Tipping with Take Out?

We don't eat out often but there are a few restaurants in town we like to patronise. It would be impossible to mention eating out in Nanaimo without mentioning the fabulous Thirsty Camel downtown. The Thirsty Camel however is not to subject of today's posting. I wanted to write about Amrikko's Indian Grill located in Departure Bay.

Buying a meal from Amrikko's always leaves me uneasy and yet I love Indian cuisine and there is little other choice in town. It may not be as amazing as Indian meals you can get in bigger cities but it's the best we have here in Nanaimo. 

You may ask yourself how I could ever eat at Amrikko's after what I have to say next but the only way I can explain is to reiterate that I love Indian food. On more than one occasion I've driven to Amrikko's on my way home from somewhere and ordered take out. While waiting for my food I have seen truly appalling food safety practices by at least one employee working at the front counter. Not washing hands between dealing with money and... anything else including a snotty nose, picking up with bare hands dropped ice cream meant for a customer and continuing to serve it, various other drops of things to the floor and also served to customers, touching of straw ends and glass rims, ice scooped out of bin with hands or the glass itself.... there is too much to mention from what I've seen in brief moments waiting for my food to be prepared. I don't know, maybe there's a certain expectation on my part that ethnic restaurants are supposed to have some level of unhygienic practices. Maybe not very PC but truthful at least. I'm laughing here because there really is no excuse to keep eating at a place that proves itself to not meet basic health and safety standards in at least the front of the restaurant.

Oddly enough the above is not what sparked this posting. I've actually thought of writing this exact post after each time I've had take out from Amrikko's. There seems to be an expectation from staff when paying that a tip be included when all I'm doing is picking up food. No service as been offered and from what I've now seen they'd have to pay me a tip to eat in the restaurant. I'd always be wondering if I was going to slurp up my straw a shard of glass from my drinking water or walk away with the cold the young woman at the front counter had and was spreading on everything she touched. 

There is always a feeling I get when they look at the approved bill rolling out of the interact machine that they're annoyed and disappointed that I haven't included a tip. I didn't always have this feeling. It started after a time I went and the young woman at the counter took it upon herself to fill out the beginning of my transaction on the handheld machine for me. She asked me what I wanted to leave for a tip. At this point I hadn't realised what she was doing and I confusingly said "uh, none?". She certainly wasn't happy about that. I took the handheld machine to okay the amount and punch in my pin etc only to find that she had done most of the punching in. I continued and just hoped she was charging the right price. Ever after it seems the "cheap no tipper" became my stigma much to my amusement. 

I have actually tipped for take out food in the past but after some conversation about it with friends realised how silly it is to tip like I would if I was eating in but without getting any of the service you tip for. Amrikko's is the only restaurant in Nanaimo I've been to that seems to expect a tip with take out. Perhaps they don't pay their employees enough that they must rely heavily on this extra gratuity.