Originally Posted by Fornebufox

I had a similar experience in a German town with a big international summer music festival. A colleague vigorously insisted that tips were not included, and the waitress agreed. I was skeptical, since I spend a fair amount of time in the EU and had never heard of this, other than the small-change rounding up that is customary. I later concluded we had gotten the milk-the-guilt-stricken-American-tourist line (and my friend was misinformed).