Alright, peeps... I know this doesn't apply to all countries. Canada I know for one, doesn't have to tip because of the wage being much higher there than the U.S., which leads to culture problems when they visit the U.S., *lives near the border and has seen it happen often at restaurants* Do you tip your waiter/waitress? How much? What do you think is a good tip? When do you tip and when do you not? Do you think pay should be raised so tips should no longer be a factor? I never worked as a waitress, I don't have the organized mind nor the speed to be one. But my mom was one for a while and I always appreciate the work others do for me and will try to tip fairly. I usually do fifteen to twenty percent as my mom does, sometimes higher if the service was amazing. If the waitress/waiter was truly horrendous and never checked on us and it took a long time. (And sometimes forgets our order period) I go to ten percent to nothing depending on how bad it was. I think that's a good tip range, though if it's a buffet style and they're just giving you drinks, I tip only a dollar or two per person. I usually put it at that standard, though I've seen people tip a lot more, one guy who I dated always insisted at least over fifty percent to over a hundred. The service was always fantastic, though. Sometimes when I get take out, I have to give exact change because some restaurants take the change as their own tip, no matter what bill you give them. Which I don't believe in period due to the fact all I'm doing is waiting for them to cook the food and leaving. As for raising the wage, I would like to see it happen, but a lot of business simply can't afford it. They depend on the people who go there to pay the waitress for their services. If they are tremendously rich, yeah, they should have a higher wage. But if they're just a small restaurant that can't afford it, they should contribute to the pay of their staff.
Yeah, we don' t tip waiters here either. Well, we do, but it' s not standard practice, unless he was super nice and/or helped us in ways his job didn' t require him to. I mainly tip when I' m abroad and I' m completely clueless as to how much I' m supposed to give. The argument that small restaurants can' t afford to pay their own employees is completely baffling to me. Somehow they manage to pull it off here. They pay their cooks don' t they ? What the hell is so fundamentally different when it comes to waiters ? If you can' t afford to pay your own employees to turn a decent profit your business model sucks, find a new one.
Waiters here get crap for wages. I always tip 20% unless I genuinely did not enjoy the service or my meal. Even if I waffle a little bit on it I usually still tip 20%. My roommate used to leave scrap for tips until he started working in fast food, then he realized what horrors they go through and mended his ways.
I always try to leave a tip; I always leave any change I have leftover from paying, and then throw in a dollar or two. But then again, this is usually just at, like, McDonalds' or Coney Island or Olga's.
My default is 20% with a give or take of 10% depending on service. And sometimes, I just forget numbers and put down a bigger one because I feel like it. I once played a joke where I gave a Monopoly money tip but under it was $40, which was way high for the meal. I think it is stupid as well. However if you try to model without tips many people will question you because you are taking potential profit from the waitstaff or something (a cringe worthy counter argument) and people take surprisingly badly to the raised prices, even though it is the same price stated up front. In the end it should work, but I've seen it tried twice to my memory with small businesses here and they both flopped pretty hard. People like their status quo I guess.
Most often or not I was will always leave my change, I don't think I've ever been in a situation where the service was terrible and I've refused to leave a tip.
I know places that leave a tip jar now because of culture clashes. You put money in and they split it amongst the waitstaff. It's again becoming very popular around my state which brings in Canadians by droves. I always remember on Third Rock from the Sun when Dick left a pile of ones out and every time the waitress made a mistake he removed a dollar bill from her tip. And he told her why he was doing it. It was one of the most memorable moments on the show. I have been a few places where usually the service is fantastic, but once in a while you just hit a bad waiter. I remember one woman who gave me my meal 20 minutes before my mom. My meal was cold, too... We got a free dessert due to our complaint and left her a horrendous tip due to her service. We go there often and knew it was bad luck, but we still thought it was terrible service.
The standard tip here is 20%, one thing that I have always hated is the service charge that is automatically put onto your bill if you are in a big group. It's kind of like a forced tip and I think is 25%. I don't mind leaving a tip, in fact I would feel horrible if I didn't because the waiters/waitresses work very hard for hours on end but don't force it on us. I like the custom of being able to choose how much to tip because then it could be a cue to the staff about how good their service was and if it was very good then you want to leave a big tip to say thank you, it's not like that if it's forced. I also think that a waiter should get to keep all the tips they are given as opposed to all tips being collected and handed out because it seems unfair to someone who works more or who is friendlier and works harder so tends to get bigger tips opposed to someone who doesn't work as much and still gets the same amount.
I know it's probably different in other countries/states. But in Maine the reason why they do it because Canada usually never tips at all. So instead of getting any tips, they'd get none if there wasn't a tip jar. I always leave a tip on the table. Canada has a higher wage for the waiters/waitresses were there's no need for tips. Hence the reason why there's tip jars.
I've worked in a restaurant before, not as a waiter, but as a host. The only times I would be tipped was when I took care of to-go orders, but not always. I will say that tips are like a godsend to the waiters and waitresses I've worked with. For them, their wage and tips is the only income they receive to pay their bills, expenses, and any other necessities. And I can tell you that the regular wages of working in a restaurant is not enough for the amount they need. That there is why they depend heavily on their tips. And there is nothing worse then to have a slow day, because that means less tips for them. Seeing my coworkers work their butts off just to barely survive on their income really made me see things differently. So whenever I go to a restaurant, I would usually pay more than the recommended 15%, because I know how hard they work just to make ends meet.
Did they flop precisely because of that or ... ? I' ve heard stories of successful fast foods in the US who have higher prices than usual but also pay their employees better and advertise that fact. Sounds like it was the cook' s fault, but you took it on her ? They don' t stop you from giving an even bigger tip to say thanks. Or, you know, just tell them / spread word of mouth. Reminds me of negrep. Without a decent pay tips look more like a "do I give them the middle finger or not" system to me than a "like" system.
I'd agree with that if there was a tip jar, and I know some places do just work like that but it is when people leave a tip on their table for their specified waiter/waitress which then would get taken away and shared out amongst everyone. I can see why it would be better in Maine, in the UK we don't really have that problem, well, not as far as I am aware. I may be a bit ignorant in this subject though xD
No, she forgot to put the order in for my mom. We've been there hundreds of times and never had that problem. We also waited over an hour for our food when we usually wait about half the time, and it was quiet, she also was pretty snippy towards us. We wouldn't mind with the waiting on a busy night, but when it's pretty quiet in a restaurant where it's known for slow service, it's okay... But we really just a bad waitress for once, it happens once in a while. We had her a few times before and she really wasn't paying attention to us before then and gave us bad service. My mom finally decided and she's REALLY against giving bad tips, to not give her one at all. We even had to go up and ask for a check, she still hadn't eaten when I finished my meal.
That's true, but at the same time someone who is hard-working and friendly could get bum tips from rude people. It's a bit of a mine field sometimes, so I understand the point behind communal tips as well. It depends what your needs are, I think, and demands flexibility.
My brother works in a restaurant with communal tips. The waiters get 40% of the tips and the rest is portioned out amongst the cooks, bartenders, food runners and server assistants (fancy name for bus boys). Honestly, with out the communal tips system, he wouldn't get anything at all, which is unfair since all the waiters do at his place is take orders, chat and clear dishes. S.A.'s do the place setting, organize everything in the back so everything is easy for the food runners and waiters. Food runners carry insanely heavy trays full of food to the tables. Etc. As for tipping, my dad always tips 15%, 10% for poor service, 20% for good, 0 for plain bad and a rare 25% for exceptional. My grandma tips $1 per person at the table and doesn't understand how outrageous it is. She grew up in a time when $1 per person was good I suppose. Anyways, I've picked up dad's tipping habits, and my brother has too.
My grandmother does the same thing. lolz... She is totally against giving more than a dollar or less to a waiter/waitress.
The reasoning, at least in the US, behind only waiters getting tipped is that waiters make seriously different wages than everyone else. Minimum wage varies from state to state but I'll go by NY since I live here & am most familiar with it -- for a regular employee, it's $8/hr. For a tipped employee it's something like $2.50/hr. This is why tipping is pretty much mandatory, else waiters are being paid basically nothing. If a waiter works say a four hour shift then their employer owes them $10 for that shift. Had they been making a regular minimum wage ($8), their employer would owe them $80 (not factoring in taxes). If their tips for that day are not at least $70 (thus bringing them to $80 for the day), their employer is legally required to pay the difference so that they are legally making minimum wage. Cooks and hostesses are not tipped employees and therefore are not making that $2.50/hr. They do not rely upon those tips like servers do. Of course, labor and wages in the US is awful, so I can understand why they want tips and even rely on them, but it should not be at the expensive of the servers because of the latter's lowered wages. I am a ridiculous tipper. I always get to thinking about how the server may have been stiffed that day or how difficult their job is or how they just rely on tips in general, then get quite emotional and leave proportionately huge tips. I also used to go out with a guy who would harass the servers so I'd always tip them really well in that case too. It depends on the size of the bill of course, for an $11 bill (ty half apps) I left a $7 tip which is nearly 70%, obviously would not do the same for a $50 bill. I tend to go to small & cheap places (classy I know) in very small groups (no more than five ever but commonly two or three) so the bill never gets high but I do always tip well, even if the service is "bad." I work in food service so I know there are a million factors outside of your control that can give a customer a bad experience and often none of them are your fault.
