“Alright, everybody cough up some green.”
It’s the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s contemporary classic, 1994′s über-violent heist flick Reservoir Dogs. The late Chris Penn as Nice Guy Eddie – the son of the man coordinating the suited bank-robbers-to-be at the table – is calculating the tip after their pre-diamond-robbery coffee shop breakfast. He realizes that Steve Buscemi’s character, a robber we only know by his code name, Mr. Pink, hasn’t tipped. “Come on, throw in a buck,” says Nice Guy Eddie. Mr. Pink leans back, looks at Penn, and delivers the now-classic line:
“Uh-uh. I don’t tip.”
Eddie, stunned: “You don’t tip?”
“Nah, I don’t believe in it.”
“You don’t believe in tipping?”
What follows is a fairly off-color conversation it would be better not to rehash – though it graphically notes what the waitress could do to earn “over twelve
To read the full article, The Death of Tipping, visit Gourmet.com.
