The great Sonic debate

Okay, lemme ask you all this simple question: Do you tip when you go to Sonic? When I first moved here, Marla told me, “Hell no, you don’t tip them.” However, I felt guilty and did anyway. I guess my reasoning was that they were bringing my food to me so they must be like a waiter. But over the past few years, I’ve pretty much given up on it. My wife says, “Well, do you usually tip other fast food people?” and that makes sense to me.

Tonight we went to Sonic and I started up the, “Do you think I need to tip them?” conversation. We were on the fence about it (but had a buck in hand), yet I opted not to when the server came out and couldn’t read our order back to us from the receipt. It was really weird. It’s not like we really cared if she read back our order or not, but when she couldn’t and gave up, my tipping fever had broke. Later when she brought us extra ketchups, Kyann said, “Oh. She totally expected a tip.”

So now that I think she expected one, it makes me wonder if we should’ve. When I go to a normal restaurant, I usually tip rather decently (20%) - it’s become automatic, all this tipping. I’ll dump a dollar in the jar at Starbucks when I have one. But Sonic? No idea. It’s not like it’s a big deal or anything. I’m not a cheapskate. It just makes me wonder.