Tipping Etiquette

I'll never forget one tip I got from a gawky teenager. I was playing piano in a rather upscale restaurant and he asked me to sing something special for his mother for her birthday. I kept my face perfectly neutral as he stuffed the $5 bill accordianed in his fist into my water glass. As I assured him I would dig up the music for "Blue Spanish Eyes" (arrgghh!) his fingertips hit the water and he was mortified. It would have been too cruel to laugh he was so sweet. Worst part was I had to wait for my next break to get another glass of water.

oh god....Blue Spanish Eyes...ugg

You should have played him "Hey Big Spender"....speeeeend a little time with me.....

He was cute but too young and I was spoken for Besides, I knew his mother -- she was a hostess at the restaurant! Her family brought her to her usual place of employment for her birthday! In their defence it was the nicest place around (small cones of sorbet to cleanse the palate before one's entree -- lah-di-dah) and of course she was treated like a queen. Believe me I wouldn't have dug up that song for anybody else

This is what I absolutely disagree with:



A tip is something you give for good service. Bigger tip for exceptional service, less for not-so-good service. But why should I give a tip if the service was abysmal? And how would a tip be an incentive for good service if it was quasi-mandatory, if you would still tip someone who provided the worst service ever?

On the other hand, if you're really always giving a tip and it's your opinion that everybody should do so, then I don't understand your problem with the idea to raise the minimum wages for waiters/waitresses. You'd still be paying the same amount of money, tip included.

Someone who has given me the worst service ever would probably not get a tip from me. Someone who provided me below average service but still managed to bring me a drink, some food and not spill anything on me, would still have earned a tip... but somewhere alongthe lines of 10% or less percent. A small tip is a statement that I did not find service acceptable, but willing to tip for appropriate service.



That entirely depends on what the minimum wage is and what the tip rate is... it does not have to be a zero sum equation. Plus, a minimum wage, despite nimhs claims of it being a straw man argument, takes away incemtive for servers to provide good service and takes money out of good servers pockets.

Another solution to abysmal service is to let the manager know. No restaurant should condone bad service to their customer.

One more note: there's an issue when there isn't enough staff to provide good service in popular restaurants for any number of reasons - such as a worker is out sick, or the waiter is having a difficult day based on some personal problems, but usually provides good service.

One mid-range restaurant I went to a couple of weeks ago was short on staff, even though they didn't have many customers. I refilled my own coffee, but left a 10% tip, because they brought my first cup of coffee and food. It took over 5 minutes to get my check after I finished eating.

I doubt they will survive as a restaurant if they don't provide better service.

I've got an incentive for servers to provide good service:

Do your job or you're fired. Isn't part of the job to give prompt service with a good attitude?

Why is this the only industry where a patron is expected to give a tip in order to get good service? Why should you have to? Do you tip your shoe repair man to ensure your shoes are fixed properly? Why not tip your dry cleaner to ensure your clothes are REALLY clean?

I agree - if you have bad service, the server may have been trained inappropriatelyor been given too many tables to work with - I have seen this happen a good amount of time. Not that either of these situations absolves the server. However, the manager should be told so s/he can remedy the situation.

Got it.



I totally fail to understand that. How would that happen? Someone who provides good service would still receive better tips then someone who provides bad service, so there's still an incentive to provide good service.

And you said you still tip waiters even if the service was unacceptable. IMHO, that's what's taking money out of good servers' pockets.

I am coming late to this thread (and only read the first and last few pages) but I feel strongly about one thing from this.

It isn't fair to punish the servers because you don't like the system the employers have set up.

The fact is that everyone; restaurants, employees and and most patrons accept a system that includes an expectation of a tip for waiters/resses.

This assumption is built into the system. It means that restaurants pay their employees less (and are allowed to by law). It also means that your food is less expensive than if restaurants paid their employees more.

To refuse to pay a tip punishes the bottom of the pecking order- the employee, for a system set up by the restaurant. They are the victims, and in my opinion, to not pay a tip is tantamount to stealing.

If you don't like the system and want to punish the people who are really responsible for the system-- stop going to restaurants (or maybe only go to restaurants that pay their employees faily without the consideration of possible tips).

Reading some of the responses on this thread makes me want to spit in your food (and I don't even work as a waiter).

That's all potatoes to me if the tip is quasi-mandatory.

If the the minimum wages were to be raised and the food would be more expensive and you'd in turn tip 0-10% instead of 10-20%, how would the higher prices for your food affect you?

I'm trying to remember if there was more than once that the service was so bad I didn't leave a tip at all.

The one time for certain I didn't, my then bf and I were eating a a rib place, and order beers. I drank some of mine, and didn't pick up the mug again until after the foam had gone down.

What the....!? There was something weird stuck to the glass. I pulled it out and it was a clear cigarette wrapper. Well, I knew someone who swallowed one of them as a child, and they don't show up on x-rays very well, but they sure do a good job of blocking a windpipe.

When we called the waitress over, it wasn't to question her service so much as to call this danger to her attention. However, her attitude is what pissed us off. When I showed her this clear plastic, she just looked at it like "So?" Didn't effect her either when I told her I could've choked. I asked for a different beer and she asked "Why? You took the wrapper out"

When she went to replace the drink, the manager came by and we told him the story. Of course he apologized and all, and took her around the corner to talk to her. That was only a couple feet away so we could hear the entire conversation. She told him that she thought I put the cigarette wrapper in my own beer to get free drinks and food. The manager just told her to leave and not come back. When he came back around, we said to him..."Do you see either of us smoking? We don't even smoke. Did she think we carried around old cigarette wrappers or something"? We weren't mad at him, I was just amazed at her...as a matter of fact, I think he said that was actually her first day there....and obviously last.
He comp'd the meal for us, and we didn't leave him a tip, which he of course didn't expect.

When I was growing up, it used to be if you got really bad service, you'd leave the waiter a penny....it was figured I guess that if you left nothing, they might think you forgot or were a tightwad, but leaving them a penny only was a clear signal that they were the ones who where the cause of a lack of tip.

That's why when it's been mentioned by I think Walter (not sure) about just rounding it up to the next unit, "keep the change" kinda just hit my gut like...that would make the waiter think he did a bad job....you know, the penny....the small change....(now that doesn't include tip jars, which are meant for change/maybe a dollar.)

Does anyone else remember doing the penny thing? Or is that just regional?

See, by this point, I find the politics of it, like NIMH was saying, the raising the working wage, and all that, more interesting. To be frank, I think it's beating a dead horse to continue to advocate doing one thing or another....It seems quite polarized by geopgraphical region as to our opinions on tipping. I'm willing to leave it at just that, a cultural/regional difference.

You can force a yankee to eat grits, but you can't make him like it.(shrugs)

I can't find a good pizza in Texas to save my life, but the people who were raised here love what they've got.....So....I just do as the Romans do and eat the type of pizza I didn't grow up with.(another shrug)

The fight for a decent working wage has been going on a long time here, and I don't see it going anywhere....like I said before, and Linkat reiterated, if waiters made more money, the cost of the food would go up proportionatley, so.....(shrugs a third time)

All I know is I'm not gonna be on my death bed and suddenly sit up shaking my fist yelling "Why did I tip all those people??!!"

Then again, maybe I will.

I'll explain as soon as nimh answers what the minimum wage should be and what the tip percentage should be.

I am not sure if I understand your question. It seems you are making the same point I am.

My point is that you shouldn't screw the server.

Either you should pay higher prices for food (and make sure this money is passed on to the waitstaff) or you should happily pay tips. You are talking about "minimum wage" here which I don't think is strictly relevant. This should be true even for higher end restaurants where deserving servers have more responsibility to make higher than minimum wage.

To get cheaper food without paying tips is taking money out of the employees pockets. That just isn't fair.

Well consider this - if you had a soup and a sandwich for $10... how much would you tip?

If you ordered this in one of your cheap states where the waitstaff get $2.50 per hour, you'd be paying $10.00 for the lunch, presumably about $1.50 for taxes, and another $2.00 for a tip (at 20%). Let's say you're there for one hour. They're getting their $2.50 salary, and a $2.00 tip. That's $4.50 per hour. Even if you ate in a state that paid the $5.15 per hour someone mentioned, that's still only $7.15 per hour. Both are criminally low paid.

If you ordered the same from a restaurant in B.C., the wait staff starts off with an $8.00 salary, plus the $2.00 tip. That's $10.00 per hour vs. $4.50.

Now, if you're a table of 10, with a $300.00 bill, and you've been there two hours.... 10% is $30.00, 15% is $45.00, and 20% is $60.00. Plus you add their hourly wage on to that and they're getting between $50 and $80 to serve that one table.

It makes a difference, too, if the bill is mostly alcohol! Sometimes the food can be the smaller portion, and here there is a 10% tax on liquor sold in restaurants, plus the prov. and fed. taxes.

See why we have a different view of things?

Mame, Many restaurants in the US add a 10% service for parties over 6 or 10. In those cases, we only add another 10% plus - depending on the service.

What about this?

Earlier there was a distinction made between take out, and being waited on as you sit and dine. Obviously being attended by a waitperson as you sit as a table is both a higher level of service and significanly more costly than take out.

It is very clear that you should pay significantly more for a sit down dinner than you should for take out (provided the quality of the food is equal). Most of this extra money should go to the person who is providing this service.

A couple of ways to handle this fairly would be

- The restaurant would have a service fee (perhaps based on the amount of time you were there).
- The restaurant could take a certain percentage of a bill (i.e. an enforced no-questions "tip").
- Each item on the menu could have two prices-- a take-out price and a sit-down price.

The current system of an tip of a socially agreed upon percentage seems as fair a system as any of the other three I have suggested. I also don't think $8.00 per hour (and Canadian dollars at that) is a particularly good salary for a difficult service oriented job. This might be an entry level pay, but the pay for responsible attention from talented waitstaff should be much higher.

Stiffing the waitstaff (when none of the fair arrangements to pay for service is followed) is not a good solution .

how do you explain superb service in countries where there is a minimum wage?

Generally it's older folks who are cheap tippers - I've never gone out for dinner with anyone who refused to tip. Even bad servers get a buck.

If the issue is that we need to ensure they're paid appropriately, it should go to legislation. I am not here on this planet to ensure each and every individual is appropriately paid. Who determines what is appropriate.

Having been a waitress myself, I think $8.00 and whatever tips you get, is more than adequate for what they do. What do they do? They smile at you, bring you menus and water, take your order, bring you your food, supply with you odds and sods, then present you with your bill. It's not rocket science. It's a service job, like someone doing your cleaning or mowing your lawn. Here in North America, there is no apprenticeship for such positions because they don't take a lot of brains. Good "people-people" excel; bad ones don't get tipped or they get fired.

Nurses here are 4 years educated, are entrusted with lives, give out meds, have to deal with cranky doctors, and they only get $26.00 per hour. They're also on duty 12 consecutive hours.

A waitress in the above scenario would bring home $32.50 in a cheap state, and more here in Canada.

Is that equitable? Nope!