As an Australian, I've never really understood tipping at restaurants. I'll tip a few bucks here and there but nowhere near the 20% or whatever the average is in USA. Having said that, food over there is so much cheaper than in Australia that even after paying 20% tips, you probably still come out paying less for meals. I guess for us, the waiter's tips are already calculated into the meal, whereas in the States...it's 'optional', but not really.
Yes, I get that the way we tip in America is confusing to non-Americans, however, waiters in the US get paid less than minimum wage because they are expected to make up the difference with tips. In addition to that, in MANY cases (most?) waiters who do a good job will generally earn MORE money with this system than if they earned a straight minimum wage. People get better service, the waiter gets more money and the restaurant has lower overhead. Win, win, win. If every waiter got paid the same amount just for showing up I guarantee the service would drop over all. In the US we expect good service and the tipping system we have is really the only practical way to enforce it. If a person is a good waiter but in a crappy restaurant so they aren't able to earn good money, they will generally leave for a better restaurant. Better restaurants will get better waiters this way. Bad restaurants get the bad or lazy waiters. Eventually bad restaurants go out of business leaving only good restaurants. Again, win - win. (This last part was a little made up).
Technically it is optional but, you are right, it is considered bad form to not leave a tip even if your waiter is terrible. However, what IS optional is the amount you tip. Leaving 10% (or even just one dollar) as a show of dis-satisfaction is not considered bad if the service warrants it. On the other hand, when you get a waiter that really goes out of their way to make your experience good, you can tip them whatever you want to show your appreciation at them going above and beyond their job.
This makes no sense to me. If you paid more for the meal, but didn't have to tip you would pay the same for a waiter that went above and beyond and a waiter that hardly paid attention. The service in a restaurant is a significant part of your meal experience. With tipping for service you essentially have a way to control how much you pay for the quality of service you get.
I tip the same whether the service is good or bad. If service is terrible, I won't go back to the restaurant at all. It's on them to make sure to hire good waiters. That's bad for good waiters and good for bad waiters. But, I didn't invent this stupid system. If a waiter is only getting $2/hour and doesn't get the tips to make ends meet, that's on him -- if he's a good worker, he can get a different job where the salary is steady. His career choices aren't my responsibility.
Usually when I go out with the other half we'll leave £5 as a basic amount, if the service/food was poor, we'll leave less, if it was exceptional we'll leave more.
If you get bad service, rather than leaving a bad tip, I've found it's far more effective to either leave a bad review online, or speak to the manager while you are still there. On NYE my wife and I went to a pretty nice restaurant in Austin, and had terribly slow service. I don't think it was our waiters fault, so I left him a good tip. The problem was they were backed up in the kitchen. I left a review on Yelp, and a few days later a manager contacted me to apologize and sent me a $50 gift card.
Last time a waitress pissed me off i left her a dollar plus difference I usually tip 20% too but i felt she was mucking with me.
Had some horrible service one night when my sister took me out to dinner. My sister, who has been in the service industry for 15+ years, added a ? after Tip and then wrote Try harder. If you bust your ass with a good attitude, most people will recognize that and reward your work. The opposite is also true.
Exactly how I feel about this. I was a bartender in College, and after tip outs to the buss boys, hostess, etc. it's hard to make money unless tipped. Our staff put up with a lot more rude people than one could imagine, but they still did their jobs with pride. If you've never waited table/bartended you have no idea what kind of stiffs one deals with on a daily basis, yet you still have to be polite and basically kiss their ass, because they're the customer. I always tip above 20%, but I have my rotations of restaurants and tipping well gets you faster and better service when they know you do. I can't remember the last time I had a waiter than even came close to making me upset. I get more upset with friends when they do nothing but gripe about the tiniest little inconveniences.
So true. People don't realize the amount of utter bull**** that workers in the service industry have to put up with. It's astounding really ... so many people come in who feel like they are justified in treating the staff like ****. It's like they're waiting for the opportunity to pounce on something and declare their superiority as a human being - without realizing that the waitstaff/barstaff has probably seen it all before, and probably a hundred times (depending on time in the industry). And really, it's just cheap to refuse tips or to tip like a miser because there's the off-chance that your waiter/bartender/waitress might make more money than someone you know. Way to defend society against the evil waitstaff! How dare they make money!
So what? Why do I need to pay a % of the meal? Is a waitstaff at a cheap restaurant less deserving than a waitstaff at an expensive restaurant? The system sucks and the job requires no skills.
You don't need to pay a percentage of the meal - you need to leave a reasonable tip for the service you received while knowing that the staff gets paid $2.15 an hour otherwise. The system does suck, but it requires a lot of skills that not everyone has. For example, how much bull**** could you put up with on any given day and still smile at your next customers? How long could you stand a bunch of low-level nobodies sitting smugly at a table and silently projecting their superiority all over you? Screaming kids, huge tables of cheap-ass Sunday brunchers who never tip, petty bureaucrats and bankers who decide to lord their 5-figure income over you with subtle hints that they're "dissatisfied with the service," and people like you who think they're making an important social statement when they look down on the waitstaff and refuse to tip.
I'll never understand why this is such a contentious topic on this board... I tip for good service because it's a nice thing to do. It really shouldn't be any more complicated than that. 15% - average service 20% - decent service 30% - good service 0.00000001% of the time I won't tip and that's only if server isn't even trying. This has happened maybe twice in my entire life. (recently at Yao's restaurant, but that's another thread...) If you can afford to go out and spend $40 at a restaurant, what's another $10 if you had a good server? Bunch of tightwads on this site...no wonder so many have such a problem getting laid...
i don't like the idea of tipping but when i go out i know it's expected. and i tip reasonably and accordingly. i don't short tip for bad service either. i know people have bad days or slow service may not necessarily be there fault, i don't punish them for it. i always leave at least 15%. if it's absolutely horrible i'll just never visit again.
They would get minimum wage otherwise. If tips don't cover the difference between their hourly wages and minimum wage then the employer has to pay them.
by the way, is there anything more annoying than eating out with a group and having that one person/couple who thinks tax and their coke doesn't count toward their bill? makes me want to punch them in the groin.
