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Tips on tipping?


Jerome Miller

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3 hours ago, Jerome Miller said:

How much do you guys usually tip waitresses when getting take-out food, if you tip them at all? 

1. You are not obliged to tip anything.  Gratuities are earned.

2. I tend not to tip at all if I am getting take-out from a restaurant I am visiting for the first time.. 

3. If I enjoy the food and the restaurant becomes a regular hang-out, then I tip 15% to 20%.  The amount of my tip depends on the quality of service I received the previous visit.  If I have to wait a bit, but my food is piping hot, then all's good.  If I have to wait a bit and my food is cold, then we have a problem.  Reverse that if I ordered cold subs or sushi.

4. If the food is really good on a constant basis, then I will tip anywhere from 25% to 30%.  When I show my appreciation as a customer, the wait staff and cooks tend to remember me and magically my order seems to get prepared before anyone else's or I find an extra coupon or something with my meal.

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The idea of tipping has started to make me uncomfortable recently.

I like the sentiment of being good to your server, but I always wonder if the money I'm intending to go to them actually ends up there.

Part of me wishes prices would just go up about 20% so servers could just be paid properly and tipping would go away. But I doubt that genie ever goes back in the bottle.

As it is now, I tip 20% for delivery or dine-in, nothing if I'm just going to pick up takeout myself. Exceptional service, I go a little higher, and I try to give cash to the server personally so I'm (more?) sure they're the one who benefits.

 

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For take-out, it depends somewhat on how often I go to a place. I'll give a few bucks to the local chinese place or local burger place because we're there so often. Other places, I'll toss in a couple of dollars instead. In general, I lean much closer to 10% than 20% on take-out. 

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I usually tip 20%, more if the server was really good.  I do go down to 15 or possibly even lower if they just plain bad.  I wouldn't just not tip, though, even if not tipping probably makes sense.

20% for tattoo artists.  I never tipped tattoo artists at first because I didn't know better.  Then, in a conversation with my last guy, I found out that he only gets 50% of the cost of the tattoo while the shop gets the other half.  That's a shitty split IMO, so it's a good idea to help out a little.  

I go a little over 20% on haircuts since $2.40 on a $12 haircut just sounds low.

I tip takeout if it's someplace I go to regularly or if it's a large and/or complex order.  Not the fully 20%, though.  Just a few bucks.  Remember, at a decent restaurant, a server is probably taking the time to carefully box/bag your shit and that takes away from the time they're working tables.  On the flip side, tossing 2 burgers into a sack probably won't get a tip.

I have a love/hate relationship with restaurants that will do takeout but not over the phone.  There's a Coastal Flats by me that only does takeout if you go to the bar in person and order.  So you have to just sit there and wait.  The flip side is, hey, I can drink a beer while I wait so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Having worked as a delivery driver, restaurant manager, and bar owner I tend to overtip.  Delivery, usually 30% if they're on time, but at least $5.  I've tipped $5 for a free pizza before, most places don't give the whole delivery fee to the driver, some places it's less than half.  Dine-in starts at 30% and can run to 40% or better for exceptional service.  I also try and tip in cash whenever possible, credit card tips get added to paychecks and taxed at most places anymore.  Carside to go service usually $5, the only place we do this is Applebee's and we only go there if the wife or I get a gift card for a birthday or Christmas gift--at least at our local Applebee's it's the hostess that runs the orders out so it's not a waitress or bartender pulled away from tipping customers.  I always throw in a few bucks at the locally owned pizza place when picking up an order there, ownership has changed a few times but the quality remains high and it's been around forever.  Haircuts $3-5.  Furniture/appliance delivery $10-20 per person, depending on how many pieces/trips they have to make.  

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I would be perfectly happy to dispense with tipping as an institution and simply paying service workers a living wage, but since that isn't the world we live in here in America, I tip.

If I'm picking up food and taking it away, I don't tip. Wrapping the food up and putting it in a bag is the same thing they do at McDonald's, and I don't tip there, either.

I always tip for delivery. Coming out to my house is another story, and most delivery people are like servers in that they're paid essentially nothing, and tips are how they make money period. Delivery fees at pizza places and the like go to the restaurant, not the delivery person. 20% is my baseline for delivery. If I go under 15%, you took forever and forgot stuff. Usually I'm at around 25%.

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9 hours ago, Mike Zeidler said:

I for one overtip for just that reason, Marty.  Delivery drivers get AT LEAST $5, even if the order is only $15

Similar tipping rules for delivery drivers: Not many people give a lot of good delivery driver tipping rules, but

 I've always been steadfast for delivery drivers the following rules of thumb should be taken:

1-Bare minimum for delivery drivers: No matter how bad the service was or how angry you were at the delivery-  ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS  at least round the bill up to the dollar. Period.  Even if it was a terrible delivery- delivery drivers do not carry change on hand lower than dollars, and even if their delivery was terrible, they will have to drive back to the restaurant, get the change, then drive back to give you the coins in change...and even if the driver was so bad that you feel you have to teach them a lesson by making that happen, then think of the next person after you who will have just as bad an experience as you did due to these wait times. 

2- As far as regular tipping rulesets- I've always been steadfast about this law of equivalency in delivery driver's tips:

-The bare minimum that you should tip your delivery driver is roughly equivalent to the cost of one gallon of gas in your area. (It probably won't take them a gallon of gas  to get from the restaurant to you, but that's the point- it likely means at the bare minimum, they can keep upkeep for their car up while also having a small profit for the delivery.)

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I tend to over-tip, because my dad was a delivery driver for years so I know how little he made and how much he depended on tips. I also know how many people give $15 on an order of $14.33 and ask for change.

For carryout/pick-up though I tend to not tip anything. I just don't see it as them doing anything tip-worthy, and cashiers (I am not even sure who keeps the tip in those cases) are paid a normal minimum wage and don't depend on it like delivery drivers and waiters. While I agree the whole system is silly, I think people would revolt is prices went up 20% all of a sudden so I don't think it is something that will ever change. I also don't under-tip for things that aren't the waiter's fault, but even if the waiter sucks I tend not to tip below 15%. They say the thing to do if a waiter is terrible is to talk to management, as low tips likely don't matter to people that suck at their job and hate it anyway.

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I work in the service industry. So, my practices are VERY skewed.

Minimum is 20% for dining out and usually more. I eat breakfast out by myself about once a week. The bill is usually between $10 and $15. Regardless, five or six bucks is always plopped down.

Just drinking at the bar, it's a dollar a beer/two ingredient drink. Sometimes it's two depending on how busy it is. If I get a cocktail that takes more than two steps to make, two bucks. If I run a tab instead of paying as I go, it's usually more than a dollar a drink, especially if I close the place down.

Take out gets a couple to five bucks. More often that not, the bar is taking your order over the phone. They have to tip out a food runner and if they don't have one, they are sometimes responsible for packing up my order. If they have to tip out a food runner and I stiff them, I'm cutting into their take home.

I don't EVER not tip. Doesn't matter if the food isn't hot or takes too long. Ain't the servers fault. If it's busy, I know the server can't give me their full attention. If the server seems in a bad mood or flustered, I have absolutely no idea what has gone on that shift or in their day to cause it. More often than not, a good tip when they're not on their game can rescue a shift.

On top of this, I'm pretty easy to please and don't really need or want a lot of attention from a server. The conversation with my favorite waitress at my favorite breakfast joint in town goes like this: "Hey. Something to drink for ya?" Coffee and a water, please. "Ready to order?" Yup, I'll have a veggie omelette, hot sauce, whatever jelly y'all have today, rye toast, and mustard for the potatoes. "Alright, cool." *comes back after a few bites* "Everything good?" Yup.

A refill on the coffee, maybe one on the water. That's it. Five or six bucks goes to her, I get the hell out of there and free up the seat.

That's all that is needed.

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No tips on takeout. Handing me a bag of food isn't tip-worthy. 

I tip 20-25% at restaurants but resent it. The idea of paying somebody extra to do their job - not extra just their standard job - bugs me. Especially since, here in Washington, there is no separate wage for servers. $10/hr plus tips here. $15 in Seattle. 

Just raise the prices 10% or something and eliminate tipping completely. 

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10 hours ago, southofheavy said:

Take out gets a couple to five bucks. More often that not, the bar is taking your order over the phone. They have to tip out a food runner and if they don't have one, they are sometimes responsible for packing up my order. If they have to tip out a food runner and I stiff them, I'm cutting into their take home.

THIS is what people fail to understand (or just refuse to get because they're resentful or just plain cheap).  Ordering takeout from an actual sit-down establishment that has staff who rely on tips is not the same as calling ahead to Five Guys.

Bonus points for the whole "I don't skip the tip because I don't know what's going on to make the server so shitty today."  I'll only tip poorly if the server is a straight-up asshole, though.  My wife and I went out to a slightly upscale but still casual place and we were dressed down because it was the weekend and we're tired and don't give two shits.  We weren't in the mood for appetizers and my wife didn't feel like wine.  We just wanted a decent main course and maybe dessert.  The waitress was very condescending ("NOTHING to start you off???"  "NO wine??") and, once she figured us for poors who obviously would be leaving a bad tip, proceeded to offer shitty service the rest of the night.  So her belief that we'd tip badly became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Joke's on you, dummy.  I have money, I just didn't feel like giving it to you.

 

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I generally do 18% steady to my usual delivery places.  No tips if I'm getting it myself.  If we're eating out, flat starts at 18%, outstanding service will go up to $20, and things that annoy me drop the tip amount.  If my kids are with me and they're kept waiting, the tip drops at regular intervals, faster if the server doesn't acknowledge my wait.  If the wait is clearly not the fault of the server and they acknowledge that I'm waiting and that they are doing what they can, then I won't punish them.

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In the industry as well, so I am an over tipper too (mostly for the karma), but $5 for delivery is reasonable if it costs somewhere from $10-30. I tip on takeout as well, somebody cooked that shit and tips don't just go to the server. Dining in, I pretty much always leave 20%, unless special circumstances arise. Like southofheavy I'm pretty easy to please, so less tipping happens when you go out of your way to be a neglectful server.

I'm not greedy when it comes to getting tips, I work in a really nice restaurant, so I do quite well and a lesser tip on one table is usually balanced out by a better tip somewhere else, but anything under 10% basically means I've paid to serve you, once you subtract support staff, bar and kitchen tip outs. I know servers who live and die emotionally with every tip and that seems like a stressful way to do a job that can be unduly stressful anyway. Go in and put in your work and it will balance itself out.

My thinking is (and I apply this to myself as well), if you can afford to eat out, you can afford to tip.

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While I love tips, because fucking cash motherfucker, I'm not sold on the system of tipping either, but a blanket raising of prices is not the answer. Most restaurants have razor thin food and labour costs to keep prices where they are and people think it is too expensive now. Raising prices, while looking like a solution to that problem, would be a death knell to a lot of borderline restaurants (and considering the 1-5 year mortality rate on the majority of new restaurants, it would be a lot harder for new places to get a foothold). The system is far from perfect, but prices as they are, with a tip left to the customers discretion is still better than jacking things up across the board.

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All of that.

I feel the same way about the tipping system, but unless you find me a restaurant that's going to pay me $15-$20 an hour, I ain't gonna budge. Way I see it, the owners would have to cut into their bottom line to make that happen, and well, good luck on that one.

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Even past the tipping system, it needs to be accepted as a necessary evil and part of the restaurant experience or delivery experience as a full.

Even if tipping isn't a thing in your country or you don't see the point of tipping and think the "Just increase the prices 20%, give them a raise to regular wages, and account for that as the tip to kill tipping!", that doesn't account for two big parts of it:

1- If the restaurant itself handles that tipping fee, that fee won't go to the server (or the busboys/cooks who they tip out to). We see it with delivery fees- the service employees will only get a portion of it and the rest will be pocketed by the restaurant.

2- Even if they did give them the raise- or find a restaurant that'd pay $15-20 an hour...people are inherently greedy, and because of that- the genie isn't going back in the bottle for tipping. Even if it's a 20% increase to give the workers minimum wage, even if they get $20 an hour...servers/delivery staff would still keep the tipping system going to get even more money. 

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I don't necessarily agree with point 2. If a restaurant is going to pay their servers and bartenders a living wage (not minimum wage, mind you), they'd get rid of tipping as part of policy or include the gratuity into the bill. This is already happening at a couple restaurants in NYC. The servers don't have a choice in the matter, unless they choose to work somewhere else. There isn't any double dipping at these places. They are high-end/fine dining, so the servers are still making a good living, as far as I know.

The last place I worked at...honestly, anything other than $25 an hour and I'm losing money due to taxes. It hurt having to walk away from that kind of money, but it had to be done.

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