Tipping for Charity

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By Dani Babineau

“Wait, where do I tip?”

We’ve gotten this question a thousand times from generous customers closing their tabs. The answer: we don’t do tipping.

We decided early on in our brewery’s planning days that we wanted to do away with tipping because tipping sucks. Tipping is often volatile and arbitrary, and that sucks for both the employees who depend on tips to make a living, as well as customers who have to deal with the many factors and pressures that go into making a tipping decision.  

We’re not the first brewery to try this -- as this wonderful article by the Mass Brew Bros. explains -- and we’ve seen the no-tipping model work well at breweries in Vermont, Maine and North Carolina.

And so far, the reception has been fantastic. The consensus, according to customers, is that the no-tipping model is some combination of “very cool,” “groovy,” and “dope as hell.”

However, we still have some truly generous customers who really really really want to leave some token of appreciation. So to that end, we have a monthly tips for charity program, in which we:

  1. Put a tip jar by our registers

  2. Collect all the money customers put into said jar

  3. Give said money to a non-profit organization

Each month will be dedicated to a different non-profit, with a focus on small, local organizations.

In February, all tips will be donated to the Trustees of Reservations, which is a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in Massachusetts. The Trustees serve more than 100 sites across the state, including our namesake, the O.G. Redemption Rock in Princeton.

And for January, we collected $1,222 for Main IDEA, a Worcester-based organization that aims to empower youths by providing quality accessible arts programs to under-resourced communities. Fun fact: Main IDEA is run by Joy Rachelle Murrieta, who provided the amazing live music in our taproom during our Grand Opening!

Thank you to everyone who donated last month. We’re excited to see where this experiment goes, and appreciate all the support from the community.