Restaurant tipping. Pros & cons

[Flyingcursor]

The first time I saw a restaurant automatically add to the bill for parties of X or more people I about rolled over in my grave.
I find that practice abhorrant. It basically means the service could be horrible and the food abysmal and you'd still have to tip.

A lot of things will make me tip more. If I'm in a large party of noisy people and we are basically a pain in the butt I'm going to tip more.
If the food is really good I'll tip more.
If the waitstaff smile and are friendly I'll tip more.
And more

There are three things though that will have a negative impact on my tipping practice.

3. Non friendly or arrogant acting waitstaff. I've noticed this especially in the "trendy" restaurants that only hire people under 25. Some of those youths can be a bit cocky.

2. Overly friendly waitstaff. That is, do NOT sit down at my table to take the order. I don't even care too much for the "crouchers".

1. Failure to keep hot coffee at breakfast especially if the place is not busy. In all fairness to the waitress though it's a stupid restaurant owner who doesn't provide carafe for morning coffee. The waitresses are usually real busy.

[Tyler]

The first time I saw a restaurant automatically add to the bill for parties of X or more people I about rolled over in my grave.

AAAAHHHHHHH! Flydood is the Living Dead!!

There are three things though that will have a negative impact on my tipping practice.

3. Non friendly or arrogant acting waitstaff. I've noticed this especially in the "trendy" restaurants that only hire people under 25. Some of those youths can be a bit cocky.

2. Overly friendly waitstaff. That is, do NOT sit down at my table to take the order. I don't even care too much for the "crouchers".

1. Failure to keep hot coffee at breakfast especially if the place is not busy. In all fairness to the waitress though it's a stupid restaurant owner who doesn't provide carafe for morning coffee. The waitresses are usually real busy.

One of my qualifiers for a lower/higher tip is whether or not they let my glass run dry (soft drinks, water) opposed to how busy it is...I've visited some places on a Wednesday night (usually the slowest for a lot of places here) and have recieved decent attention from the wait staff, but they did not fill my glass once without my asking...meyhaps I'm picky, but that agrivates me.

[brewerpaul]

[quote="I.D.10-t “Man, I barely got my coffee and she wants to know what I want to eat?”

[/quote]

Ha, ha, ha! This brings up an interesting regional difference. I live in upstate NY and my wife moved here from MI. She said that out there, people OFTEN order coffee before dinner, but here it's almost always an after dinner beverage.

[Tyler]

“Man, I barely got my coffee and she wants to know what I want to eat?”

Ha, ha, ha! This brings up an interesting regional difference. I live in upstate NY and my wife moved here from MI. She said that out there, people OFTEN order coffee before dinner, but here it's almost always an after dinner beverage.

It's interesting how the culture changes depending on where you go, even for something as simple as coffee!
Here, you'd be lucky to find truly good coffee.

[Montana]

15% is the going rate.
I've always felt that a tip should be for service well done, and it should not just be an automatic thing. Thus the mandatory gratuity tacked on the bill does irritate me somewhat, especially when it's 20%.
I think that restaurants should not be allowed to incorporate tips when they determine the wait staff salaries. That ends up holding the costumer somewhat responsible for the waiter's well-being/living wage, which is not right. If tips were just a reward for good service, then anything a waiter might earn (in the true sense of the word) in tips would be gravy on top of his fair wage.
If I were king... :roll:

[jbarter]

The best way to get good service is to keep looking around and every so often make a little note in a notebook supposedly hidden in your lap (make sure they do know it's there though). They'll assume you're working for a restaurant guide and the service and meal are suddenly stupendous.

[anniemcu]

I just read an interesting article on tipping. Apparently the custom didn't appear in the US until after 1865.

Anyway, I'm curious how other people feel about tipping and what customs are in other countries.

I'm a good tipper but technically I regard tipping is something that should only be done for something exceptional. HOWEVER our society has taken tipping for granted to the extent that waitresses and waiters cannot survive on their income without tips.

Do you always tip the same percent? Will you tip less or more depending on service or based on how much of a pain in the butt you are while in the restaurant?

Discuss?

Unfortunately, waiters and waitresses, also loving refered to as 'waitrons', are not paid at all well for their jobs by the places the work in. They must rely on tips to make a living. I think originally, the tips were given to reward the waitperson for excellence in service. As business owners saw that there was a way to cut their expenses by making the waitperson pay their own wages, it became so much a part of the plan that in some places they actually *require* that the 'tip' be included in the bill.

If they were paying their help decently at all, that would not be necessary... however, it is also a good incentive for the waitperson to give good service to the customer, as they make better wage that way.

It is not particulary conducive to employee loyalty though.

An aside, ... if you have ever waited table, you are likely to tip better than those who have not.

[Redwolf]

In the US, employers can actually pay under the statutory minimum wage if it is anticipated that tips will make up the difference.

I'm glad that's not the case in the UK though I think the taxman might take a cut based on assumed tips.

They do, actually. Waiters (I despise the term "waitron"...there's nothing inherently masculine about "waiter"!) must declare their tips on their taxes. It's really an abhorrent system...especially when the waiter is expected to share his tips with everyone else who works in the restaurant!

I also worked in food service as a teen, and I have very high standards. I also live in an area where the average person can't afford to rent an apartment...forget buy a home...so I'm cognizant of that as well. For good, basic, average, efficient service, I tip 20%. For really darned good service, I'll go 25%...and there have been one or two occasions when the service has gone so far above and beyond the norm (for type of restaurant), I've tipped absolutely outrageously AND written a letter to the manager complimenting him/her on such an outstanding employee (one of the times I did that, the waiter followed us out to the parking lot, thinking we'd accidentally forgotten all our change. When she realized we actually meant for her to have it, she burst into tears!).

If the service doesn't come up to a reasonable standard (and there's no obvious reason for it), however, no tip...period. Well, there are rare exceptions. I remember once we were in a restaurant where, just before we sat down, we overheard the waiter dealing with a boss who was just plain abusive...screaming, threatening, calling her every filthy name in the book. Then she got to us, and one of the people with us just happened to be the restaurant patron from hell (we NEVER went out with her again, we were so mortified!)...demanding, judgemental, picky, you name it. While the service wasn't quite up to my usual standards, the waiter was obviously trying, and I really admired her for keeping her cool under such conditions (and I was embarrassed enough by my dining companion) so I left her a good tip.

While we were in England, we were told that tipping standards were different, so we never left more than a pound or two on the table (we weren't eating in very expensive places...pubs, mostly). On our last day there, though, we ate in an Italian place, and had a waiter who was so utterly delightful and friendly, even though we were sitting outdoors in high winds during a busy dinner rush, with cutlery and napkins flying everywhere, I couldn't help but leave her a big, fat, Santa Cruz style tip...what's the good of being a foreigner if you can't do something outrageous once in a while?

Redwolf

[anniemcu]

They do, actually. Waiters (I despise the term "waitron"...there's nothing inherently masculine about "waiter"!) must declare their tips on their taxes. It's really an abhorrent system...especially when the waiter is expected to share his tips with everyone else who works in the restaurant!

I was joking about the 'loving(ly)' part... "waitron" is a term I use only for the ones who are so automated and impersonal that they seem robotic... or the rude, less than tipworthy ones. I don't use it very often as all, and usually only as a joke. Sorry for the confusion... I'll try to remember a smilie next time.

[Brewster]

I, for one, wish employers would pay their employees a livable wage so we don't have to go through this whole charade of "rewarding exceptional service" when what's really happening is that the patron is being forced to make up the difference between what the employer legally has to pay and what's actually necessary to live on. Just jack up the prices and be done with it. Unfortunately, it's all so ingrained in our culture that I doubt that it's going to change anytime soon.

And don't get me started on the "tip cup" at Dunkin Donuts, where the service consists of taking my order, pouring a cup of coffee, handing it to me, taking my money, and giving me the change. I'm not sure when I received the exceptional service.....

BTW, this is not a rant against waiters who work very hard for low pay. I'm just railing against "the system"!

[Nanohedron]

I've worked at being a waiter. What I was given to understand is that in countries as developed as the US, Canada, and in Europe, consumer cost of commodities like food and drink served to one reflect the practice of tipping/not tipping. In other words, in the US at least, due to the institution of tipping, prices are held lower on average, and in the long run it actually costs less to tip well than if there were no practice of tipping at all. Don't know how true that really is, but it makes sense on the face of it. I tip because the server's working on my behalf ( I almost used the Yank term "shagging his or her @$$", but that's another concept across the Pond ).

[Denny]

I've worked at being a waiter. What I was given to understand is that in countries as developed as the US, Canada, and in Europe, consumer cost of commodities like food and drink served to one reflect the practice of tipping/not tipping. In other words, in the US at least, due to the institution of tipping, prices are held lower on average, and in the long run it actually costs less to tip well than if there were no practice of tipping at all. Don't know how true that really is, but it makes sense on the face of it. I tip because the server's working on my behalf ( I almost used the Yank term "shagging his or her @$$", but that's another concept across the Pond ).

"Well, that's supposed to be the the idea, anyway..." --Nano

[emmline]

And don't get me started on the "tip cup" at Dunkin Donuts, where the service consists of taking my order, pouring a cup of coffee, handing it to me, taking my money, and giving me the change. I'm not sure when I received the exceptional service.....

That is actually a more interesting question to me than full service restaurant tipping which I accept as a long-established fact of culture.
As I recall, these "tip cups" began to appear somewhere around 15 years ago at such modest venues as snowball stands.
At the time, it rankled me because I'd been buying over the counter items for years without being hit up for spare change.
Now it has become flat out ubiquitous with the proliferation of latté shops, ice cream places, and other take outs.

I've thawed a bit, to the extent that I occasionally stuff a buck into the till at a coffee place I frequent, or when the counter person had several complicated concoctions to keep track of.

What do others think of this practice? I expect it just seems like the norm to anyone in his/her 20's on down.

[Nanohedron]

And don't get me started on the "tip cup" at Dunkin Donuts, where the service consists of taking my order, pouring a cup of coffee, handing it to me, taking my money, and giving me the change. I'm not sure when I received the exceptional service.....

That is actually a more interesting question to me than full service restaurant tipping which I accept as a long-established fact of culture.
As I recall, these "tip cups" began to appear somewhere around 15 years ago at such modest venues as snowball stands.
At the time, it rankled me because I'd been buying over the counter items for years without being hit up for spare change.
Now it has become flat out ubiquitous with the proliferation of latté shops, ice cream places, and other take outs.

I've thawed a bit, to the extent that I occasionally stuff a buck into the till at a coffee place I frequent, or when the counter person had several complicated concoctions to keep track of.

What do others think of this practice? I expect it just seems like the norm to anyone in his/her 20's on down.

I don't mind it. What I do mind is tip jars at the cash register in convenience stores. It offends me. To my thinking, cashiering is NOT the same thing as serving tables, cooking up a gyro, or making a specialty coffee. But that's just me.

[I.D.10-t]

In grocery stores, tipping baggers and people that bring your stuff out to the car are the ones I cannot stand. Oh, and in Mexico the people that hang out near the bathrooms waiting for a tip freak me out.