These Chicago Restaurants Have Done Away With Tipping

By Anthony Todd in Food on Dec 23, 2015 3:40PM

Photo via Shutterstock.

In the wake of big-name New York restauranteur Danny Meyer's announcement that Union Square Hospitality Group would go entirely tip-free, more attention has been focused on the issue of living wages for servers and the way restaurant employees are paid.

In October, we asked some of Chicago's most influential restauranteurs about it, and later noted that at least a few Chicago restaurants were doing the same thing. Now, users on Reddit are tracking all the spots that are eliminating tipping.

As a refresher: the restauranteurs eliminating tipping argue that a tip based system hurts back of the house employees, leads to inconsistent wages and makes the cost of dining out less predictable. Restaurants are increasing the prices of menu items by 10 to 20 percent, which then includes the service charges. Some Chicago restaurant owners, including Kevin Boehm of Boka Group (which owns Girl and the Goat and GT Fish & Oyster) and Michael Kornick (of MK) worry that eliminating tipping will lead to a decline in service quality and customer interaction.

Back to Reddit. Some people may object to this list, on the basis that many of the restaurants included are fairly expensive spots that charge (and, in many cases, charged before this new set of developments) a service fee on every dinner. These include places like 42 Grams, Alinea, El Ideas and more.

However, we found at least one spot we didn't know about: Kitchen 17, a Vegan spot in Lakeview. There's also a robust debate on the legalities of tipping (which you may or may not care about), but if you care about this issue, this is definitely a thread worth bookmarking.

Here's the Reddit list, which the user says is a work in progress. Do you know of any we missed?

42 Grams
Alinea
Aviary
EL Ideas
Elizabeth
Moto
Next
The Radler