Restaurant Tipping

I am curious as to how we got to the point where a tip is based on the amount of a meal. For instance. a friend and I spent $120.00 at dinner tonight. Friends of ours, a couple, at another table spent $80.00. We received the same good service yet our 20% tips were obviously different. Tips are meant to represent appreciation for service provided yet seems to be more related to dollars spent. I will continue to tip according to current norms but thought it might be interesting to hear from others.

sunnysideup

It’s an outdated practice that doesnt make a lot of sense in my opinion. I also made a thread on it, when I find it I’ll send it to you in a pm.

Though I still grudgingly tip a bit above average compared to the norm.

ClubSamwiches

I always tip MINIMUM 20% and always in cash. However, I adjust up according to the complexities of what the table ordered and how long we were sitting there. If we’re having craft cocktails- obviously the bartender will get a cut and should be compensated for their time and effort. If there are food runners/bar backs/bus boys, they get tipped out too so I’ll add another $5 in for that. I think $20/hr is the most fair minimum wage so if I’m at the table for an hour but my bill is only like $50, I’ll tip the $20 for the server’s time.

Obviously my system is complex and generous according to society’s standards, but personally it doesn’t sit right for me to think someone deserves less than a fair minimum wage because the cost of my food was minimal.

Ironman294

I always double the tax and add more if service was especially good. I was in Reno this spring and my BBQ lunch was twenty bucks, the waitress mentioned she had a new born so I tipped her 40 bucks. Not typical but sometimes I like to do a little more depending on the situation. When I vacation in a country where wages are 10% of our average wages. I tip equal or double the to the bill To put Americans and Asians in a good light.

@sunnysideup Yes, maybe outdated but I am not sure what a better system would be.

entwine

Yup... It's definitely interesting.

I think it was @sunnysideup thread I posted what irks me the most is now with online services and delivery, they ask for a tip upfront... Like what. I don't even know how the service was yet...and in Vegas they had tip lines at retail shops. Wat. I have to tip them for ringing me up now? Just give me a kiosk...or pay your employees better... I'm already spending $80s for a belt...end of soap box

@SweetiSammi I like your style.

@Ironman294 That was really a cool thing to do.

sunnysideup

@Btown In my opinion, the solution is to simply pay workers a fair wage, like all other jobs.

@entwine Thanks for the post. Soap boxing is ok sometimes.

Mike403

I deliver for Grubhub on the side and we make around $3 per order plus tips. (no hourly wage). We can deliver about 2 orders per hour(sometimes 3) if it's busy. We also use our own vehicles and pay for our own gas.

@sunnysideup I understand but I don't think restaurants make much off of food.

@Mike403 I would tip you more.

sunnysideup

Restaurants would have to increase the price to factor in the cost of servers, just like the cost of the chefs and rent and electric are alreadyfactored in. In effect, the price wouldn’t change for people that tip decently, and people that tip poorly would be forced to pay their fair share or not dine out at all. This would eliminate the generous tippers if tipping is disallowed.

Since most people tip around 20%, this should just be automatically added to their prices while making tips completely optional or disallowed, if they ew t to incentivize servers for sales.

@sunnysideup Good points. I wonder if raising prices would result in loss of business.

sunnysideup

The price wouldnt change for people that tip decently - $10 burger and $2 tip vs. $12 burger with no tipping allowed/discouraged/optional. Same price.

People that tip poorly might see the $12 price and not dine out at all. However, if all restaurabts did this, then every restaurant they go to will have similarly increased their prices. And those servers might wish those types of tippers never eat out at all to begin with.

JohnR1972

I always tip a minimum of 20% and usually between 25 - 30% depending on a variety of factors. I remember hearing radio talk show host Dave Ramsey say years ago that the amount of the tip says more about the person doing the tipping than the person receiving the tip.

@JohnR1972 Good point.

pmvines

I tip what I feel is representative of the service. That being said , I very rarely tip small unless it is just service beyond repair. Also depends a bit on my mood. Last week I tipped 8 dollars on a 50 dollar meal. Tonight I tipped 20 dollars on a 30 dollar meal. On the way home I stopped at waffle house for a cup of coffee , which was 225 . Gave her a 5 and said to keep the change so that was technically an over 100 percent tip, but still nothing you can really do much with. The percentage of tip based on cost of food is silly . A 50 dollar steak and 20 dollar steak require no special care between the two. No difference in how they are brought to the table or picked up when done.

@pmvines Thanks for posting. I agree that it is silly to base a tip on cost of food. Maybe Sunnysideup is right about raising the price of food and eliminate tipping.

Ironman294

Well depending on what the state decides on hourly wages if in The state of food I’ll e it’s 10 per hr. Wait staff will make 3 plus tips, what hapoens is if they do an 8 hr shift and tips and wages don’t equal the 80 dollars owners have to add in the balance. I’m busy places the wait staff would rather make the lower amount and keep their tips. My buddy in college worked at a theme restaurant in nyc and he would make as host 200 on tips on a slow day and 500 on a good day, he definitely wouldn’t want tips eliminated. And this was after tipping out to the kitchen staff and busboys.

Ironman294

@Btown thanks but I hope the waitress made a lot of money all her other shifts.

DaringSprinter

I'm with @sunnysideup. Restaurants should pay their workers a living wage, not force them to depend on the undependable generosity of customers.

The federal minimum wage for tipped workers in the US is $2.13 an hour. And in some states employers get "tip credits," so if an employee gets enough tips they earn less money from their boss: employers are required to make up the difference if your tips and wages combined don't hit the un-tipped minimum wage for your state, but if you're granted enough tips to hit minimum wage all you'll see from your boss is the $2.13.

As a tipped worker you'll always make minimum wage no matter how hard you do or don't work, but it takes a lot of generosity to get you to a living wage. A surprising number of people confuse those two. They're very different.

Tips aren't meant to express appreciation for service provided. They're meant to keep wages low.

UCpaaHVg6u0

@DaringSprinter I have a world of respect for you but tipping is meant to allow the guest some input into how they are served in a business where the quality of service makes the meal in large part. I'm also a tipped worker, and unfortunately most people seem to be oblivious to standards of tipping when they get a massage. That is, they'll rave about the massage but not pay anywhere near the 20% of RETAIL (not discounted) value of the massage. This seems to be a regional thing, and in Philly I received about half of my pay in tips. Here it is maybe a third on a good day. This "living wage" thing sounds good on paper, but what I'm seeing is that some of the prices of major consumer items are way out of whack and are not at all the fault of the employer. Real estate and rents are too damned high, largely because well to do Boomers parked retirement savings into vacation homes, second homes, AirBnb's, and other real estate investments, jacking up the market for the struggling folks. How is it on struggling small employers to make up for that? We need some tax credits to make up for it, perhaps.

DaringSprinter

@UCpaaHVg6u0: You didn't follow the links, I take it. One of the downsides of embedding them, I guess—it makes them easy to miss. Look for the blue text!

Let's say you're a single, tipped worker in Mississippi, where the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour (living wage: $14.20 / hr).

The minimum your boss has to pay you is $2.13 an hour, and they get a $5.12 tip credit.

Let's say you work one hour and get no tips, for whatever reason—you're a bad worker, customers are oblivious or racist or transphobic or—whatever. Your boss pays you $7.25.

Now suppose you got $5 in tips! Yay! Your boss pays you $2.25 and you go home just as poor as if no one had taken pity on you at all.

How much input has the guest had into how they are served?

If you can't give people a living wage, at least pay them the same minimum wage everyone else gets without taking their tips from them to support all those struggling small employers who apparently need the generosity of strangers more than their minimum wage workers do.

There's a reason tipping became so popular in the US after the Civil War, and it wasn't to support small businesses.

DaringSprinter

Just a thought, but maybe if you can't pay your employees enough for them to live—really live, not just survive another day while slowly starving overall—maybe you shouldn't employ people.

It may not be your fault that you're too poor to run a business! But obviously you are. Why should others suffer so you can call yourself a business owner?

Seven facts about tipped workers and the tipped minimum wage, a 2018 article by the Economic Policy Institute—extra reading for those who're interested enough for extra reading. (Yes, the bold text is clickable.)

cuddleversed

This is a little outdated but I've always found mr Pink's thoughts on tipping very entertaining

JohnR1972

@DaringSprinter - good points. This was an eye opening video from one of my favorite YouTube creators that gave me a whole new understanding of tipping.

simsaddict

I tend to tip between $5-15.
My bank account & the atmosphere of the place influence my tip amount.

Being from Australia we don’t or have ever done this but I personally think it shouldn’t happen. Do we tip emergency services when they help or save lives? Do they not deserve the tip more than anyone? Just my thoughts.

sunnysideup

Most other restaurants in the world don't do tipping, and their restaurants get by fine.

Busy restaurants will likey be very lucrative for servers, so much so that they make more than the chefs themselves. But slower restaurants or restaurants with more affordable meals will be at the mercy of tips (The $10 steak at the diner and the $30 steak at the Cheesecake Factory both require equal effort from the server, but they will receive much different tip). At the same time, we don't tip food service workers at restaurants like Chipotle, the people who deliver our packages, make the products we like, run the servers we use, utilities we enjoy, roads we drive on, cashiers who ring us up and bag our groceries, water we drink etc

I think it's hard for us to move away from tipping culture because it gives a chance for servers at busy restaurants to make a lot of money, and gives the customers the opportunity to feel like they are doing something good (I was nice today I tipped my waitress $6 on a $20 bill). But I'd rather tipping culture went away for the many reasons listed in this thread.