In South Korea's delivery republic, that moment is woven deeply into everyday life. Increasingly, some customers are finding small ways to acknowledge the people who make it possible, whether through an iced drink, a snack, an extra meal or simply a note saying thank you and ride safely.
The gestures stand out precisely because Korea does not have a tipping culture. A delivery rider is expected to bring the order, not to wait for an extra percentage on the bill.
That can make an unexpected thank-you feel more personal.
On Tuesday night, Seong YH, a delivery rider in his 30s, arrived at an apartment complex in Seoul's eastern Seongdong District during a blackout.
Near the lobby, he stood with a bottle of soda in one hand and a bag of fried chicken in the other, illuminated only by nearby phone flashlights.
He had come to drop off an order. The power had been out for some time, and the couple who placed it told him they were unlikely to eat the food. Instead, they asked him to take it.
"They even gave me this drink and told me to take care of myself," he told AJP.
The small gesture stayed with him.
"I started doing delivery work because things were financially difficult," he said with a smile. "Moments like this make me feel that the world is still a warm place."
Seong had been thinking about going abroad on a working holiday. Encounters like this, he said, had made him want to stay a little longer.
For Korean delivery riders, gratitude rarely arrives as a percentage added to an app bill.
Several similar stories have circulated online through a summer when heat and rain kept many Koreans indoors and made food and grocery delivery an even more familiar part of daily life.
Earlier this month, a customer deliberately ordered two of the same meal and left one for the rider.
According to an order slip posted by a delivery rider and later reported by several Korean news outlets, the customer wrote: "One set is for you. I ordered two of the same meal on purpose. Please leave mine at the door. Drive safely."
The receipt also showed a separate 500 won surcharge for the rider, the type of additional payment platforms may offer depending on weather or delivery conditions.
The distinction mattered. The 500 won was part of the delivery system. The second meal was not.
He went to the customer to apologize and offered to pay for the damaged food.
Instead, she told him he reminded her of her son and handed him a 10,000 won bill.
The rider wrote that he rode away with a sense of gratitude he would never forget, unsure whether the water on his face was rain or tears.
The story was later picked up by Korean media and drew supportive reactions online. Commenters praised the rider for offering to make amends and the customer for responding with kindness.
When gratitude becomes part of the bill
The element of surprise helps distinguish Korea from countries where tipping has become part of the economics — and sometimes the friction — of ordering food.
In the United States, major delivery apps such as DoorDash and Uber Eats allow customers to tip through the app, and tipping is widely expected.
Bankrate's 2025 tipping survey found that 52 percent of Americans who use food delivery services said they always tipped. Yet the same survey captured growing frustration with tipping more broadly: 63 percent of U.S. adults held at least one negative view of tipping, 41 percent said tipping culture had gotten "out of control," and 38 percent said they were annoyed by pre-set tipping screens.
Digital payment systems have amplified that tension by bringing tip prompts into coffee shops, takeout counters and other settings where they were once uncommon, a phenomenon widely described as "tip creep."
Korea largely avoids that ambiguity because the customer is generally not expected to calculate an additional payment for the rider.
Other countries fall somewhere between the two models.
In Britain, tipping food-delivery riders remains far less routine than in the United States. A March 2025 survey by consumer group Which? found that 46 percent of people who had used food-delivery services had not tipped a driver or courier at all over the previous year, while only 11 percent said they tipped every time.
Australia also largely treats delivery tipping as optional despite the spread of tip prompts on digital payment screens.
Japan sits even closer to Korea. Tipping is generally not expected in restaurants, hotels or taxis, although delivery platforms such as Uber Eats Japan allow customers to leave one voluntarily.
The comparison helps put Korea's small acts of generosity in perspective.
A Korean rider may receive extra compensation from a platform because of distance, demand, weather or a promotion. But that is fundamentally different from a customer deciding to buy an extra meal, hand over a cold drink or write a note asking a stranger to ride safely.
Without an established tipping custom, gratitude tends to take a less standardized form.
AJP Takeaways:
- A 2025 Bankrate survey found that 52 percent of U.S. food-delivery users always tip, while 63 percent of U.S. adults expressed at least one negative view of tipping as “tip creep” spread to more services.
- Food-delivery tipping remains more optional in Britain, Australia and Japan, where customers may be given the choice to tip but generally face less social pressure than in the United States.
- In South Korea, delivery platforms may provide riders with extra pay for distance, demand or bad weather, but recent cases show customer appreciation often taking more personal forms, including food, cash, drinks and messages encouraging riders to stay safe.
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