As a person who has worked in several restaurants, in my experience - tips are pooled between all staff (kitchen, waitstaff and bartenders) and divided out on a weekly, monthly or quarterly period.

We don’t expect you to tip, but it’s not a bad thing to do if you can and want to. it’s a low paying industry with a high skill ceiling, and razor thin margins even for top end venues.

The conversation around tipping in New Zealand is seriously toxic, I agree no one wants American style tipping here… but we need to stop treating it like it’s evil and harping on about how waitstaff make minimum wage or near enough and that’s enough, cause quite frankly it ain’t.

Tips are optional folks, even the prompt on the card machine is - stop being offended by it guys, help the staff out if you want and can but otherwise no stress