a tendency by fast food joints to encourage or even outright request tipping.

I have had this happen twice recently and I responded by adding a 10% tip.  At one of the places, I noticed that they have added busing tables instead of self clean-up (which I was happy to do), at the other place they came to the table to ask if they could help us, (no, and if I did need help I could easily step up to the self service counter).

At one time fast food was a cheap alternative. In recent years, if you don’t choose the dollar menu, it is difficult for two people to eat for less than 20 bucks (one yuppy food stamp), but avoiding the 20% surcharge was still a nice savings. It seems that is on the way out.