye roll like I was the worst person he had ever met in his life, and he ran the card.
Obviously to an American, there were multiple violation in the interaction, but they may not have been so obvious to the Israeli cashier on a French island working with an American tourist. And, in fairness, there is no reason why the St Barth restaurants need to adapt to US customs instead of vice-versa, other than the restaurants may like to have patrons.
First, does Sella's ask for (demand) tips from French customers? I'm thinking no, and so I'm on edge, feeling a bit like a scam victim right from the get go.
Second, even if a tip is expected, asking for it violates the social compact and taints the experience.
Third, this gentleman was clearly from the owner/management side of the house, the last person who should be involved in tips. In fact, not that I have any experience, it felt like he was Pimp collecting the evenings payments and didn't trust the Girls to touch the money. I understand that that is a French thing to have the money person swoop in and be different than the server, so that is on me, but it still has impact since the tip is between me and the server. I want the server to call out to me "Thank you!" as I am leaving if I have tipped generously, not to mention if the server doesn't know how much the night's tips are I have little confidence that they will ever get their share of them. Finally, it didn't help that the only snafu of the evening was that preparing the bill and running the credit card (both of which were the interloping cashier's jobs) was very, very slow (no, he was not busy with other bills.)
Fourth, don't eye-roll me if you ever want to see me or any of my friends again. (Happily though, I can forgive and forget because I believe this really is a massive cultural miscommunication. Plus, the food was really good.)
Amusingly, Sella's reached out to me (or their computers did anyway) to ask for feedback on my dining experience. After a few more days to settle my thoughts, I plan to write to them (and the tourist association?) something similar to the above and offer the suggestion that they price their meals and run their business models so that they are truly happy without tips and can therefore act pleasantly surprised when and if they get them. And, if they do want to continue to 'ask' for tips, at least adopt a fig leaf of politeness by having the server say something along the lines of "service is of course included, but if you do want to tip extra, I'm embarrassed to say it needs to be added before running the card." In other words use the fact that the machines are different than US machines as the excuse to bring up the whole un-discuss-able topic in the first place.
Our meal at Sella's was great. Good food, good service. Surprising and inventive bold flavors. But the whole thing almost blew up at the end because of a last minute and forceful demand for a tip.
Tipping on St Barth seems to be a real cross-cultural confusion so I don't blame the restaurants and French servers who get it wrong, but really they do need to work on getting it right for their American customers.
The rules of politeness for tips in the US:
1) NEVER ask for a tip. Allow the customer to imagine he gives it freely without coercion.
-A server may draw smiley faces, kittens and hearts around the tip line but only in exuberant penmanship.
-Ice Cream scoopers are allowed to have a bucket labeled "College Fund" or similar tongue-in-cheek tip jar. (One busy take-out spot had a "Emotional Support Jar.")
2) Always act like the customer has tipped generously, even if they haven't.
-A sever may follow a welching diner out onto the sidewalk yelling insults, but ONLY if they never want to see that customer again, which is fair, because they don't. Conversely, not tipping at least 10% in the US is basically a dine and dash. If service is truly horrible then talk to the manager--don't just sneak out.
3) Tips must go only to staff and never to owners or management.
-Exceptions are made for shift 'managers' at chain restaurants because they are really glorified servers and have no cut of the restaurants profits.
In that light, here was my experience at Sella's last week (loved the food, I'll say again.) After a very nice meal with lovely service by a lovely crew, we asked for the bill. And waited and waited and waited. Finally, the bill arrives in a box. I had my credit card ready in my hand to signal we'd need the machine, and we waited and waited and waited until finally a more senior man arrives, who we had never seen before, and seeing nothing on the tip line he says "what about the tip?" "I thought we were in France," I said. "Yes, but didn't the servers do a good job?" "Yes. They were great. But I will follow the French custom tonight," I said. "No tip?" he said. "No tip," I said. Massive eye roll like I was the worst person he had ever met in his life, and he ran the card.
Obviously to an American, there were multiple violation in the interaction, but they may not have been so obvious to the Israeli cashier on a French island working with an American tourist. And, in fairness, there is no reason why the St Barth restaurants need to adapt to US customs instead of vice-versa, other than the restaurants may like to have patrons.
First, does Sella's ask for (demand) tips from French customers? I'm thinking no, and so I'm on edge, feeling a bit like a scam victim right from the get go.
Second, even if a tip is expected, asking for it violates the social compact and taints the experience.
Third, this gentleman was clearly from the owner/management side of the house, the last person who should be involved in tips. In fact, not that I have any experience, it felt like he was Pimp collecting the evenings payments and didn't trust the Girls to touch the money. I understand that that is a French thing to have the money person swoop in and be different than the server, so that is on me, but it still has impact since the tip is between me and the server. I want the server to call out to me "Thank you!" as I am leaving if I have tipped generously, not to mention if the server doesn't know how much the night's tips are I have little confidence that they will ever get their share of them. Finally, it didn't help that the only snafu of the evening was that preparing the bill and running the credit card (both of which were the interloping cashier's jobs) was very, very slow (no, he was not busy with other bills.)
Fourth, don't eye-roll me if you ever want to see me or any of my friends again. (Happily though, I can forgive and forget because I believe this really is a massive cultural miscommunication. Plus, the food was really good.)
Amusingly, Sella's reached out to me (or their computers did anyway) to ask for feedback on my dining experience. After a few more days to settle my thoughts, I plan to write to them (and the tourist association?) something similar to the above and offer the suggestion that they price their meals and run their business models so that they are truly happy without tips and can therefore act pleasantly surprised when and if they get them. And, if they do want to continue to 'ask' for tips, at least adopt a fig leaf of politeness by having the server say something along the lines of "service is of course included, but if you do want to tip extra, I'm embarrassed to say it needs to be added before running the card." In other words use the fact that the machines are different than US machines as the excuse to bring up the whole un-discuss-able topic in the first place.
