A shocked bar patron has revealed how much tip he was supposed to leave when he paid his bill in San Diego.
Gordon Kling showed how when he paid his $24.50 bill at Catalina Lounge in Ocean Beach, he was offered a 100% tip, doubling his total to $49.
Other options on the payment machine include a 50% usurious tip, which would have added $12.25 to the man’s total, and more moderate options of 25% and 20%.
After posting an image of the tip settings online, many viewers believed the options were a ploy to trick unsuspecting and possibly intoxicated customers into paying more.
“There is no way someone hasn’t accidentally tipped 100% thinking ‘oh that’s just the total, that’s the one I want’. That is intentionally misleading,” one person wrote.
Godon Kling posted a photo online showing the tipping options at the bar
He cited the Catalina Lounge in Ocean Beach, San Diego, as the place where he discovered the 100% tip option
The photo seemed to resonate with followers who were convinced the bar was trying to rip off its customers.
“Haha, that’s exactly why I took a picture…,” Kling replied. “I was drunk and thought I was seeing things. I took the picture to look at it again in the morning and I couldn’t believe it.”
Other users felt that the location was trying to take advantage of people who were slightly worse off and were not aware that they were tipping so much.
“That’s hilarious. Catalina Lounge is a bar too. All those bars in PB and OB cater to drunk guys on dates,” one user explained.
The man who posted on X, Gordon Kling, was shocked when he saw the tipping options
There are pool tables for guests at the Catalina Lounge dive bar in San Diego
Commentators suggested that Kling take his business elsewhere after the bar antics
“Even the bars in Pacific Beach aren’t that bad. The MAX I’ve seen in PB is 35% (I think at Mavericks). Not even on a date lmao. I was just shooting pool with the guys,” Kling explained.
“When I saw this picture I immediately thought of Catalina, even before I read what you said. When I first saw it there I couldn’t believe it. Imagine how many drunk people get 100%,” Bianca wrote in response to the post.
Another X user felt that the bar was counting on customers to misinterpret the options.
‘That’s actually very useful in a bar: it gives waiters a reason to increase sales, because the drunker the customer gets, the more that 100 starts to look like 10%.’
“It shouldn’t be up to the customer to provide living wages to workers. Tipping culture is toxic,” added another.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Catalina Lounge for comment.
Three-quarters of Americans believe tipping culture has gone too far, and most say the minimum wage should be raised to offset the need for tips, according to a new survey from CouponBirds
Tipping out of guilt, tipping out of discomfort or pressure when you don’t really want to, is becoming more and more common.
This spring, it was revealed that Americans spend an average of $453 more per year on tips than they’d like, thanks to “guilt tipping.”
Consumers say they paid an average of $37.80 per month in tips they were reluctant to give because they would feel guilty if they didn’t. according to new research.
A new survey from Talker Research found that more than a quarter of 2,000 people surveyed said they were “always or often forced to tip more than they would like.”
Typically, the average respondent tipped six times more than they intended in the past month alone
Another recent survey found that three-quarters of Americans believe tipping culture has gone too far.
Americans have grown frustrated with tip screens. A restaurant in Alaska offered guests the option to tip 100 percent
The findings come amid widespread backlash against ‘tip inflation’, a culture that has spread from bars and restaurants to shops, takeaways and even self-service vending machines.
84 percent of respondents to the CouponBirds survey believed the minimum wage should be increased to offset the need for tips.
Across the board, tipping was most common for restaurant service. About 59 percent of consumers said they would tip for dine-in service, while 43.8 percent would do so for food delivery.
This is followed by hair and beauty services, for which 41.1 percent of respondents said they would tip.
About 39.6 percent said they would tip in a taxi, while 36.8 percent said they would tip in a bar.
The least likely place shoppers would tip was at a convenience store or bodega. About 4.9 percent of survey respondents said they would tip in this instance.