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Comment by JumpCrisscross

2 days ago

> who's getting tips in cash?

About half of the large tips at high end restaurants in my town are cash. Sounds like it is about a third in New York. Especially if it is folks who work at a restaurant.

How is the trend? I imagine it’s already possible to estimate what year it will be almost zero from that trend. It also tends to accelerate: once a restaurant has very few cash customers they tend to become no-cash because the cost of cash handling is more than the potential loss of business. I’m unsure if there are any legal obstacles to going cashless in the US however. But where I live no one uses cash and more and more places are cash free (a chicken and egg problem).

  • > How is the trend?

    Very stable, from what I can tell, though with significant regional variation.

    > the cost of cash handling is more than the potential loss of business

    High end restaurants will never be cashless. And you can cash tip at a cashless restaurant. The tip isn’t going to the business.

    • Wow. High end went cashless first of all here. Probably a decade ago.

      But yes - cashless is obviously not w.r.t tips. But once a society is 99% cashless no one carries cash so won’t cash tip either.