I've faced that after moving to SF. Stopped eating out unless its a actually special high end place or something.

I was in a rush and didn't put a tip, I found a hair in my fried rice and the tofu was not fully cooked. I'd ordered from that place a couple times before and its like $22 with tip for just Thai red curry with rice..

The prices are insane. Even if I made 10x what I make, I wouldn't eat out unless its really special.

Here's a tip: report this to the department of public health!

Sure, but this is an isolated incident. I don't want to attribute to malice what could have been a total accident that day, maybe the kitchen was just busy. However, it was coincidental that it happened at a time when I didn't tip.

I'll keep that in mind for next time though if it ever happens again! Now I kind of want to do a social experiment.. go to a restaurant like 4-5 times and then don't tip once to see what happens. If its really true service is affected that way, then its a broader problem.

Malice or not, a trend is found by data. Report it, if it's one off it's fine, if it's not it's a trend.

Will they know it was me if I report?

But you have no guarantee that your food won't be vandalized anyways when you tip before service. The bribe has no teeth. You're going to demand a refund if you notice the food has been damaged regardless if you tipped before or after.

Because online for-hire car services allow drivers to rate customers, I tip so that I don't get blackballed.

In australia we have no tipping culture and I've always been very against it, but I've found if I don't tip the quality of delivery driver is just abysmal, but if I do tip, I get "regular" service - ie. they come to my door in my apartment building, not just leave it in the lobby, and they usually don't completely fuck it up (ie. squished pizza from holding the box vertically).

It sucks but I just view it as an extra cost for using uber eats.

Most places allow you to give specific instructions to the driver. It's intended for things like "gate locked, text ### when you arrive" or something to that effect. But I bet you could say something like "will tip cash upon arrival" and it would have the intended effect, maybe even better than a tip in advance.

Drivers will avoid these as they interpret it “I’m going to stiff you”

Seems like a them problem and not a me problem.

Do they have an option to avoid these deliveries anyway? Where I live they're all employees (basically) of e.g. Grubhub, and Grubhub promises me delivery within e.g. 45 minutes. I had assumed Grubhub was automatically assigning a delivery worker in the area to make the delivery.

Well it’s a you problem if they don’t accept your pickup. And yes they can see the top amount. In most areas your basically bidding for their seevice

But that’s just the Grubhub/doordash branded drivers. In my area placing an order on those sites just triggers the place’S own delivery people if they normally do delivery