We haven't had a conversation about tipping in awhile

[The Green Mushroom]

If I ruled the world, or at least America, I would simply roll the cost of the tip into the food and pay waiters a decent wage.

But until that magical moment when I get to tell everyone else how to live rolls around, you have to tip and you have to tip appropriately unless the waiter does something royally bad.

I went to the store yesterday to buy groceries and my entire bill was less than $138. Unless I run out of milk, I'm probably not going back for another week. If you can afford to drop that on one meal, you can afford to tip.

[teacake]

My favorite tipping is when people leave evangelical tracts.

[SmoothieX]

I find it very refreshing when I travel somewhere tipping is not part of the culture. I know you have to here, but it generally ends up as $1 for lunch, or $2 for dinner.

[Starbreaker]

I hate bad tippers. I went to eat with a friend who said "I don't tip because people choose to work these jobs." Never going anywhere with that jerk again. I normally give $2 if you just set my drinks down and gave me maybe one refill and never bothered to check up on me, but if you really take care of me without being obnoxious I'll leave a good tip.

[Tora Ziyal]

Rainbow Dash wrote:

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Well, I'm not saying servers don't deserve to be tipped well. I'm just saying that being a server shouldn't automatically mean a tip must be forthcoming. Poor service gets a poor tip. If the server has a bad attitude along with the bad service, I give no tip. Some servers find that harsh, I find it fair.

There are people who say that if you don't have the money to tip, you don't have the money to eat out. Fine. I say if you don't have the ability to offer a reasonable level of service, you don't get a tip.

I agree, and I don't tip if the service is poor. But the example in the OP implied that the service was fine. Big difference.

Grey wrote:

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I actually wish all restaurants were like that.,,,

Yes, so do I. But since we don't, it's real annoying to have one owner of mediocre restaurants (turns out that he owns two other places that I've tried and not liked ) do it on his own and then pull an attitude when a customer politely questions it.

The Green Mushroom wrote:

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If I ruled the world, or at least America, I would simply roll the cost of the tip into the food and pay waiters a decent wage.

Amen.

[1001001]

You have to take care of your people.

[JoeZhang]

1001001 wrote:

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You have to take care of your people.

Who's people? The owner of the place you are eating in? Yes I agree he/she should pay their staff a living wage.

[Biffette]

I live in Washington State, where every server is paid at least the state minimum wage before tips. Because of this, I am unconcerned about how much I tip and have no hesitations on the few occasions where no tip is warranted. This is not the case when I travel to Michigan, where a server is often earning less than half of that state's minimum wage and needs to make up the rest via tipping. In those cases I tip imo generously.

Here is a handy guide that shows each US state's minimum wage vs. the minimum wage paid to servers:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm#.UJVRFoZlDIU

[Robert Maxwell]

Put me down in the "if you can't afford to tip properly, don't eat out" column.

Giving less than 10% if the service is adequate is simply unacceptable. My base tip starts in the 15-20% range (I tend to round up to the next dollar anyway.) It can go up if you are just crazy awesome, or down if you are terrible.

I have never just not tipped because I couldn't afford it. I have left meager tips or not tipped at all when I got bad service. I usually complain to the manager when that happens, too. Fortunately, it is not all that often.

As for the example in the OP... that's just unreal. I sure hope it is the exception. If someone can spend over $100 a meal, they can damn well tip for it properly. "Single mom," my ass.

[tighr]

The Green Mushroom wrote:

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If I ruled the world, or at least America, I would simply roll the cost of the tip into the food and pay waiters a decent wage.

This gives me an interesting idea. If/when I ever open my own restaurant, I wonder if a successful experiment would be to pay the servers based on commission. Advertise that tips aren't necessary, and that servers work on commission. Raise the price of all the food by 15% or so, and don't put a "tip" column on the receipt. All prices would already be "gratuity inclusive".

Servers would get 15% of everything they sold. Would this encourage servers to upsell? Would this encourage patrons to frequent the establishment knowing that their bill would be a no-nonsense affair?

If patrons felt that the server did an amazing job, they'd certainly be more than welcome to leave a few extra bucks on the table.

Seems like a worthwhile experiment, at least.

[MacLeod]

Upselling can put people off.

If they wanted it they would have ordered it. Sure highlighting a deal or an offer is one thing because it could benefit the customer. If the upselling doesn't benefit the customer it should be avoided.

[1001001]

JoeZhang wrote:

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Who's people? The owner of the place you are eating in? Yes I agree he/she should pay their staff a living wage.

I agree, but that's not what I meant.

"Take care of your people" means "tip well and often".

[J. Allen]

Alidar Warlock wrote:

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See, from my perspective, I would be spending the rest of the night wondering what I did wrong. Since there is a social convention, such a dramatic departure from it would have to mean something and someone else's idiosyncratic tendencies wouldn't cross my mind. Instead, I would normally be expecting 9-12 dollars unless I gave bad service and always hope to get more if I gave exceptional service.

Keep in mind the server would probably be there for the hour with you plus near an hour after to clean up the restaurant. For this, she is compensated $2.23 an hour. That plus your five would be 9.46 for two hours.

Firstly, what you're saying is that I should buy the server dinner. $9-$12 is a dinner at Steak and Shake. Secondly, now you're asking me to contribute to the server's overall wages when I'm not there. She may make $2.23 to wash the table, but she made $7.23 for the hour that she was around for my table. Keep in mind that there were only a few people in the restaurant, and that she was only required to serve our table once.

As for the tip itself, a hypothetical: If two plates of food comes to $40, and I tip $4.00, that's acceptable. If two plates of food come to $70, and I tip $4.00, that isn't.

Why?

Aside from the price of the food itself, what change in the service is required? Because I pay more for the food I should pay more for the service? When did "I should spend more because I'm already spending more" become a reasonable budgetary decision?

[doubleohfive]

Rainbow Dash wrote:

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I've had servers get upset that I tip below what they feel they've earned. One incident was when me and a few friends had dinner at a Steak and Shake. The total, for all 4 of us, came to about $60. I tipped $5, but I didn't quite have enough to tip the extra $3 that I normally would. Still, I thought $5 was fair because aside from our initial orders, we didn't bother her the whole time we were there. On top of that, I bussed the table. I always have everyone put the plates, saucers, cups, etc., in the center of the table, and I wipe down the table as best as I can, to remove some of the work required to get the table ready for another customer.

So I paid for dinner (it was on me that night), and I walked back and put the $5 on the table. As I was walking away, I heard her say "Five dollars? What a cheap ass!"

Sometimes you get people like that. Not all servers are like that, though.

[J. Allen]

Ah, Larry David eases the pain.

To address a point, though, I love to tip, and I love to tip well. When I can be overly generous, I am. When I can't, I still try to leave a respectable tip, because I like the service. The trap is when one puts too much into the amount. It's like when you have to fill out one of those self evaluation forms at work. You're likely to rate yourself higher, than what those around you might rate your performance. It's just the way we are. We want to believe we're doing a great job that is deserving of a great tip. The problem, as mentioned earlier, is what constitutes "great", "fair", and "poor". I don't like percentages because they take nothing but food cost into account, which is not a reliable method of figuring gratuity.

Put it this way: for me, aside from my basic rule of $5 and $1, gratuity is a spur of the moment thing. I've left huge tips for small meals. Keep in mind that my $5 rule applies all of the time, so even if I'm eating alone, and my meal is $8, I'm still leaving a $5 tip as long as the service was good, and it's pretty hard to fuck up a single person dinner order, especially if that person tries to offload some of the burden on the server (which I do).

Also, as Larry does in the video above, if there is an automatic gratuity, that's it. I don't give anything on top of that.