"This first post comes from the subreddit AskAnAustralian. I had $37 worth of fish and salad, and they asked for tips. Do we have to tip on a sit-down meal now? This post was automatically deleted from the subreddit r slash Sydney, so someone was angry. Apart from the occasional food court, I seldom eat out. Please be kind, because I don't know how to react to this. I went to a hipster place, and I understand that sitting down with table service is going to be pricey. But is $37 for fish and salad instead of chips the expected price now? Their receipt states there is a 15% surcharge on public holidays too. Luckily, I went there off-peak. Also, they asked for tips at the end. Service was alright, they took my order and cleaned my table. I put no tip, but are we expected to tip now? Sorry, since COVID, I have really enjoyed being a hermit. Same, mate, same. So as somebody that's worked for a long time in the hospitality space, there's two sides to this. First of all, $37 for fish and salad, it depends on the kind of fish. I'm not going to spend that on whiting or just some fried fish. But if it's a nice piece of your salmon or your swordfish or marlin, that's a completely acceptable price to have. But we live in a culture where we have increased our minimum pay rates to the point where we shouldn't have to tip. That being said, if I'm ever buying food in a place where I can see the people making my food, I'm tipping before my food comes out to me. Because I know that if people are expecting a tip and there's the potential they think I'm not going to be tipping, somebody's going to mess with my food. Yes, Australia has rather aggressive employment legislation specifically to protect from this, that people know when they join their enterprise agreements, which is their workplace contracts, that what is written into that contract is the bare minimum that they can get paid without tipping coming in. And he did specifically say here that he got a fish and salad as opposed to fish and chips. So I am thinking that is one of your more basic battered fish that you would get from a fish and chip shop. But Ben and I did work together at the Ritz here in New York where there was a rule that no tips could be accepted. It wasn't allowed because of how strongly the management felt that high quality service is that bare minimum. What you get paid here, that that is the set standard."