Tipping

[Ellie]

I call BS on the "something the British find ridiculous" line. I'm from Britain, and people tip all the time.

When I go to a restaurant or whatever, I generally tip if the service has been good, or if the meal has been good. For example, I went in Chiquitos and my food didn't arrive for an hour, and they didn't refund it or anything, so of course I didn't leave a tip. But then I went to some pancake place whose pancakes were exceptional, and the service was great, so I gave the waitress a fiver before leaving.

If someone said "you haven't tipped" I definately wouldn't tip them, because if I didn't tip it's because either:
a, it wasn't worth tipping
b, I didn't have any spare change on me

 

[kaze950]

I think tipping is stupid, but I do. Its a stupid cycle. They get tips because they get lower than usual pay, but they get lower than usual pay because they expect tips.

That said, its stupid that tipping is based on a percentage of the bill. Whether your ordered a $25 steak or a $7 kids meal, the work required for the waiter is exactly the same. I say we should tip based on weight.

I still leave a tip if the food is bad or if it takes a while for me to get it, because that's not really the waiters fault.


and 8%? 15%?

Where I come from, the average is generally 20-25 percent.

 

[Prexus]

What I hate, are people who don't tip because the food was bad.

Tips, more often then not, are localized to the Server who served you. Or, are distributed among all the Servers, and not any of the kitchen/back room staff. Very little is it distributed evenly among everyone.

If the kitchen did a poor job of making your food, you complain. You tell your Server, "This food is [not what I wanted/terrible/salty/etc.], I would [just like to let you know that/the meal compensated for/a new meal/etc.]", you don't leave a poor tip. Especially if when you complain, the Server actually listens to what you have to say.

If the service is good, you tip good. If the service is bad, you tip bad. By the by, you should never tip nothing unless you are just cheap. If the service is really bad, tip a single penny. That makes much more of a statement then no tip at all.

Or if you are filling out the Tip section on a credit card bill, write a negative value. That is always fun to do.



To address Despain, though, about tipping at Buffets. It entirely depends on the waitstaff and. If you get there, are seated properly, asked if you want drinks, and then left alone except when you need something, things are pretty good. If when you are done with a plate, you get up to get another, and the plates are still there when you get back, things are pretty bad. I base my tips off that. Or if the waitstaff asks me for identification when purchasing alcohol.

 

[Kraft]

However much loose change I have in my pocket sounds about what I pay.  Unless they did a really good job, then I throw in a dollar or two...  and If I dont have any, well too bad for them ^_^

I generally disagree with the 15% thing...  Especially when you go to a restaurant with 6 people and the check is around $98... (it was a big fancy place, which doesnt happen too often ^_^)

 

[Prexus]

Six people $98? I can spend that between TWO people at a restaurant.

 

[The Wizard]

I really do think people should leave some sort of tip.  I myself actually tip the cook since they are the ones actually making the food that I'm going to eat.  I'll tip the waiter/waitress too but I don't leave out the cook(s).  I do tip based on service and food quality.  I'll tip the cook on food appearance, food taste, consistency with ingredients, etc. (I used to be a chef), and if its piss poor they get nothing, if its acceptable/mediocre they get 5% of the value of the actual food item, if its above standards 10%.  Same goes with waiters/waitresses, but I'll give them a nice crisp dollar bill for a poor job (Some servers are actually more insulted for a dollar tip than no tip).

I can see why people don't tip also, but honestly being in the industry it can be very demanding and some compensation should be made.

 

[Venetia]

Question: I always want to tip the cook (I'm usually 100% more impressed with them than the server), but how do you? Paying with credit cards, I mean.

 

[kaze950]

If there's any blank space on the receipt (Where you would normally write the tip if paying by credit card), maybe you can write

dollar amount - cook
dollar amount - server

and just hope they respect your wishes.

 

[Venetia]

Huh. Never knew that. They don't teach you these things in "how to be a growed-up school". :/

 

[kaze950]

I'm sure such a school would be infinitely more useful than most high school classes.

 

[eharper256]

I call BS on the "something the British find ridiculous" line. I'm from Britain, and people tip all the time.

When I go to a restaurant or whatever, I generally tip if the service has been good, or if the meal has been good. For example, I went in Chiquitos and my food didn't arrive for an hour, and they didn't refund it or anything, so of course I didn't leave a tip. But then I went to some pancake place whose pancakes were exceptional, and the service was great, so I gave the waitress a fiver before leaving.

Huh, okay... maybe its just my family that taught me to be a frugal, scavvy bastard with tips then...must be that scottish blood. I'd never tip a fiver unless I'd just spent 100 quid or more already, at which point it seems very little in the grand scale of things, and so is less relevant.

Not like I can afford a meal worth a hundred pounds anyway. I grimaced the other night paying 12 pounds for myself out with my friends at the chinese buffet. In fact, I deliberately ate three stacked plates to show my disdain, which is saying something since I'm not usually a heavy eater. But then, I guess I'm also the kind of guy who uses vouchers and coupons exclusively in resturants. :lol:

Question: I always want to tip the cook (I'm usually 100% more impressed with them than the server), but how do you? Paying with credit cards, I mean.

If you were in a sufficiently good resturant where the cook actually makes the food, rather than using preprepared stuff, then personally, I would get the waiter to drag them out so you could compliment them, rather than trying to giving them a tip. Seems more personal to me, and chances are the head chef is on a better wage than the waiters already.

 

[Ellie]

Dragging them out of the kitchen means other people's meals are late though, and giving them tips through the serving window (if there is one) means they have to find a pocket/their wallet, which they probably don't have in their chef suit (or whatever you'd call it).

 

[Venetia]

I've never been to a restaurant where the cook walks out of the kitchen to greet you, and I've been to some damn fancy places. I have, however, been to places where you get a tour of the kitchen, but that's generally for buying their most expensive meal on the menu.

 

[eharper256]

I've never been to a restaurant where the cook walks out of the kitchen to greet you, and I've been to some damn fancy places. I have, however, been to places where you get a tour of the kitchen, but that's generally for buying their most expensive meal on the menu.

I never said they come out and greet you. Never seen such a place myself either.

Also, what about a Carvery? You can't not greet the chef there...since they cut your meat and such in front of you. Although the Sunday Roast and Carvery is probably mainly British, I guess (could be wrong though). There is the same sort of thing with those conveyer sushi resturants. As in, a maniac chef in the middle throwing his knives around, that is...

Dragging them out of the kitchen means other people's meals are late though, and giving them tips through the serving window (if there is one) means they have to find a pocket/their wallet, which they probably don't have in their chef suit (or whatever you'd call it).

Because they have no subordinates to shove the work onto, even if temporarily? But sure, that points out another reason not to tip the chef. They're gonna have to find somewhere to put it, and then steralise themselves (hopefully) again before resuming cooking.

 

[Prexus]

More than likely, the wait staff and/or management would keep the tips for the chef until the end of the night. Or have some sort of 'Chef Tip Jar' in the back near the kitchen.

 

[Calibre]

Carvery's are amazing.

It's just a cultural difference really.  You guys think it's your job to pay their wages and we think it's the restaurants job.

So ok for restaurants but where would it stop?  Do you want to tip a retail worker when you a buy a pair of jeans or the pilot when you go on a flight?  It's all the same to me.  I mean other than getting shitty wages how hard is putting a plate on someones table and smiling.  I've done it, it's easy.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Vennie... Go to Morton's Steak House.  It's a really ritzy place that can easily be super expensive.  $60 cuts of beef, $80 lobsters, hell a backed potato can be $20 etc.  The service is magnificent as well, though a bit odd.  There isn't really a normal "menu", the waiter comes over with a cart and shows you what is being served, in a sort of display.  Speaks about it, tells you about it, even answers questions about it - then hands you a menu.

At your request the cook will come out to speak to you - if not busy, since this is a real place they have multiple chefs like an actual saucier and all that.  You can congratulate him, or whatever.  Hell if you eat your lobster correctly you get congratulated.

Come up sometime and we'll have a talk with the chef.

And if you don't tip, btw, they take your picture as your walking out and put you in the counter space.  If you come in and someone recognizes you or whatnot, or anything, they open their li'l booklet of Polaroids and decide not to serve you if they find you.  They might take the rest of your party, but you are not allowed in.
Though that hasn't really happened in a long time I'm led to understand, it's like a dead policy but a policy they have nonetheless.

 

[second_crimson]

I really do NOT understand people who don't tip. It's disgusting. In America, at least, it is assumed that if you go out to a restaurant and get food at a sit down restaurant that you can tip your server. If you can't afford at LEAST 15% of your bill, then you really shouldn't be dining out.

I understand it's a flawed system, and yes I do think that in a perfect world, tips would be just for extraordinary service. But it's not that way, and not tipping will not change that. It just makes you look like a jerk, and I'm tempted to think that many people who use the Resevoir Dogs argument just use it because they're cheap.

If you do not tip, that server makes no money. I make $2.13/hr before tips. So if you don't tip me, that's what I make. Now, legally the restaurant is supposed to reimburse me at the end of the month if I have made less than minimum wage...and only to minimum wage. So if no one ever tips me, I have to wait until the end of the month, to be reimbursed to minimum wage...for a job so much more stressful than flipping burgers.

Servers typically work hard for their money. Sure there are bad servers, but it's a job just like everything else, and your tip is part of their salary. It's an intensely stressful, draining job and it's usually very degrading work. I can't count how often I have felt demeaned because of shitty customers. But I put up with it and I smile because it's my job.

Maybe if you can engineer a great societal change, both in culture and law so that your server is still being paid and you can go home with that oh-so-important three extra dollars then you can stop tipping. But until then, all you are doing is looking for an excuse to be stingy.

 

[Despain]

So if no one ever tips me, I have to wait until the end of the month, to be reimbursed to minimum wage...for a job so much more stressful than flipping burgers.

Man I love how waiters just associate fast food with "lol flipping burgers". When it comes down to it, working at the counter or the drive through is a lot closer to being a waiter than you'd imagine. You have to deal with the same kind of crap with customers. The only difference is that you have to deal with more of it, because in fast food you could get over fifty customers an hour where waiters at sit-down places might be dealing with two or three tables.

Couple that with the crazy time limit they place on everything (both the company and the customers who expect their food instantly ready for them) and I'd hardly say that fast food is less stressful than sit-down. It's probably more.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

Speaking of fast food, I forgot to mention.  Des, my McDonalds has little plexiglass tip jars :p

They're even built into the little bulletproof and barred drive through window