Question: Tipping in Restaurants, for Services, ??

[Bustercat]

A bizarre and ridiculous comment that speaks only of your inexperience in the world. I hope you never find yourself in e.g. Thailand or a small Greek isle with only enough money for the check and not enough for the tip. You will starve.

Relax. And what do you know about me or where I've been?

If you're robbed, stranded, starving and penniless in a foreign country with no other source for food, that's probably an exception anyone would grant. Probably even theft, if you have no other recourse. (Though I'm curious, what happened to you that you couldn't afford enough Baht for tip in a 3rd world country you entered carrying US dollars? And what about the embassy?)

But that aside...If you're walking into a restaurant under any other situation, without money to reward 'em if they do a good (or even normal) job... not too classy, fella. Try a vending machine.

If we've misunderstood each other, I'm sorry. But no need for anyone to fly off the handle in a discussion about meals that have long since gone to better places.

 

[MisterCairo]

I am now going to discontinue my subscription to this thread. I am deeply disappointed in too many of its writers.

fftopic:

Aw, he took his ball away and went home.

Boo hoo.

At least he won't be "dissed" any longer.

I really can't believe a thread on something as innocuous as tipping could become so heated!

ON TOPIC:

I tip 20% on the total (including tax) for good to excellent service, 15% if okay, 10% if indifferent service. I've never had an experience so bad I've felt the need to "make a statement" by leaving nothing or next to nothing.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programme.....

 

[Paisley]

But that aside...If you're walking into a restaurant under any other situation, without money to reward 'em if they do a good (or even normal) job... not too classy, fella. Try a vending machine.

...or order something cheaper, or get take-out.

If I can't afford to travel or eat at a restaurant, I stay home.

 

[1961MJS]

...or order something cheaper, or get take-out.

If I can't afford to travel or eat at a restaurant, I stay home.

Hi, I've only had that happen on one occasion that I remember. We were returning home to Alabama through Memphis and rode the WW2 "ducks" around Mud Island. The cost was $40.00 or $10 a person, I had $40.00 in cash, they didn't take credit cards so off we went. When we finished the driver was at the bottom of the stairs with his hand out. Tipping him NEVER occurred to me.

Later

 

[Paisley]

Something like that happened to me, too. It's a long story, but I couldn't pay a full cab fare due to my own poor planning and lack of experience. The driver was very kind about it. I never let anything like that happen to me again.

Considering that weather is unpredictable, flights can be delayed, and accidents can happen, it's a good idea to have enough money to stay some extra days if you're planning a trip.

 

[Gingerella72]

My question is, why is the restaurant system in the US still run in such an archaic manner? I just don't get it.

As others have pointed out, the diner tips according to the entire dining experience, from the moment they walk in the door to the moment they walk out. It's unfortunate that the waiter ends up taking the brunt of the entire experience, but then, the waiter is the one the diner has the most face-to-face interaction with.....therefore the waiter becomes the representative of the restaurant.

Is this fair? No, but then I don't feel the way they get paid with those ridiculous $2.13/hr laws is fair either. But knowing they are dependent on tips and the goodwill of the customer to pay the missing half of their wage should be enough motivation for them to bend over backwards to make the customer happy and to make the customer *want* to tip.

If customers tip no matter what, then where is the motivation for excellent service?

I would add that customers do have the responsibility to point out things that went wrong to their waiter, even if it's in an area they have no control over (long waiting time, dirty bathroom, etc) because again, the waiter is the representative and has the power to try and rectify the situation, or make up for it, even if it's just an offer of "I'm sorry this happened, let me get the manager for you." If no one knows you're upset, and you don't give them the chance to make it up to you, then there's no way they can improve.

Just my two cents. [huh]

 

[Lily Powers]

Here's a funny (well, to me anyway) story about me, poor service received, tipping, and Internet response.

One day I had lunch in a restaurant that I frequented regularly. My waitress was new and we did not know each other. As I am a vegetarian, I ordered a "green salad" and a glass of iced tea. The waitress returned with my salad, which I saw was piled high with chopped boiled eggs.

"Excuse me," I said, "I suppose I should have been more specific, but I wasn't expecting eggs on a green salad."

She responded in a very rude tone, saying "There isn't anything on the menu called a 'green salad.' "

By this time I noticed that the boiled eggs were hiding a pile of chopped bacon. "That may be true," I said, "but you didn't point that out when I ordered, and I definitely don't want bacon and eggs. Would you mind bringing me a garden salad with only greens and dressing, please?"

She walked off in a huff, returned with a salad as I had described, I ate, I tipped, and I left without complaining to the management about her very unprofessional behavior.

I reported this incident on another forum thinking that it might get a laugh, and I was assailed by a number of angry ex-waitresses who said things like "You are a waitress's worst nightmare" and "That's what you get for not ordering from the menu properly."

Just goes to show you, people might not respond the way you expect when you share stories.

Hence the birth of such websites like this: http://www.bitterwaitress.com/forums/

On a similar note about dining in an establishment where you are a familar face, I rode my bike to a local restaurant for lunch (you would have enjoyed it - vegan and raw food), sat in the patio and ordered my lunch. While waiting for it to arrive, I realized I'd left my wallet back in the office and ran inside to ask them to cancel the order. The waitress said, "Oh, we see you all the time, so it's ok - just promise to come back and pay."

After lunch, I rode back to work, got my wallet, rode back to the restaurant and gave her a $20 for a $14 meal. She said, "I'll get your change." I told her to keep it. And she was so sweet - she got this big (and I mean BIG) smile on her face, her eyes got wide, and she said, "Really?! Thank you so much!." It was really fun for me to see her so genuinely happy and I certainly appreciated the old-school, small-town customer service.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It was really fun for me to see her so genuinely happy and I certainly appreciated the old-school, small-town customer service.

It's refreshing to hear a story like that -- too often nowadays people take an adversarial attitude into customer service situations: "By gad, if this isn't up to my standards, you're going to hear about it! Off with you now and be quick about it!" And that leads the service staff, in turn, to develop a very negative attitude toward customers as a bunch of preening, impossible troublemakers out to make their day miserable.

If both sides in the situation realize that -- (a) The customer is just there to get a meal, not rule as lord of the manor, and (b) the waitstaff is just trying to earn a living, not deliberately conspiring to ruin the customer's day -- there might be a lot more experiences like this to report.

One more thing about small-town service: it's very easy to raise a fuss over petty things in a restaurant in a town where you're just passing thru. But you won't get away with that stuff in a town where you live: if you get a reputation as a bad customer, you'll likely be asked to take your business elsewhere.

 

[Tomasso]

Hi, actually there was an old story going around that several of the downtown NYC restaurants charged their wait staff $125 a night to work there. When you have 3 tables an hour for 6-8 hours, at $500-$1,000 a table the 15% gets up there.

A crack waiter at a top restaurant (hard to get a reservation... expensive wine cellar) in NY or Chicago can earn upwards of 200k per year.

 

[Chasseur]

As others have pointed out, the diner tips according to the entire dining experience, from the moment they walk in the door to the moment they walk out. It's unfortunate that the waiter ends up taking the brunt of the entire experience, but then, the waiter is the one the diner has the most face-to-face interaction with.....therefore the waiter becomes the representative of the restaurant.

The flip side of this is that the waitperson is the one who gets the lion's share of the benefit providing the customer is happy (or someplaces the entire benefit) from the work of others. The people sat by the hostesse, good food on time prepared by the prep and line cooks, clean dishes from the dishwasher, bused tables by the busser, etc. The person is happy with the food so they tip the waitperson... I never really understood that.

I used to work as a cook for several years and it always amazed me that while we mostly had good waitstaff that would share with their bussers and sometimes with other staff, we would always have a couple these waitpersons who barely shared with their bussers (standard was again 10-15% where I worked) and no matter how many times they came back and said, "Hey guys great job on the food the customers are really happy" or "Hey thanks dishwasher guy for helping take all that food out to the big table" somehow never shared with cooks or the underpaid dishwashers...

 

[Miss 1929]

The flip side of this is that the waitperson is the one who gets the lion's share of the benefit providing the customer is happy (or someplaces the entire benefit) from the work of others. The people sat by the hostesse, good food on time prepared by the prep and line cooks, clean dishes from the dishwasher, bused tables by the buser, etc. The person is happy with the food so they tip the waitperson... I never really understood that.

I used to work as a cook for several years and it always amazed me that while we mostly had good waitstaff that would share with their busers and sometimes with other staff, we would always have a couple these waitpersons who barely shared with their busers (standard was again 10-15% where I worked) and no matter how many times they came back and said, "Hey guys great job on the food the customers are really happy" or "Hey thanks dishwasher guy for helping take all that food out to the big table" somehow never shared with cooks or the underpaid dishwashers...

And those nasty waiters probably didn't get the best out of their bussers, did they?

 

[Chasseur]

Nope!

 

[JimWagner]

My wife and I eat out 3 or 4 times a week these days. Rarely do we encounter service bad enough to not tip. I usually tip 15-20% depending on whether we actually asked for anything beyond the basics.

By beyond the basics I'm talking about asking for something requiring extra effort. For example, last night we were at a seafood restaurant and my wife wanted some Texas Pete for her flounder. That's not something everyone asks for and is usually not already sitting on the table. So we asked our waiter if they had some Texas Pete and if so would he mind bringing us a bottle. He did so cheerfully and received a 20% tip.

If we hadn't asked for extra service and all other things being equal I'd have probably tipped 15%.

The real point I wanted to bring up though is that we asked for some Texas Pete. We didn't demand it. If you're nice to your waiter or waitress then 99% of the time they'll be just as nice to you.

If you are a patient, cheerful and polite customer, whatever the business, most of the time you'll be treated right. If you come across with an attitude of entitlement, demanding special attention, like your time is more important than the next customer's, criticize everything you see then you're just not going to get good service.

On those occasions where I've encountered a truly badly run business then I simply never return. It's not my job to correct them and if I tried it would just make a bad situation worse. If they stay bad then they won't stay in business anyway.

 

[anon`]

Cute thread. But I was dumb enough to get into it, and now feel the need to correct the record.

The federal minimum wage for "tipped employees" such as waitresses is $2.13 an hour. Think about that the next time you stiff someone for something they had no control over.

This is incorrect. Federal minimum wage for all covered non-exempt workers if $7.25/hour. Period. There is no legal exception to this in any circumstance. The $7.25/hour can come entirely from tips, but if they work a shift and fail to earn a single tip, their employer is on the hook for their earned wages.
Tipped employees (defined as "those who customarily and regularly receive more than $30 a month in tips") who earn in excess of $2.13/hour in direct wages (which are paid by the employer, not in the form of tips) are subject to overtime, which is paid at one and a half times the applicable minimum wage, not $2.13/hour.

On topic, I will tip at a restaurant or bar where I sit down and food or drink is brought to me, and do so generously unless the service is atrocious. When this is the case, it is usually quite obvious if the waitstaff is to blame, or some other functionary in the restaurant. I rarely tip if I don't stick around, though will if I have change from cash payment, or simply happen to get on well with whoever I'm dealing with.

 

[Undertow]

Everyone bare your axes...but I'm with Doran on this one. [huh]

Folks, I've been in the "customer service" industry for, well, my entire working life. Among other things, I've been a:
1. security guard - laugh it up. But what are you going to do when you're locked out of your office and need to get some paperwork now? Guess who gets to go out in the rain, in the dark, with no health/life insurance mind, and find you, let you in, help you around the dark office, then walk you out to your lonely car in a parking lot full of muggers? No tip.
2. a student loan officer - again, snicker if you will. But who sits with you over an hour and a half painstakingly helping you fill out your FAFSA, as well as your parents' FAFSA portions, then helps you fill out promisory notes, consolidation notes, etc. on top of trying to actually save you money with federal loans vs. private loans? No tip.
3. a groundskeeper - what's this? You've interrupted me while I was painting a fence to help you (clean up a spill in your kitchen, fix your toilet, realign your patio screen door, get rid of a wasps' nest)? No tip.
4. a limo-driving armed bodyguard. Yeah, they shoulda tipped me, cause that's what you do. And they never did. [huh]
5. Liquor store cashier - Hey, I'm making minimum wage ringing up your 40oz beer - and you expect me to give you expert advice about that cheap Yellowtail chardonnay you keep staring at? Don't tip me or anything - but spend $5 more dollars and get the Pine Ridge.

Look, I tip every time I go out. 20% standard, but if things get hairy, I drop to 10%. I'm no dope, and I have family in the wait staff profession. I know these folks need the money. But hey, I'm not forking over cash because it's expected of me. I don't care what everyone else does.

You wanna work in the wait staff business? Belly up and work. If your owner/manager is an idiot and forgets to seat a party of 8 - who then stiff you; hey, it hurts, but that's the business and you'll just have to work harder next time, i.e. innovate (like take charge and push some tables together).

In Doran's case, he felt service was poor, so he didn't tip. Bravo. If I was the waiter, I'd have had words with my manager or found other employment. Or at the very least, I would have asked my customers if there was anything I could do, personally, to right the wrong. [huh]

 

[Tomasso]

In Doran's case, he felt service was poor, so he didn't tip. Bravo. If I was the waiter, I'd have had words with my manager or found other employment. Or at the very least, I would have asked my customers if there was anything I could do, personally, to right the wrong. [huh]

Sorry, you either leave when you've been, in your mind, mistreated or you muddle through the evening and never return, but not before having a word with the owner. You do not stiff the wait staff for events beyond their control.

 

[Beaubeau]

When I was selling cars in Florida this New York transplant tipped me $50 for selling him the car and "making his wife happy". I used to get real mad in Florida when the grocery stores would put up signs that read; "taking your groceries out to your car is our pleasure, please don't tip the courtesy clerks":rage: I don't know what they were paying the courtesy clerks there, but when I got my first job as a courtesy clerk at 16 I was paid $3.85 an hour and if someone tipped me a buck I kept the money.

I work for the grocery store company you're referring to with the signs.

The company hires baggers or our official term is "Front End Service Clerks" starting at two dollars more than minimum wage. They're not supposed to take tips unless you demand they take it more than three times, and taking tips without it being offered more than three times is actually on our employee papers as a way to get fired.

 

[rumblefish]

About seven of my friends, a cousin and I went to a bar not too far from where I lived at the time. We spent the evening at one end of the bar where two jerky bartenders around our age were taking out from our pile of money as drinks were served. If the pile got sparse, one of us threw a few more twenties on it. As the night wore on it was obvious that these two dummies weren't going to buy back a drink for anyone- OK, but that alone didn't make them dummies. In the last five minutes we spent at that bar, my cousin asks for a glass of water and one of these clowns reaches down, pulls out a bottle of warm water and opens it. As he slides it forward, he takes two dollars from the pile before my cousin got out, "water from the tap would have been fine". Mr. barkeep says, "The water here is terrible". (Remember- not one buy back) While the blood fills up in my eyeballs, two girls walk in and say hello to a few of us as they walk to where we were hanging. They make their way right next to me. I go from a grimace of disgust to a charming smile and I get to witness one of bartenders (who has a huge pile of eight guy's money in front of him, who just charged my cousin for a bottle of warm water, and who hasn't offered one free drink to any of us) say to the two skirts, "First one's on me Ladies" as he taps two shot glasses twice on the bar:rage:. No one but me and the two girls heard this, so I say to them "excuse me"; I reach past them to collect every last penny we left on the bar, dole it out to my company, and ask if anyone has a nickle. I take the nickle and wave the two nudnicks closer, tap the nickle twice on the bar, fling it so it rolls off the bar onto the floor in front of them and say, "that's on us".
I wish I had a camera. It was nice to stand there and take it all in for the next thirty seconds or so, waiting to see if anything would be said.

 

[Land-O-LakesGal]

Tips to Owners of Sallons/ or Barber Shops

Ok someone on this thread was wondering if the should tip the person who does their hair if they are the owner of the shop. Formality rules might say no but let me put my 2 cents in on this:

My Husband just recently purchased his first barber shop. The first week he was at his new shop he was getting 2 hair cuts a day. That was down from 20 to 30 a day at his previous shop. With advertising and word of mouth many of his old clients have found him (the previous shop would not allow him to tell people he was leaving and then told people who came in looking for him that he was either Dead or that he didn't know where he was). My husband is doing better now but definitely still making less than he did in the previous shop with more overhead on top of it. And yes I know this was the risk we took buying a buisness etc etc.....
So should you tip the owner of the shop?
I think you should you don't know their situation but they working just as hard to make you look good as someone who doesn't own the shop. I would still tip owner or not.

 

[Widebrim]

"Waitperson?":eusa_doh: Lived all my life in L.A. and have never heard that neutered term.