While I was on vacation, it happened more than once; is it a new trend among servers and wait staff at restaurants to not give you any coin change?

Here is the receipt from a alcohol-fueled evening I recently spent in Pittsburgh. I don't want to call out the specific restaurants (it happened at more than one), I just want to ask if you have experienced the same thing.

We had 2 drinks and, with tax, our total bill came to $18.73. My Vermilion Parish math tells me (heck, it's printed right there on the receipt!) that my change should be $1.27.

What did I receive? $1. The receipt says I received $1.27, but there was only one single single on the clipboard. No coin change.

 

Receipt Photo by John Falcon
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Normally, I am a 15-20%-er, and I wanted to leave the single as a tip, but since Shannon lives across the street from the restaurant, I didn't want them to associate her with a poor tipper (me!). It took every ounce of will I could muster to pull another single out of my pocket and leave her with a $2 tip (actually, since she kept my change, that would make it a $2.27 tip, which comes out to almost 13%.

Here is my question: since it happened to me at more than one establishment (the other restaurant kept 9 cents), is this something that is starting to happen all over the place? Have you experienced this?

I am all in favor of taking the one cent piece out of circulation and having prices round to the nearest 5 cents, but for a restaurant to keep that much change really bothered me! (I know it's only 27 cents! Am I being too much of a cheapskate??)

 

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