Restaurant Tipping

I'm a good tipper. I work in a tipping industry so I think that changes how I look at it. Although, with my job the tip isn't to supplement the income. It is extra and I don't expect it. It's still nice to receive it as appreciation for a job well done. Most of my clients tip me.

When I go to a restaurant I tip 20% as a minimum and often times more. Our regular place hooks us up with free stuff a lot so we give them a bigger tip, usually in the 40-50% range.

 

I have never calculated my tip percentwise

 

The whole retail catering business is mugs' game. Even if a restaurant owner wanted to pay their staff a decent wage, the market is not there especially in the big city. Believe it or not the more upmarket you go, the leaner the margins because the ingredients cost more. The entire food business is very difficult to understand.

 

20% is my normal amount. 15% if the service was not great, 10% if it was bad, and nothing if it was especially shitty.

 

You do see how you can fix that right? Put on a bra and mini skirt and you'd be set

 

I usually tip pretty well. I also think it's bullshit that employers get off with paying people such a low amount but I'm not going to take it out on the server to make a point.

When I was in college, I delivered pizzas but I wasn't getting as screwed on my hourly wages as most of these wait staff people are. I got paid minimum wage per hour but I also got tips and an additional $.40 per delivery...which isn't much but it does add up. We sold dirt cheap pizza in the heart of a college campus. It wasn't unusual for me to make 75 deliveries a night. I averaged about a $1 tip per delivery. Not bad money for a place where the 24 yr. old owner was the oldest person there and we could smoke all the weed we wanted in our cars as long as we could still drive....not that I usually did but it's a nice perk. Who gets to do that shit? "Hey...since it's not too busy, do you care if I clock out and ride along on the next run so we can smoke this bowl?"

 

And all those poor college kids couldn't figure out why half of their pizza was gone by the time it got to their dorm. hahaha.

 

That actually happened once. But it wasn't me. I was delivering to a dorm one night and there was a drunk kid looking for a ride to a different dorm. I was going to that dorm after my next stop so I gave him a ride. I delivered the next pizza and then the one where he was getting out at. When I got back to the store the manager asked me if I was hungry. I said no. Then he asked if I had anyone in the car. The drunk kid ate some of the pizza in the car. Bastard. No biggie though. The manager got a laugh out of it and we sent out another pizza.

 

i understand why in america at least, you should tip your waiter. since they don't make minimum wage.

they probably SHOULD make minimum wage.

i first thought that relying on tips would make a waiter work harder..but then i thought that maybe since it's just expected that you have to tip, that they might not work harder than if a tip wasn't expected - but you could still get one if you did a fantastic job. know what i mean?


then ruby's post got me thinking some more (uh oh)
why is it customary to tip a hairstylist? they make minimum wage or better, so it's not the same as tipping your waitress. but to be clear, i still tip when i get a haircut. usually 3 or 4 bucks. 3 if the haircut is expensive, 4 if it was cheaper or if i had a coupon.

i guess you tip some services..but not others.
i remember before gas was so expensive, people would tip the guy that pumped your gas. now i rarely see places that pump your gas (in NY state)

i don't get why you are supposed to tip based on percentage. i mean, i get it...but it doesn't seem right to me. if you order 6 drinks, dessert, etc., then yes, tip more because she brought you more stuff.
but if you order an expensive steak, or a hamburger...she still brought you one plate. so i don't always tip based on percentage, but it usually works out to 15% or so. i think 20% is pretty steep, and my wife used to be a waitress. haha

we did just leave someone $0 because she was just awful. but that is the only time i've ever done that. she took forever to bring drinks, didn't refill them, even longer to bring the check. i saw her like two times, maybe three.

 

Lots of companies have figured out that they can get their customers to do the work that their employees used to do, and they save money by not having to pay someone to do it. Pumping your own gas, self-checkouts at grocery stores or just bagging your own groceries even if there is a cashier, and using the ATM at the bank instead of going up to the counter (although it is usually much faster to use the machine in this case).

I see it as a way for them to make more profit without having to raise the price at all. Sneaky fuckers.

 

There is a places in my area that will pump the gas for you but I think it's 40 or 50 cent per gallon more expensive. We have a chain of grocery stores in our state that not only check and bag your groceries but they insist on carrying them out to your car...every single time. Coincidentally, it's not the kind of place that underpays employees either. They pay well and offer the lowest prices on most things.

 

trader joes?



full service gas stations have always cost more per gallon (in my memory)..but i didn't think it was 40 or 50 cents more!
some states like NJ, you CAN'T pump your own gas.

 

That scared the shit out of my brother and I when we were passing through NJ one time. We pulled up to the pump and all of a sudden some sketchy looking guy was in his window asking for money lol. I haven't seen a full service station around here since I was 4 or 5 years old so it caught us off guard.

 

I think people tip stylists because it is a service that I'm providing for them much like massage therapists, nail techs, tattoo artists, etc. I would say that probably 95% of my clients tip me. Some of them don't because I'm the owner and some people believe that you don't tip the owner. Most people tip me 15-20% of their service amount. I have some really big tippers that will give me 40% sometimes. I have others that give me a couple bucks. Like I said, since I'm not in an industry that tips supplement my income I never expect to be tipped and I don't think less of anyone that doesn't tip me. I will say that it's greatly appreciated though. Being self employed is expensive and every little bit helps.

Fareway? I go there for work sometimes because its right up the street. I hate that they insist on taking your stuff to your car. It makes me really uncomfortable because it's awkward.

 

Yup. It doesn't bother me very much but I'm not the one usually doing the grocery shopping. You want to carry that stuff out to the car? I don't give a shit. They're just doing what they're told to do. I actually know the guy who is the majority stockholder and CEO of the company. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if that policy came straight from him.

 

I hate the grocery store. I try to make my husband go if I can. I wish I could convince the fareway kids to go to work with me and carry all that shit inside.

 

I fucking hate tipping -- but I do it because it's social convention.

I hate it so much though. I don't think I've ever actually experienced good service...

Tipping is just a justification for underpaying servers.

 

Good tipping always gets me better service especially at bar where I'll often tip the bartender $5 up front after opening a tab. The next time I order a drink I'll get priority and don't have fight the rest of the crowd.

However if I get shitty service at a restaurant I'll often leave no tip or a minimal tip just to piss them off.

 

I agree with what you're saying about the bartenders. If you give a good tip up front then they'll also make your cocktails stronger

 

i assume it's an old article (really a letter-to-the-editor, not an actual article). tipped employees have to make at least half of minimum wage, and minimum wage hasn't been $4.26 in a LONG time. and i'm not a tax expert, but i kind of thought that taxes were based on a percentage of income, not a flat fee, so there's no reason for a zero paycheck just because of taxes. and, i'm also thinking that at a certain level of poverty, most if not all taxes get returned anyway.

i do feel her on the paying out of her pocket for them to come eat comment. back when i delivered pizzas, it was infuriating to drive WAY out to the edges of the delivery area for no tip at all. yes, the company paid a certain amount per delivery to cover gas, but it didn't cover the long deliveries, which always seem to be the ones that stiff you. worst is when you're seriously putting yourself at risk just for the opportunity to help buy someone a pizza. like the time i drove through floodwater up to the bottom of my truck, passing probably 20 stalled cars along the way that weren't tall enough to stay out of the water, and got a zero tip out of it. or the time i drove through a literal blizzard all morning, made something like 20 deliveries, and made a total of $10 in tips, just because the assholes that will expect someone to deliver during a weather emergency are the same assholes that will expect someone to deliver to them for free. and then you get the assholes that will have you drive 5 miles to their house, and then say "can i borrow 43 cents?"

ok, i think i went from making a point to venting, and it's been years since i've been in the business.

i have to wonder if you were a shitty waiter. i was never an actual waiter, but i waited tables occasionally, when i was a pizza hut manager, and i don't think i ever got less than a reasonable tip. and despite some particular instances, i averaged probably around $3 per delivery during my time as a driver too, and drivers seem to be generally tipped less than servers.



anyway. i generally tip pretty well. i spent too much time in the industry not to have some sympathy. and it has nothing to do with the service. 90% of the time, the server has no control over that anyway. they bring the food cold or the check late, it's probably because their manager told them to cut some onions, or the cook fucked up one of their orders and they had to fix it, or they answered the phone and had to explain how to order food for 20 minutes to some moron, or one of their other customers just yelled at them for the last 10 minutes because of one of those things. it also shouldn't really have anything to do with percent of price either. carrying one overpriced plate of food is infinitely easier than bringing out 5 burgers, some appetizers, and several drinks.