Cash will tie up an additional employee behind the counter. One of the reasons we are able to not accept tips and pay fair wages instead, is because we don't need a person at the register.

And while you can use that person for other tasks when there is no one in line, they do need to glove up each time they may handle a food item.

Also, in LA cash is a safety issue if you plan on staying open late when traffic is low.

To facilitate anonymous payments, we will accept crypto soon.

This is kind of anecdata. We've all had terrible service, and some of us live in economies which are no tip or no routine tip.

At scale, I continue to believe there isn't a strong relationship between tipping and service, as much as between salary and service or service culture and service.

Transition periods are always complex. If tipping was verboten there would still be a cohort complaining about it for years, about both income side, and service quality side issues.

I'd had bad service lately at a lot of places that require tips.

Chick-fil-a usually makes franchise owners be hands on in the Restaurant, and you cannot own like 20 of them. I think most people own one. At least where I grew up they consistently paid the highest of any fast food place and I am pretty sure they offered tuition reimbursement. The other main benefit they have is the whole closed on Sunday’s thing which makes scheduling more favorable since you know you won’t have to work on sundays.

> On the other hand Chick-fil-A is able to make their employees act friendly. I wonder how they do it.

I would assume they make them do it via management, training, treating them well, and firing for non-compliance.

I think it depends on if the server gets a percentage of the total bill (basically auto-tipping if you think of it that way). Basically everything on the menu gets raised in price 20% and that's the tip portion, ideally shared with the kitchen.

This provides a strong incentive for good service (and good cooking) as an empty restaurant (fewer return customers) means less income. Otherwise, why bother providing excellent service, if you're paid the same hourly wage if the place is packed or if it's half-full?

I actually say this virtually snark free, but I've always thought of Chick-fil-A as a Christian religious group that happens to run a chicken sandwich restaurant. I've certainly had lots of experience eating their food and talking to the employees and a few owners. I suspect that's part of the atmosphere.