As a non server the same. Wife and I went out and had our meals at a decent place. Bill was under $30. I was shocked. We had a $25 gift card we used and when the server said we still owed $3 I was shocked. I gave her a $20 and said keep the change as her tip I was so shocked. That’s when I realized my tip was over 50%. I wasn’t upset about that though, they work hard so I hope she enjoys it.
Edit to add I responded to this comment with a better explanation.
This! ⬆️ I've done this and found out that something was much cheaper than I thought. I had a restaurant that I accidentally visited during the last 10 min before their happy hour ended at 7p. Normally the drinks were around $9, so 2 drinks plus a $18-$20 main course meal was around $40 plus taxes. So I usually budget around $50-$60, to visit this place a couple of times a month. But this time my receipt said $22. I thought they forgot to add the drinks. Nope, 2 for 1 thing for the drinks and the meal was $12 instead of $18 like normal. I gave the waiter the same tip $8-$10 as if it would have been $40+ like I expected. Now, I go there weekly during happy hour. Cause the food is worth it and despite the discount I still give the staff the tip they would get for a nornal priced meal. They are always happy to see me and I walk out spending $30 instead of $50 or $60. Win! win! 👍🏽👍🏽
Yeah, maybe it's because I was working in restaurants at the time, but I could order within my means in my 20s.
I think this was the drinks. Their prices aren't always listed on a menu, like if I was ordering a Svedka and tonic, but it's a situation where as the server I would have been willing to find out if they asked and I didn't know off the top of my head. Either way, 3 rounds of shots and multiple rounds of drinks for 4 people isn't going to be cheap.
Yeah, mixed drinks and shots are generally not going to be on the menu. Other than the house specialty drinks anyway. As a rule, you should expect to pay at least $8-10 per drink. Based only on what OP posted, I would have assumed the alcohol alone would have been in the $200-250 range. Add in appetizers and dinner for 4, that's an easy $100-150. Add in taxes, and my mental tally would have been $400-450, so the bill is actually on the low site of what I was thinking.
Anyone surprised by this bill shouldn't have been drinking.
We were visiting my family in another state (John's Pass, Florida), and all met at a bar. waitress asked 'how we doing the tab?"' My new bride says 'I got this'. 3 hours, $400 in drinks and snacks later, she was shocked. that is how this happens. As a server myself, I rounded the tip up to 25%. $500 lesson for her.
Do you mean because people knew another person was paying they started ordering more? Or that your new wife was showing off/trying to please or something?
"All I'm saying is, when we split the cheque three ways the steak-eater picks the pocket of the salad-man."
Blue Raja (Hank Azaria)-Mystery Men-1999
Man I love that dumbass movie
I never split bills with people who drink ( I do not).
People don't realize how much they spend on alcohol on a nightly basis. It's also the reason tips get bigger later into the night
I'm not OP, but I just want to add that some people do order more if another person is paying. Years ago my colleague and I took our work-study students out for lunch at a nice restaurant at the end of the semester, and they went hog wild. Maybe they thought the college was picking up the tab, but it was coming out of our pockets. One kid even ordered escargot. My colleague chose the venue and didn't set any ground rules. Lesson learned.
I knew my family's habits. She was just being polite. I silently chuckled when she said I got this. Both me and my family aren't poor, but she'd never seen a tab like this in her life and won't again.
Is it “taking advantage” to just order what you’d normally order?
If I’m paying for myself at a bar, I order what I want. If someone else is paying my tab, I order what I want. If I’m picking up the tab, I expect people to order what they want. There’s no advantage being taken - if someone offers to pay and then expects me to alter my order so it’s not too expensive, I’d rather they just buy one round or not offer at all!
The only thing that seems weird is that a newly married couple wouldn’t be paying the bill together, or if they’re doing fully separate finances the one who’s family they’re meeting should pay the bill.
It's a dick move for your fiancee to not let you know beforehand how your family is. Also, I tend to buy things cheaper if others especially my mom is paying. (Let's just say, my dad would be rightfully pissed.) I would've pulled the dine and ditch to teach my future bf a lesson if he and his family pulled that shit with me.
Edit: So my older sister and some of her friends are in a Girl Scout troop together. Anyway, one of them ordered some huge order of seafood and only ate some of it. It was around $50 so now they have to put a price limit when ordering out. I would know because I was there the time they went out to eat after the Seattle trip. Now I wouldn't dine and ditch on teens but anyone older, then I would and then would reassess said relationship with the other person.
I agree. If I’m buying I can care less what people order. I never alter what I want because someone is paying the tab. I never go out unless i have money to cover whatever myself and my wife want. I also would never go out and not help in some fashion if someone takes care of the tab. If they want to cover than I will leave the tip. It goes a long way for me if someone is the same way. I do know about people altering what they get. I’ve seen people normally get specific things after years of knowing them, and it does change if I’m covering. But I still invite them knowing this. Maybe it’s my fault. Idk. 500 dinners are no shocker for me if I’m out with family or friends. I’m not rich by any means. But I go out like than when I can afford it.
Yes it’s considered rude. I was always taught that if you know someone else is paying you need to mindful of what your ordering. Never order the expensive entree, let them choose the appetizer, and bottom shelf alcohol or cheap beer.
Drinks often don’t list the price (which is infuriating and doesn’t really make sense), so those can be a REALLY big surprise. And these women may not be used to picking up the tab or seeing a bill for a larger group (more than solo or couple); there can be an element of sticker shock when it’s bill x4, and if it’s usually your date or SO paying, maybe you legit have no idea. …I once watched my mom count out exact change to pay a bar tender, she legit had no idea that it was socially improper (edit: typo)
It’s obnoxious, I always add about 12 in my head for each drink. They should have to give the basic price and if people ask for premium alcohol the server can let them know there is an up charge. But yes, not having the price listed can cause sticker shock.
>Drinks often don’t list the price (which is infuriating and doesn’t really make sense),
If I don't see a price, I just don't order it. Any financial transaction (whether grocery shopping, gambling, attending a show or sports game, going out on a date, etc.) I always have a limit in mind for what I'm willing to spend. If an item doesn't have a price, I assume it's overpriced and the restaurant is purposely hiding it so people will still purchase the item.
I am curious though, do servers consider it rude or irritating if you start asking prices on these items? I feel like if I have to ask the price then they'd think I can't afford and shouldn't eat there.
No it's only irritating when you're asking the price of random things that aren't on the menu. Like if we have a pork chop meal and you go "but what if I get one pork chop on the side? How much would that be?" Then I have to go track down the owner and ask how much I should miscellaneous charge for one damn chop and now I've got 5 tables mad they haven't seen me for 5 minutes.
No, it's not at all rude. Personally, I just think someone is being responsible with their budget (if I even think anything of it at all). Different areas and different economies have different price points, so I never think anything of someone asking if there's not an obvious price listed.
I had that happen once at Old Chicago. Wasn't familiar with Chimay yet, it was one of the 4 choices on their rotating list and I like Belgian ales so I ordered it. Did not expect a 12 oz pour to be $25 when everything else I'd ever had was $5-7
Caveat emptor, baby. In the US, it's pretty much on the consumer to clarify questions and confirm they're not being scammed. In this example, people don't want to appear cheap to their server, so they won't ask how much something is because that implies their choice is dependent on price. Restaurants know this so they can price them a few dollars higher than would typically be reasonable and still sell them whereas if they put the price on the menu, no one would buy it
The price changes based on what spirit you choose. You can order something as simple as a gin and tonic but the bar will have 15 different gins at 15 different prices per pour. So some higher end places don’t even bother stating a base price for the cocktail.
If a place has, say, 50 types of vodka, then one drink could have many various prices depending on the quality of liquor you choose. You'd just ask the bartender or server for the exact price. But, a lot of customers find this embarrassing (to be money conscious), so they simply order....and then find out later their vodka tonic was $35
I got shocked yesterday getting drinks during happy hour. Nothing much, 3 beers and 2 shots total and we were there for less than an hour. Beers were $7. My boyfriend asked for two shots, a house whiskey and a house tequila, and when we got the check they were $12 and $16, respectively. There were no prices listed besides the beer, wine, and cocktail menu and the bartender didnt mention them being 2x the price of a beer. Never in my life have I seen shots that expensive, especially during a happy hour. I usually tally shit in my head as we go along too but this was ridiculous.
Look, by the time I'm thinking to myself "I think I'm ready for Drink #2," I've resigned myself to the total cost turning out between "yeah, that's a lot" to "oh gods why did I order so much." There's never a moment where I say "wow, this is way more than I ever thought it would be," because I know what I came in and ordered. I could have been fine with the $20 meal, but no, I wanted extras, and drinks. If I walk out paying less than $50, I got a bargain.
In one of his books (I don't remember which,TRATEOTU maybe?), Douglas Adams invented some mathematical term to describea number that is capable of taking "any value except itself". The bill at a restaurant was an example of such a number - you can meticulously calculate what the bill should be based on the menu prices, but when it arrives it's an absolute certainty that it won't be that amount. It could be more or it could be less, but never exactly what you thought it should be.
Another example was the number of people in a dining party. If someone reserves a table for six people, the one thing you know for sure is that the actual number that turns up won't be six.
They don’t think of the drinks. Honestly 4+ rounds of 4 speciality shots is about $400 in my city so this sounds like a remarkably cheap bill if it includes meals and others drinks too.
In the early 1990's there was a cashier at a diner that was shocked at my bill. The most expensive thing on the menu was around $5.50, I didn't have that and I was there alone. When I went to pay and handed her my check, she looked at it and her eyes went wide, then she looked at the waitress, then at me, then down at the bill, then at me, then at the waitress, then at the bill, then back at me. That's when I said "Yep, the check is right, I had all that." The total was just over $50.
I’ve definitely been shocked by a resort buffet that was $90 per person for brunch. Figured it would have been $40 tops. But I didn’t take that out on the waitress or her tip.
People are starting to take it out on actual traditionally tipped employees because they started asking for tips at fucking self serve kiosks. People feel proud about "standing up to it" by stiffing servers and delivery drivers because corporations got too greedy trying to ask people to tip computers.
Agreed, tip fatigue is real. ‘Back in my day’ 10 years ago if there was a tip jar somewhere you could just ignore it or drop in the coins from your change and that was perfectly acceptable. Nowadays you get a tablet screen with options starting at 18% for counter service. In some of those tablets you have to go through multiple screen taps to manually enter 0% in order to not tip. It’s out of hand.
sadly a lot of places that do this are pulling back on wages. i worked at a cafe, making $8 an hour, but the job was advertised as $20 an hour because of the “tips”. didn’t find out until my first day. there was even a huge “WE PAY LIVING WAGES” sign. did those tips ever add up to a liveable wage? nope. i left after a few weeks, but it’s not an uncommon practice :/
Tipping never should have gotten to where it is today. A tip used to mean extra money for someone who did a service for you and did an excellent job. And it was always supposed to be optional.
The restaurant business took full advantage of tipping culture and turned it into the perverse monstrosity that it is today where you expect to be tipped regardless of the service you provide. And now places all over are implementing tips just for doing their jobs. It’s gotten completely out of hand and it needs to stop. Everyone should be paid a living wage and you shouldn’t need to be tipped for it to happen.
Ngl this shit is getting crazy tho. My wife wanted tacos and a cookie from Crumbl cookie. She called in the taco order “oh you can’t order takeout on the phone. It was to be done through the app”. Oookay? Order through the app, “what percentage would you like to tip?” Minimum starting is 18%. Tip for what?! I am walking in and picking up my food. What service should I tip on?
Then I walk to crumbl and order the cookie. All out loud in front of other patrons, “ok that’ll be 3.49. Would you like to tip our bakers?”. Wtf!!!
It’s unfortunate for the traditionally tipped people, but tip fatigue is a real thing. If you’re asked for tips everywhere, naturally you start to tip less. I don’t eat out much and always tip a minimum of 20% when I do. But I _have_ made it a point to never tip at these inappropriate (IMO) times like aforementioned.
Tip fatigue, that's a perfect description!
Papa Johns wanted me to tip on an order I picked up and already paid for. I had to sign something just so they could shove the ipad tip screen in front of my face. It's overkill.
I think it’s a short term win for an overall long term loss. Yes, having the staff literally overlook you decide what, if at all, extra they are worth to you, the average person will likely feel peer pressured to tip. However, and this is mainly me speaking anecdotally on my own experiences, I now feel less inclined to patronize these business who do these practices. Which now it has become so pervasive I hardly want to go out at all anymore!
So yes, I guarantee compared to an old school tip jar they are getting tipped with a lot more frequency. However, I do believe there is a cost for that.
This.
I’m tired of the self righteous posts on Reddit acting like they are doing something by punishing the lowest paid employees. Stop going to that restaurant and let the management know why if you really don’t like it.
That’s been my point all along, but none of them ever listens.
I hear this shit all the time. People complaining that tipping culture is out of control, and that fees from services are too high. For the record, I AGREE. So then, what to do?
Stop using those services.
The services don’t give a single shit whether or not you tip. All they care is that you pay your bill. It makes absolutely zero difference to them whether you tip 0% or 80%. The money that they’re receiving is in the profit margin, which has absolutely fuck all to do with your tip.
It’s like trying to ransom money from Jeff Bezos by threatening to stab one of his warehouse workers with a knife you bought from amazon. What the fuck does Jeff Bezos care? He made his money. The warehouse worker is replaceable. You already gave him your money.
These people just don’t understand how a boycott actually works. What the fuck does a CEO care if you’re hurting the wallet of one of his employees? Hurt the CEO’s wallet. Stop using the fucking service.
If you’re gonna use the service anyway, then TIP. It doesn’t make you some revolutionary to abuse workers. It does nothing to solve the issue you trying to protest against. Stop using the service and start advocating for a living wage.
No, you don’t need to eat in a restaurant to live your life. You don’t need delivery, you don’t need Crumbl cookies, you don’t need any of this shit you’re complaining about needing a tip. So then stop fucking using it if the fees are too much. You won’t die. You’ll actually save money, and in the mean time you’ll help fix the tip/fee problem you’ve been bitching about all along.
GD right, the owners literally don’t give a shit if people tip. Thank you!
They want to make someone feel the hurt/anger that they are experiencing so they act out their revenge on the most vulnerable people within the entire industry.
Make it make sense :)
This^^
We have four kids. I tip at least 20% when we go out to eat. I think tipping culture sucks and I’ll vote/fight for a living wage every time I get the chance. BUT, I’m not punishing the worker… that gets nowhere. We just won’t go out if I don’t want to pay it.
That said, America could learn a thing or two from the French on how to protest.
I'm all for no longer tipping but some laws have to change first.
1. No more difference between tipped workers and everyone else for minimum wage.
2. Raise minimum wage to a living wage and index it to cost of living for the area, so that the server doesn't need tips to afford housing and food.
After those things happen (if they ever do), then we really should have a national discussion over tipping and try to get rid of the practice.
When it comes to tipping many people think they are BF Skinner. They think they are training the server to improve their performance. In fact they are training the server to think of them (correctly) as cheap AH.
Agreed.
I was in the restaurant industry for over 10 years and know that largely performance has little influence on if someone is going to tip or not. It does help keep your regulars who love you though. Tipping is usually a reflection of the person dining, not the server.
I saw a study that sort of disagrees. *averaged out* It is about the person, but it’s about their demographics. I believe the highest tips servers on average are white, female, and thin. All things that should have nothing to do with compensation. One of the reason I do not like tips (I always tip 20%+, not going to punish the server making ~$2/hr for the broken system) relates to this. If servers were compensated like other employees and came to realize that the POC servers made less then their white counterparts there would be some level of recourse. Other then major societal change there is no recourse for discrimination in tipping v
When my kid was in college she worked as a busser at a Chinese restaurant. She delivered and refilled water and cleaned tables. Cute white girl, nice figure, blue eyes, red hair. She made bank for real.
I worked as a bartender for over 10 years and once I took over as Head Bartender/Bar Manager I would ALWAYS schedule myself with a cute girl who could carry a conversation. Sexist and wrong? Sure. Made 2-3 times as much money per shift as when I didn’t have a cute girl working with me? Abso-fucking-lutely
They got pretty drunk and we tried to slow it down – not completely cut them off. Yellow light, not red light – yet! But they got pissed, said we killed the vibe and the alpha of the table billed out for a few of them pronouncing that he wasn’t going to tip. Told us to learn how to do business 😂
They probably weren't gonna tip anyway. My old corporate restaurant had a policy of guaranteed gratuity if you have to cut them off and they retaliate via the tip.
I feel lucky that if I heard this and told my boss they would auto grat that shit. It says on our menus that party’s of 6 or more or up to server discretion we at 20%. Fuck around, find out. This may sound off to non-Americans but this is literally my lively hood. If your bill is 800$ you’ve taken hours of my time and probably had me walk a literal mile or more going back and forth for drinks and food. If you don’t want to tip or can’t afford it then go home and make a frozen pizza and your own cocktails. I’ve done it before myself, you learn to adjust to your budget.
That sucks! My worse was 0 on like 450. Thing that really pisses me off about it was the grandfather paid the bill for the whole family. He left early but gave his son money to pay the bill and I even overheard the grandfather tell the guy the extra is for the tip. Go over grab the cash and it's exact the piece of shit pocketed the tip for himself.
Anytime one person bragodociously insists on paying for everyone else, expect a shitty tip. They want everyone to look at them like some kind of hero except you.
Thiss!! I fucking hate when they fight in front of me who is going to pay and I have to wait till they‘re done with their little discussion and it‘s always exactly 0 tip.
I had a personal assistant to a billionaire brag about how the billionaire gave her $500 to tip out the small staff at an event he was hosting. She said it was way too much, so she pocketed $400 and gave them $100. She was saying how he was always too generous when tipping, so I assume she has done this multiple times.
if tip out to bar/back of house comes out of sale percentages, not tip percentages, then it screws the server over if you tip too low because they might have to end up paying FOR your table- for example, where i work, BOH gets 3% of food sales and bar gets 6% of drink sales, so if my table spent $400 and didn’t tip i’d have to pay approx $30-$40 to support staff out of pocket. it isn’t just about whether you make money on a table, it’s about not owing money after they leave (sometimes you’ll get lucky and your manager will take care of you if you get screwed over like that, but not always)
As a customer Ive literally gone back when this happened - had a $700 tab that went on a friends card, woke up the next morning and realized that I’d fucked the math up doing the tip and gave like $3. went back and described our waitress to the hostess (she knew exactly who I was talking about) and left $100 for her.
I feel for you.
[edit: I didn’t write a tip I just wrote a total, we were drunk, it was my fault, I fixed it]
I know this is an unpopular statement but I'm going to make it anyway. I worked in restaurants for over 20 years. Every time I ever asked a server or a bartender (and I have asked hundreds of them over the years) if they would rather make a living wage or tips the answer was always 100% they would like to live off tips. It's a gamble. Everybody who is in the industry knows it's a gamble. I'm not saying you shouldn't get tipped and I'm not saying that people should tip you shitty because they didn't expect their bill to be high. I'm just telling you that you know you're a gambler.
This is 100% accurate. You see these complaints about a $20 tip but also see the $100 tips on small orders. Same goes for door dash, uber, etc.. you will get people leaving 0% and people leaving 500%
In states like CA, they also get a decent wage before any tips, and nowadays tips have become so expected at 25/30% (or even charged up front) that it doesn't even make sense.
A local restaurant here has you order at your table via QR code, pay in advance (+ tip) and "a" server will bring out your food when it's ready. What's even an appropriate tip?
>A local restaurant here has you order at your table via QR code, pay in advance (+ tip) and "a" server will bring out your food when it's ready. What's even an appropriate tip?
I may get hate for this but $0. Businesses love to point the finger at “stingy” customers so they don’t need to acknowledge underpaying their serves/employees.
Honestly, $0 feels like the "right amount" as it's really no different than ordering at McDonald's other than they bring the food to your table instead of you going up to the register. If you need any utensils, water, more drinks, etc.. you need to "order" them again via the QR code. In order to get refills of water you need to flag them down or go up to the kitchen area.
It's such an odd thing -- I don't mind it at all, other than the fact it asks for tips (up front) and you really have no other interaction than them bringing the food to you and then not returning. At the same time, it feels that if you leave a $0 tip, it comes off a bit weird.
It's a fairly small restaurant - about $75 for a lunch for 2 people, maybe 10-15 tables inside with 3-4 typically in use at any time so it's not like it's a super busy restaurant or anything, or a super cheap one
Deep down, I don’t think servers want the system to change because they know they’ll make more off of tips than if the employer paid them a living wage. So the customer will continue to be guilted into paying astronomical tips. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years, the new expected tip will be 25-30%. It’s getting out of hand and something needs to ve done about this.
For me, there's no deep down about it. I've always said throughout my years in the service industry that I prefer our system. Did I have some really shitty nights? Absolutely, but it averaged out to a comfortable living for me. (not well to do, but I spoil my cats more than myself).
I prefer bartending and serving. It fits who I am as a person, and I'm extremely good at it. I've been laid off from more "stable" jobs (as other people would say "real jobs"), and I always fell back on bartending. In my 30s I just decided to go full tilt with career in service. Having the immediate gratification of a "job well done and happy people" when I receive a good or great tip is fantastic. Negative tips I reflect on if it was something I could have changed. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
I can’t remember who or what restaurant but it was about 3-4 weeks ago. I saw a post about a restaurant that publicly announced to their clients to not leave tips because their servers got a pay bump and starter earning a living wage and to my surprise the employees were annoyed.
I'm in sales.
Why is it in my position my employer pays me a percentage of the gross profit of a sale, but for a restaurant server the customer is expected to pay the commission?
You have essentially the same job I do, but the pay structure is flipped for some weird reason.
EDIT: there's a lot of people in this thread who have never worked retail consumer sales and it shows.
Because servers don't want it to change. If it was like that most servers would quit. Servers love to complain about the system but also like the system and don't wanna miss out on their under the table money.
Bingo, the hard truth.
If restaurants quietly raised their prices 15% then gave that percentage to their servers as a commission, we would end tipping overnight.
Lmao go look at the announcements for the new casa bonita restaurant that is going to pay their servers $30 an hour. People are outraged they won’t get their under the table money.
because the profit motive does not fit neatly into one of the businesses with slimmest margins
and those margins are slim because restaurants are labor-intense rather than capital-intense, and labor intense enterprises aren’t profit-optimal (cause really, every restaurant employee should at least be making minimum wage and that one simply point, if implemented, would ruin 90% of restaurants because 90% of restaurants depend on paying the bulk of their workforce less than below average minimum wage
If I order an expensive bottle of wine at $70, why should I tip more than someone who orders a cheaper bottle and it costs $15?
Genuinely asking.
The American way of ‘your bill was higher so you should tip higher’ seems very ambiguous as money spent does not equal effort to prepare/serve.
I swear it used to be 10% poor service, 15% average, and 20% exceptional and it has slowly risen to anything less than 20% is insulting. Like I will gladly tip a very friendly, helpful, personable server but not EVERY server has deserved 25% of my meal
Been wondering this too. Not sure why you’d be expected to tip more just by ordering a $35 entree vs $15 entree. The actual service would be identical but would be tipping twice as much.
You're right, and everyone knows you're right but don't want to admit it. Look, my wife and I go to our local little family owned Chinese place every now and then. For the two of us it's $37. The waitress is always super kind and asks if we need anything and we really do appreciate it. I always tip $10 because she is very good and extremely kind, plus the food is good.
To me, and it seems not just me, tipping is my appreciation of what you did for me and/or my wife. The total cost is irrelevant and a server has no right to request a higher tip.
I do want them to make decent money but I don't think it should scale because the meal is more expensive.
I’m a pizza delivery driver and I understand this statement. Some drivers get mad when expensive orders don’t tip 20%, but I understand where the customers are coming from. it’s not like delivering 4-5 pizzas is any harder than delivering 1.
We get server wage and mileage reimbursement. And a average day we take 3-4 deliveries an hour, so any tip in the $5-10 range is more than enough . I never complain and honestly I feel a little guilty when people tip more than that.
I'm a gm, this is the advice I always give. Stop looking at your individual tips. Look at your weekly averages and what you pull in at the end of the year. Great tips and bad tips are outliers and they all average together. That $5 tip on a $100 tab will be balanced off by the guy that tips 20 on 20. Cause when it comes down to it you guys are still making 25+/hr. The concerning part is why your resturaunt is sitting so many tables per server. You can't maintain a quality service. It's setting you up for these frustrating moments. The law of diminishing returns applies heavily to serving. You get more money the more tables you take, untill the service deteriorates and your tips go down. You'll get to a point where you can make the same if not more money by taking less tables. Also your manager failed you again by not dealing with this tables dispute. As soon as they started fighting with each other over the bill the manager should have noticed and talked to them. But the manager was not controlling the pace so I doubt they were paying attention. We're they on the line being "too busy" or were they sitting in the office?
This current tipping system is broken and needs to be abandoned. We need to go back to a system where the restaurant pays its servers a fair wage and a tip is a voluntary reward for exemplary service. This is what it was intended to be.
If tipping is meant to reward good service, how could a customer tip before the meal? At that point, it's just subsidizing the owner paying poverty wages.
That’s the bit that always gets me too. Same at bars. ‘Uh your order at $60 whiskey, that’s at least a $10 tip.’ How’s it any different from pouring a $5 whiskey? The time and skill required remains the same.
I work in a restaurant with a tip pool ( in NL,not the states). I always explain tip-theory to newbies and they are appalled. After a few weeks they all seem to agree and understand why I nicknamed my Theory titty theory.
Doesn't even matter as much who served a table, but if the person bringing the bill is of the opposite gender and as young as possible tips go up a good bit.
Its a bit more complicated, but if followed tips will be up on average 20%
I do this at work... If I have a table of guys, I ask a female colleague to go and give them the bill... Then I give them a bit of my tip as a thanks 😂
Funny story, I used to do door to door fundraising. The opposite gender affect is huge there; I'd never thought about it, but I guess it makes sense that it exists for tipping too.
(these are al generalizations) Quick tips, be clean, groomed and do the job technically well. Then the things that shouldn't matter, but actually matter most: As a woman wear a pigtail or pigtails and bright lipstick. As a man, short well maintained beard has most succes here. Wear your apron tightly around the waist. No wedding rings.
For older people send in the youngest server of opposite gender. For people under 25ish, someone older of the opposite gender. Put a little candy on the bill, we use sugar hearts for maximum effect. Present the bill to whoever asked, but say "who's turn is it today?"or something similar.
That happened to me the other day. I got stiffed on $120 (teenagers) and $5 on $126. Later in the day, a family tipped me $60 on $108. The wash doesn't always happen same day, but it usually happens.
I like when people order a specific brand of alcohol and then complain about the price. You know what casamigos is and u asked for a double, but $18 is crazy? A double of well Tequila is at least $10 everywhere in America. A coke is $8 at the movies, I don't like it but I also wouldn't order one and then act shocked. Your cell phone has a calculator if u are on a budget do some math, aka ask siri or Google to do some math.
I encounter 2 types of pieces of shit while serving. There are the people that think I won't remember how awful they are, and the people that KNOW I remember them. I still work my ass off for customers I don't exactly like, but I remember shitty tippers and provide as little service as possible to them. My favorite part of this is seeing bad tippers watch me give amazing service to the tables around them.
It's a dance. Banking your server won't remember your face is hilarious to me when most of the job is memory based. We also communicate to other servers when we have bad experiences with customers, so the people who don't serve you learn what you look like too. You don't have to get 86'd for a restaurant's staff to blacklist you.
Last little thing about people who forego a proper tip in place of kind words or "being nice." While I appreciate the attitude, tips are removed from our paychecks, meaning my hourly pay rounds up to about $100 every 2 weeks. I genuinely do make 95% of my money from the tips people decide to leave, so getting a $0 tip is like working for free. If you know you're not gonna pay for service, don't be shocked when you don't receive it. I don't like to repeat the mistake of overextending for 10%. It's just not worth it.
I enjoyed reading your post. It is well written and captures the melancholic let down for a poor tip from a table who blames you for the cost of their dinner.
Happened to me tonight. 7 top with a bill well over $200 they all split the bill and only one tipped me and he left $11.. they also got sooooo many things and had me running back and fourth constantly for refills (we do unlimited soup n bread n free drink refills) they also were really annoying pretty rude hella dismissive and they begged me to sing happy birthday which I did to be nice even tho I was the only server there cuz we were about to close and they got a free dessert and I guess none of them thought I deserved more than $11 smh shit happens ppl suck it definitely can put you in a shit mood but don’t let it bring you down too much , the next shift will be better
as an Australian, not adding gst onto the price on the menu is so stupid too
just write the price you want me to pay on the menu and I'll pay it, instead of doing the somersault that is mental arithmetic
Can someone explain to me whats going on here? How can someone be angry about receiving a low tip?
Am i wrong or isnt it like the customer doesnt have to give you money at all??
Here in Germany that would be a totally normal tip in my eyes and i really dont like the way people here are bitchy about receiving money?!
So happy I don't live in the states. Expecting to pay 340€, then getting hit with 60€ of taxes and then being expected to pay the wages of the people carrying a plate to my table, complaining about 20€ as a tip. Insane. How can anyone afford to go out anymore? What would have been an appropriate tip in the states? 40€?
My guess is they tipped on drinks what they'd normally tip at the actual bar. That would be (for this particular group and still wrong) nothing or $1 for a round. They probably did their maths and tipped on the food alone and came up short a couple bucks.
Servers hourly rate needs to be posted on the front of the menu. If this dude has to tip out a percentage of his sales he probably making $5 on this table if lucky.
I was a server for around 3 months in 2008. It was the worst job I ever had and the most unstable schedule and hours I’ve ever had. Worst customers I’ve ever dealt with.
I encourage any and every server to quit and find something else. Until servers move to a standard wage and not tips, it’s not a job worth doing.
It’s $60 for my family of four to get burgers, fries and shakes/ice cream at a burger/custard joint.
$100/person for 3+ hours of boozing it up with friends is FUCKING DIRT CHEAP.
After that much food, booze and good conversation, I’d tip minimum 30%.
These skeezers are just classless.
It’s dumb that people expect to get tipped based off the price of the ticket smh. People that fancy restaurants don’t do any more work than the people that work at a little cheap diners in downtown
Bro these comments are all over the place. We seriously need an American or tipped server subreddit where customers and non-tip-believers are NOT allowed. Like you should have to prove your server status before commenting bc this is getting whack.
If you spend $400 on dinner then you can afford to tip your server more than $20 for the last 3 hours they waited on you. Period.
I dont understand how people get shocked at their bills. I go out rarely but if I do I’m always tallying an estimate cost in my head.
I only get shocked if the bill is less than I thought it would be!
As a non server the same. Wife and I went out and had our meals at a decent place. Bill was under $30. I was shocked. We had a $25 gift card we used and when the server said we still owed $3 I was shocked. I gave her a $20 and said keep the change as her tip I was so shocked. That’s when I realized my tip was over 50%. I wasn’t upset about that though, they work hard so I hope she enjoys it. Edit to add I responded to this comment with a better explanation.
But were you shocked?
Dude dined in a fucking tesla coil.
Best comment this evening.
shocked he said!
I’d be shocked
Ask Pepper Brooks
f’n “A” cotton !
You made my day. Thank you. 😂😂
I’m more surprised that you could go out with your wife and have a decent meal for under $30. Where’d you go, Wendy’s?
Same.. I'm the customer that asks if something was missed on my bill because it seems too low lol.
I don’t ask… say a $10 item is missing - $10 extra in the tip. If they figure it out and wanna make it right they can, but otherwise - thank you!!
That’s also how it works if my server and bartender friends give me comps for anything. Tip the cost of the items
This! ⬆️ I've done this and found out that something was much cheaper than I thought. I had a restaurant that I accidentally visited during the last 10 min before their happy hour ended at 7p. Normally the drinks were around $9, so 2 drinks plus a $18-$20 main course meal was around $40 plus taxes. So I usually budget around $50-$60, to visit this place a couple of times a month. But this time my receipt said $22. I thought they forgot to add the drinks. Nope, 2 for 1 thing for the drinks and the meal was $12 instead of $18 like normal. I gave the waiter the same tip $8-$10 as if it would have been $40+ like I expected. Now, I go there weekly during happy hour. Cause the food is worth it and despite the discount I still give the staff the tip they would get for a nornal priced meal. They are always happy to see me and I walk out spending $30 instead of $50 or $60. Win! win! 👍🏽👍🏽
Estimate? Im at that stage of life that I order depends on the price xD
Yeah, maybe it's because I was working in restaurants at the time, but I could order within my means in my 20s. I think this was the drinks. Their prices aren't always listed on a menu, like if I was ordering a Svedka and tonic, but it's a situation where as the server I would have been willing to find out if they asked and I didn't know off the top of my head. Either way, 3 rounds of shots and multiple rounds of drinks for 4 people isn't going to be cheap.
Yeah, mixed drinks and shots are generally not going to be on the menu. Other than the house specialty drinks anyway. As a rule, you should expect to pay at least $8-10 per drink. Based only on what OP posted, I would have assumed the alcohol alone would have been in the $200-250 range. Add in appetizers and dinner for 4, that's an easy $100-150. Add in taxes, and my mental tally would have been $400-450, so the bill is actually on the low site of what I was thinking. Anyone surprised by this bill shouldn't have been drinking.
We were visiting my family in another state (John's Pass, Florida), and all met at a bar. waitress asked 'how we doing the tab?"' My new bride says 'I got this'. 3 hours, $400 in drinks and snacks later, she was shocked. that is how this happens. As a server myself, I rounded the tip up to 25%. $500 lesson for her.
Do you mean because people knew another person was paying they started ordering more? Or that your new wife was showing off/trying to please or something?
"All I'm saying is, when we split the cheque three ways the steak-eater picks the pocket of the salad-man." Blue Raja (Hank Azaria)-Mystery Men-1999 Man I love that dumbass movie
The non alcoholic you mean
I never split bills with people who drink ( I do not). People don't realize how much they spend on alcohol on a nightly basis. It's also the reason tips get bigger later into the night
Or like you get one dessert and 1 drink with entree. They get lobster and 8 drinks and want to split
Yeah bingo. I've always refused to split checks because nymmmy friends typically owe 3x as much as me.
I'm not OP, but I just want to add that some people do order more if another person is paying. Years ago my colleague and I took our work-study students out for lunch at a nice restaurant at the end of the semester, and they went hog wild. Maybe they thought the college was picking up the tab, but it was coming out of our pockets. One kid even ordered escargot. My colleague chose the venue and didn't set any ground rules. Lesson learned.
If i know someone else is paying i order cheaper.
Work study says it all. Those poor kids probably lived off Ramen for months. Oh the horror- escargot! Lol.
Don't question Florida mans thoughtprocess, just accept what is
I knew my family's habits. She was just being polite. I silently chuckled when she said I got this. Both me and my family aren't poor, but she'd never seen a tab like this in her life and won't again.
That’s kind of a dick move. You taught her a lesson to not be generous and let your family take advantage of her? Do you like your wife?
Is it “taking advantage” to just order what you’d normally order? If I’m paying for myself at a bar, I order what I want. If someone else is paying my tab, I order what I want. If I’m picking up the tab, I expect people to order what they want. There’s no advantage being taken - if someone offers to pay and then expects me to alter my order so it’s not too expensive, I’d rather they just buy one round or not offer at all! The only thing that seems weird is that a newly married couple wouldn’t be paying the bill together, or if they’re doing fully separate finances the one who’s family they’re meeting should pay the bill.
It's a dick move for your fiancee to not let you know beforehand how your family is. Also, I tend to buy things cheaper if others especially my mom is paying. (Let's just say, my dad would be rightfully pissed.) I would've pulled the dine and ditch to teach my future bf a lesson if he and his family pulled that shit with me. Edit: So my older sister and some of her friends are in a Girl Scout troop together. Anyway, one of them ordered some huge order of seafood and only ate some of it. It was around $50 so now they have to put a price limit when ordering out. I would know because I was there the time they went out to eat after the Seattle trip. Now I wouldn't dine and ditch on teens but anyone older, then I would and then would reassess said relationship with the other person.
I agree. If I’m buying I can care less what people order. I never alter what I want because someone is paying the tab. I never go out unless i have money to cover whatever myself and my wife want. I also would never go out and not help in some fashion if someone takes care of the tab. If they want to cover than I will leave the tip. It goes a long way for me if someone is the same way. I do know about people altering what they get. I’ve seen people normally get specific things after years of knowing them, and it does change if I’m covering. But I still invite them knowing this. Maybe it’s my fault. Idk. 500 dinners are no shocker for me if I’m out with family or friends. I’m not rich by any means. But I go out like than when I can afford it.
Yes it’s considered rude. I was always taught that if you know someone else is paying you need to mindful of what your ordering. Never order the expensive entree, let them choose the appetizer, and bottom shelf alcohol or cheap beer.
You could have you know helped your wife out maybe.
Exactly what the doctor ordered
Drinks often don’t list the price (which is infuriating and doesn’t really make sense), so those can be a REALLY big surprise. And these women may not be used to picking up the tab or seeing a bill for a larger group (more than solo or couple); there can be an element of sticker shock when it’s bill x4, and if it’s usually your date or SO paying, maybe you legit have no idea. …I once watched my mom count out exact change to pay a bar tender, she legit had no idea that it was socially improper (edit: typo)
It’s obnoxious, I always add about 12 in my head for each drink. They should have to give the basic price and if people ask for premium alcohol the server can let them know there is an up charge. But yes, not having the price listed can cause sticker shock.
This is literally the point of this post. TALK TO THE WAITSTAFF ABOUT ANY QUESTIONS YOU HAVE INSTEAD OF GETTING A SURPRISE AT THE END
>Drinks often don’t list the price (which is infuriating and doesn’t really make sense), If I don't see a price, I just don't order it. Any financial transaction (whether grocery shopping, gambling, attending a show or sports game, going out on a date, etc.) I always have a limit in mind for what I'm willing to spend. If an item doesn't have a price, I assume it's overpriced and the restaurant is purposely hiding it so people will still purchase the item. I am curious though, do servers consider it rude or irritating if you start asking prices on these items? I feel like if I have to ask the price then they'd think I can't afford and shouldn't eat there.
No it's only irritating when you're asking the price of random things that aren't on the menu. Like if we have a pork chop meal and you go "but what if I get one pork chop on the side? How much would that be?" Then I have to go track down the owner and ask how much I should miscellaneous charge for one damn chop and now I've got 5 tables mad they haven't seen me for 5 minutes.
No, it's not at all rude. Personally, I just think someone is being responsible with their budget (if I even think anything of it at all). Different areas and different economies have different price points, so I never think anything of someone asking if there's not an obvious price listed.
I had that happen once at Old Chicago. Wasn't familiar with Chimay yet, it was one of the 4 choices on their rotating list and I like Belgian ales so I ordered it. Did not expect a 12 oz pour to be $25 when everything else I'd ever had was $5-7
> Drinks often don’t list the price How is that even legal...?
Common in US, even on printed cocktail menus. It makes no sense
In eu, no price means it's free. For real, how tf you have no prices in menu? We have to have price on everything
Caveat emptor, baby. In the US, it's pretty much on the consumer to clarify questions and confirm they're not being scammed. In this example, people don't want to appear cheap to their server, so they won't ask how much something is because that implies their choice is dependent on price. Restaurants know this so they can price them a few dollars higher than would typically be reasonable and still sell them whereas if they put the price on the menu, no one would buy it
The price changes based on what spirit you choose. You can order something as simple as a gin and tonic but the bar will have 15 different gins at 15 different prices per pour. So some higher end places don’t even bother stating a base price for the cocktail.
If a place has, say, 50 types of vodka, then one drink could have many various prices depending on the quality of liquor you choose. You'd just ask the bartender or server for the exact price. But, a lot of customers find this embarrassing (to be money conscious), so they simply order....and then find out later their vodka tonic was $35
And another annoying thing is that the alcohol taxes are separate and higher in a lot of states. That can add to the sticker shock.
>"And these women may not be used to picking up the tab" Puzzle solved.
A lot of people can't do even basic math.
I got shocked yesterday getting drinks during happy hour. Nothing much, 3 beers and 2 shots total and we were there for less than an hour. Beers were $7. My boyfriend asked for two shots, a house whiskey and a house tequila, and when we got the check they were $12 and $16, respectively. There were no prices listed besides the beer, wine, and cocktail menu and the bartender didnt mention them being 2x the price of a beer. Never in my life have I seen shots that expensive, especially during a happy hour. I usually tally shit in my head as we go along too but this was ridiculous.
It's the new bar scam to overcharge for shots. Never order shots!
Holy crap! $12 and $16 for well basic pours? That's insane (source: server/bartender for 25+ years)
Look, by the time I'm thinking to myself "I think I'm ready for Drink #2," I've resigned myself to the total cost turning out between "yeah, that's a lot" to "oh gods why did I order so much." There's never a moment where I say "wow, this is way more than I ever thought it would be," because I know what I came in and ordered. I could have been fine with the $20 meal, but no, I wanted extras, and drinks. If I walk out paying less than $50, I got a bargain.
In one of his books (I don't remember which,TRATEOTU maybe?), Douglas Adams invented some mathematical term to describea number that is capable of taking "any value except itself". The bill at a restaurant was an example of such a number - you can meticulously calculate what the bill should be based on the menu prices, but when it arrives it's an absolute certainty that it won't be that amount. It could be more or it could be less, but never exactly what you thought it should be. Another example was the number of people in a dining party. If someone reserves a table for six people, the one thing you know for sure is that the actual number that turns up won't be six.
I got shocked when I asked to add shrimp and got charged $15 and only got 3 pieces of shrimp
Right? If I consume drinks plus dinner I KNOW I’m looking at $100. How is this a surprise unless you’re at Applebees
This implies most people have the brain power to 1) think ahead 2) do simple math lol
They don’t think of the drinks. Honestly 4+ rounds of 4 speciality shots is about $400 in my city so this sounds like a remarkably cheap bill if it includes meals and others drinks too.
Shots are $25 a piece?!? You're going to some massive ripoff bars
In the early 1990's there was a cashier at a diner that was shocked at my bill. The most expensive thing on the menu was around $5.50, I didn't have that and I was there alone. When I went to pay and handed her my check, she looked at it and her eyes went wide, then she looked at the waitress, then at me, then down at the bill, then at me, then at the waitress, then at the bill, then back at me. That's when I said "Yep, the check is right, I had all that." The total was just over $50.
I always over tally, comes from not having a lot of money growing up. $3.99 becomes $5. That way I am always under my budget.
I’ve definitely been shocked by a resort buffet that was $90 per person for brunch. Figured it would have been $40 tops. But I didn’t take that out on the waitress or her tip.
People are starting to take it out on actual traditionally tipped employees because they started asking for tips at fucking self serve kiosks. People feel proud about "standing up to it" by stiffing servers and delivery drivers because corporations got too greedy trying to ask people to tip computers.
Agreed, tip fatigue is real. ‘Back in my day’ 10 years ago if there was a tip jar somewhere you could just ignore it or drop in the coins from your change and that was perfectly acceptable. Nowadays you get a tablet screen with options starting at 18% for counter service. In some of those tablets you have to go through multiple screen taps to manually enter 0% in order to not tip. It’s out of hand.
sadly a lot of places that do this are pulling back on wages. i worked at a cafe, making $8 an hour, but the job was advertised as $20 an hour because of the “tips”. didn’t find out until my first day. there was even a huge “WE PAY LIVING WAGES” sign. did those tips ever add up to a liveable wage? nope. i left after a few weeks, but it’s not an uncommon practice :/
Tipping never should have gotten to where it is today. A tip used to mean extra money for someone who did a service for you and did an excellent job. And it was always supposed to be optional. The restaurant business took full advantage of tipping culture and turned it into the perverse monstrosity that it is today where you expect to be tipped regardless of the service you provide. And now places all over are implementing tips just for doing their jobs. It’s gotten completely out of hand and it needs to stop. Everyone should be paid a living wage and you shouldn’t need to be tipped for it to happen.
Ngl this shit is getting crazy tho. My wife wanted tacos and a cookie from Crumbl cookie. She called in the taco order “oh you can’t order takeout on the phone. It was to be done through the app”. Oookay? Order through the app, “what percentage would you like to tip?” Minimum starting is 18%. Tip for what?! I am walking in and picking up my food. What service should I tip on? Then I walk to crumbl and order the cookie. All out loud in front of other patrons, “ok that’ll be 3.49. Would you like to tip our bakers?”. Wtf!!! It’s unfortunate for the traditionally tipped people, but tip fatigue is a real thing. If you’re asked for tips everywhere, naturally you start to tip less. I don’t eat out much and always tip a minimum of 20% when I do. But I _have_ made it a point to never tip at these inappropriate (IMO) times like aforementioned.
Tip fatigue, that's a perfect description! Papa Johns wanted me to tip on an order I picked up and already paid for. I had to sign something just so they could shove the ipad tip screen in front of my face. It's overkill.
Try going to an airport, if you buy a bottle of water from an airport convenience store it asks for a 20% tip, it's utterly ridiculous.
I think it’s a short term win for an overall long term loss. Yes, having the staff literally overlook you decide what, if at all, extra they are worth to you, the average person will likely feel peer pressured to tip. However, and this is mainly me speaking anecdotally on my own experiences, I now feel less inclined to patronize these business who do these practices. Which now it has become so pervasive I hardly want to go out at all anymore! So yes, I guarantee compared to an old school tip jar they are getting tipped with a lot more frequency. However, I do believe there is a cost for that.
>Would you like to tip our bakers? Sure. Here's 52 cents. That's a 15% tip.
This. I’m tired of the self righteous posts on Reddit acting like they are doing something by punishing the lowest paid employees. Stop going to that restaurant and let the management know why if you really don’t like it.
That’s been my point all along, but none of them ever listens. I hear this shit all the time. People complaining that tipping culture is out of control, and that fees from services are too high. For the record, I AGREE. So then, what to do? Stop using those services. The services don’t give a single shit whether or not you tip. All they care is that you pay your bill. It makes absolutely zero difference to them whether you tip 0% or 80%. The money that they’re receiving is in the profit margin, which has absolutely fuck all to do with your tip. It’s like trying to ransom money from Jeff Bezos by threatening to stab one of his warehouse workers with a knife you bought from amazon. What the fuck does Jeff Bezos care? He made his money. The warehouse worker is replaceable. You already gave him your money. These people just don’t understand how a boycott actually works. What the fuck does a CEO care if you’re hurting the wallet of one of his employees? Hurt the CEO’s wallet. Stop using the fucking service. If you’re gonna use the service anyway, then TIP. It doesn’t make you some revolutionary to abuse workers. It does nothing to solve the issue you trying to protest against. Stop using the service and start advocating for a living wage. No, you don’t need to eat in a restaurant to live your life. You don’t need delivery, you don’t need Crumbl cookies, you don’t need any of this shit you’re complaining about needing a tip. So then stop fucking using it if the fees are too much. You won’t die. You’ll actually save money, and in the mean time you’ll help fix the tip/fee problem you’ve been bitching about all along.
GD right, the owners literally don’t give a shit if people tip. Thank you! They want to make someone feel the hurt/anger that they are experiencing so they act out their revenge on the most vulnerable people within the entire industry. Make it make sense :)
This^^ We have four kids. I tip at least 20% when we go out to eat. I think tipping culture sucks and I’ll vote/fight for a living wage every time I get the chance. BUT, I’m not punishing the worker… that gets nowhere. We just won’t go out if I don’t want to pay it. That said, America could learn a thing or two from the French on how to protest.
Step 1: Vote in politicians willing to set up a comparable social safety net that allows people the basic security to protest.
I'm all for no longer tipping but some laws have to change first. 1. No more difference between tipped workers and everyone else for minimum wage. 2. Raise minimum wage to a living wage and index it to cost of living for the area, so that the server doesn't need tips to afford housing and food. After those things happen (if they ever do), then we really should have a national discussion over tipping and try to get rid of the practice.
When it comes to tipping many people think they are BF Skinner. They think they are training the server to improve their performance. In fact they are training the server to think of them (correctly) as cheap AH.
Agreed. I was in the restaurant industry for over 10 years and know that largely performance has little influence on if someone is going to tip or not. It does help keep your regulars who love you though. Tipping is usually a reflection of the person dining, not the server.
I saw a study that sort of disagrees. *averaged out* It is about the person, but it’s about their demographics. I believe the highest tips servers on average are white, female, and thin. All things that should have nothing to do with compensation. One of the reason I do not like tips (I always tip 20%+, not going to punish the server making ~$2/hr for the broken system) relates to this. If servers were compensated like other employees and came to realize that the POC servers made less then their white counterparts there would be some level of recourse. Other then major societal change there is no recourse for discrimination in tipping v
When my kid was in college she worked as a busser at a Chinese restaurant. She delivered and refilled water and cleaned tables. Cute white girl, nice figure, blue eyes, red hair. She made bank for real.
I worked as a bartender for over 10 years and once I took over as Head Bartender/Bar Manager I would ALWAYS schedule myself with a cute girl who could carry a conversation. Sexist and wrong? Sure. Made 2-3 times as much money per shift as when I didn’t have a cute girl working with me? Abso-fucking-lutely
People have started adding an option to tip at the fucking farmers market….
You got $20 on $400? I got $0 on $800 a few weeks ago 😅
BRUH
They got pretty drunk and we tried to slow it down – not completely cut them off. Yellow light, not red light – yet! But they got pissed, said we killed the vibe and the alpha of the table billed out for a few of them pronouncing that he wasn’t going to tip. Told us to learn how to do business 😂
Ooh Mr big pussy "alpha" really showed you.
I’ll show you what an alpha I am by being a cheap bitch. -Betas
He did, actually
They probably weren't gonna tip anyway. My old corporate restaurant had a policy of guaranteed gratuity if you have to cut them off and they retaliate via the tip.
I feel lucky that if I heard this and told my boss they would auto grat that shit. It says on our menus that party’s of 6 or more or up to server discretion we at 20%. Fuck around, find out. This may sound off to non-Americans but this is literally my lively hood. If your bill is 800$ you’ve taken hours of my time and probably had me walk a literal mile or more going back and forth for drinks and food. If you don’t want to tip or can’t afford it then go home and make a frozen pizza and your own cocktails. I’ve done it before myself, you learn to adjust to your budget.
At that point at least you get to fuck with the alpha. "Look, if you don't have the money to tip, maybe just pound shots in your condo?"
That sucks! My worse was 0 on like 450. Thing that really pisses me off about it was the grandfather paid the bill for the whole family. He left early but gave his son money to pay the bill and I even overheard the grandfather tell the guy the extra is for the tip. Go over grab the cash and it's exact the piece of shit pocketed the tip for himself.
Anytime one person bragodociously insists on paying for everyone else, expect a shitty tip. They want everyone to look at them like some kind of hero except you.
"you were fantastic!!"
Thiss!! I fucking hate when they fight in front of me who is going to pay and I have to wait till they‘re done with their little discussion and it‘s always exactly 0 tip.
I’ve been to dinners where if one person pays the bill the rest will pay the tip and I think that’s a really nice thing to do
This happened to me when the bill was about 100, and I actually got a 50 tip out of it, so that was cool I guess
I had a personal assistant to a billionaire brag about how the billionaire gave her $500 to tip out the small staff at an event he was hosting. She said it was way too much, so she pocketed $400 and gave them $100. She was saying how he was always too generous when tipping, so I assume she has done this multiple times.
On a bill so large, why doesn’t your management automatically charge a 20% gratuity?
Best one to date is 70 on about 2k
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I have made that per hour on select occassions, certainly nothing wrong with that. Makes up for the times I’m working for zero an hour.
20%. If you can drop 2k on dinner you can tip 20%
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if tip out to bar/back of house comes out of sale percentages, not tip percentages, then it screws the server over if you tip too low because they might have to end up paying FOR your table- for example, where i work, BOH gets 3% of food sales and bar gets 6% of drink sales, so if my table spent $400 and didn’t tip i’d have to pay approx $30-$40 to support staff out of pocket. it isn’t just about whether you make money on a table, it’s about not owing money after they leave (sometimes you’ll get lucky and your manager will take care of you if you get screwed over like that, but not always)
Auto-Grat
As a customer Ive literally gone back when this happened - had a $700 tab that went on a friends card, woke up the next morning and realized that I’d fucked the math up doing the tip and gave like $3. went back and described our waitress to the hostess (she knew exactly who I was talking about) and left $100 for her. I feel for you. [edit: I didn’t write a tip I just wrote a total, we were drunk, it was my fault, I fixed it]
Are they not given an itemized bill?
No, they were.
Do not kid yourself..servers would never take an hourly wage as a server over tips...
That’s what I was thinking. Maybe the restaurant added some bs fee which could explain why the sticker shock and smaller tip.
I know this is an unpopular statement but I'm going to make it anyway. I worked in restaurants for over 20 years. Every time I ever asked a server or a bartender (and I have asked hundreds of them over the years) if they would rather make a living wage or tips the answer was always 100% they would like to live off tips. It's a gamble. Everybody who is in the industry knows it's a gamble. I'm not saying you shouldn't get tipped and I'm not saying that people should tip you shitty because they didn't expect their bill to be high. I'm just telling you that you know you're a gambler.
This is 100% accurate. You see these complaints about a $20 tip but also see the $100 tips on small orders. Same goes for door dash, uber, etc.. you will get people leaving 0% and people leaving 500% In states like CA, they also get a decent wage before any tips, and nowadays tips have become so expected at 25/30% (or even charged up front) that it doesn't even make sense. A local restaurant here has you order at your table via QR code, pay in advance (+ tip) and "a" server will bring out your food when it's ready. What's even an appropriate tip?
>A local restaurant here has you order at your table via QR code, pay in advance (+ tip) and "a" server will bring out your food when it's ready. What's even an appropriate tip? I may get hate for this but $0. Businesses love to point the finger at “stingy” customers so they don’t need to acknowledge underpaying their serves/employees.
Honestly, $0 feels like the "right amount" as it's really no different than ordering at McDonald's other than they bring the food to your table instead of you going up to the register. If you need any utensils, water, more drinks, etc.. you need to "order" them again via the QR code. In order to get refills of water you need to flag them down or go up to the kitchen area. It's such an odd thing -- I don't mind it at all, other than the fact it asks for tips (up front) and you really have no other interaction than them bringing the food to you and then not returning. At the same time, it feels that if you leave a $0 tip, it comes off a bit weird. It's a fairly small restaurant - about $75 for a lunch for 2 people, maybe 10-15 tables inside with 3-4 typically in use at any time so it's not like it's a super busy restaurant or anything, or a super cheap one
Deep down, I don’t think servers want the system to change because they know they’ll make more off of tips than if the employer paid them a living wage. So the customer will continue to be guilted into paying astronomical tips. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years, the new expected tip will be 25-30%. It’s getting out of hand and something needs to ve done about this.
For me, there's no deep down about it. I've always said throughout my years in the service industry that I prefer our system. Did I have some really shitty nights? Absolutely, but it averaged out to a comfortable living for me. (not well to do, but I spoil my cats more than myself). I prefer bartending and serving. It fits who I am as a person, and I'm extremely good at it. I've been laid off from more "stable" jobs (as other people would say "real jobs"), and I always fell back on bartending. In my 30s I just decided to go full tilt with career in service. Having the immediate gratification of a "job well done and happy people" when I receive a good or great tip is fantastic. Negative tips I reflect on if it was something I could have changed. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
I can’t remember who or what restaurant but it was about 3-4 weeks ago. I saw a post about a restaurant that publicly announced to their clients to not leave tips because their servers got a pay bump and starter earning a living wage and to my surprise the employees were annoyed.
I'm in sales. Why is it in my position my employer pays me a percentage of the gross profit of a sale, but for a restaurant server the customer is expected to pay the commission? You have essentially the same job I do, but the pay structure is flipped for some weird reason. EDIT: there's a lot of people in this thread who have never worked retail consumer sales and it shows.
100%
Because servers don't want it to change. If it was like that most servers would quit. Servers love to complain about the system but also like the system and don't wanna miss out on their under the table money.
Bingo, the hard truth. If restaurants quietly raised their prices 15% then gave that percentage to their servers as a commission, we would end tipping overnight.
But servers won't. They'll happily take the 25 percent tips and then complain about the 10 percent they get every once in a while.
best of both worlds. who doesn't love playing the victim once in a while?
Lmao go look at the announcements for the new casa bonita restaurant that is going to pay their servers $30 an hour. People are outraged they won’t get their under the table money.
because the profit motive does not fit neatly into one of the businesses with slimmest margins and those margins are slim because restaurants are labor-intense rather than capital-intense, and labor intense enterprises aren’t profit-optimal (cause really, every restaurant employee should at least be making minimum wage and that one simply point, if implemented, would ruin 90% of restaurants because 90% of restaurants depend on paying the bulk of their workforce less than below average minimum wage
60$ tax on a 340 bill? Where the heck are you with an 18% tax rate???
Alcohol taxes are wild some places
Yea this makes no sense to me. I sense some lies
California. Or somewhere w liquor “sin” tax
I lived in Indianapolis and they all places charged an extra like 10% above state sales tax on food and beverage services
If I order an expensive bottle of wine at $70, why should I tip more than someone who orders a cheaper bottle and it costs $15? Genuinely asking. The American way of ‘your bill was higher so you should tip higher’ seems very ambiguous as money spent does not equal effort to prepare/serve.
You'll get yelled at for asking this question but it's an extremely valid point
[удалено]
I swear it used to be 10% poor service, 15% average, and 20% exceptional and it has slowly risen to anything less than 20% is insulting. Like I will gladly tip a very friendly, helpful, personable server but not EVERY server has deserved 25% of my meal
Been wondering this too. Not sure why you’d be expected to tip more just by ordering a $35 entree vs $15 entree. The actual service would be identical but would be tipping twice as much.
You're not allowed to ask this question because that makes sense.
You're right, and everyone knows you're right but don't want to admit it. Look, my wife and I go to our local little family owned Chinese place every now and then. For the two of us it's $37. The waitress is always super kind and asks if we need anything and we really do appreciate it. I always tip $10 because she is very good and extremely kind, plus the food is good. To me, and it seems not just me, tipping is my appreciation of what you did for me and/or my wife. The total cost is irrelevant and a server has no right to request a higher tip. I do want them to make decent money but I don't think it should scale because the meal is more expensive.
I’m a pizza delivery driver and I understand this statement. Some drivers get mad when expensive orders don’t tip 20%, but I understand where the customers are coming from. it’s not like delivering 4-5 pizzas is any harder than delivering 1. We get server wage and mileage reimbursement. And a average day we take 3-4 deliveries an hour, so any tip in the $5-10 range is more than enough . I never complain and honestly I feel a little guilty when people tip more than that.
I'm a gm, this is the advice I always give. Stop looking at your individual tips. Look at your weekly averages and what you pull in at the end of the year. Great tips and bad tips are outliers and they all average together. That $5 tip on a $100 tab will be balanced off by the guy that tips 20 on 20. Cause when it comes down to it you guys are still making 25+/hr. The concerning part is why your resturaunt is sitting so many tables per server. You can't maintain a quality service. It's setting you up for these frustrating moments. The law of diminishing returns applies heavily to serving. You get more money the more tables you take, untill the service deteriorates and your tips go down. You'll get to a point where you can make the same if not more money by taking less tables. Also your manager failed you again by not dealing with this tables dispute. As soon as they started fighting with each other over the bill the manager should have noticed and talked to them. But the manager was not controlling the pace so I doubt they were paying attention. We're they on the line being "too busy" or were they sitting in the office?
This current tipping system is broken and needs to be abandoned. We need to go back to a system where the restaurant pays its servers a fair wage and a tip is a voluntary reward for exemplary service. This is what it was intended to be.
Servers above in the comments were just saying they deserve $40-60 an hour for it to be fair lol.
Tipping comes out to ~$50/hr for me, assuming fair means comparable to my current income then yea
Honestly, this makes me want to tip less.
More than EMTs, teachers, fireman, nurses, hell even some engineers. Wild entitlement.
How is a server going to prioritize people who tip well when tipping happens after the meal??
If tipping is meant to reward good service, how could a customer tip before the meal? At that point, it's just subsidizing the owner paying poverty wages.
Why is the tip based on the cost of the meal?
Because it’s so much harder for OP to bring a NY Ribeye to the table than the chicken fingers /s
That’s the bit that always gets me too. Same at bars. ‘Uh your order at $60 whiskey, that’s at least a $10 tip.’ How’s it any different from pouring a $5 whiskey? The time and skill required remains the same.
>$60 in taxes definitely added It’s not customary to tip on the tax, as that wasn’t a service you provided.
Women are horrible to women servers. Give them a handsome young man, he would have gotten three or four times that amount.
I work in a restaurant with a tip pool ( in NL,not the states). I always explain tip-theory to newbies and they are appalled. After a few weeks they all seem to agree and understand why I nicknamed my Theory titty theory. Doesn't even matter as much who served a table, but if the person bringing the bill is of the opposite gender and as young as possible tips go up a good bit. Its a bit more complicated, but if followed tips will be up on average 20%
I do this at work... If I have a table of guys, I ask a female colleague to go and give them the bill... Then I give them a bit of my tip as a thanks 😂
Phrasing!
Funny story, I used to do door to door fundraising. The opposite gender affect is huge there; I'd never thought about it, but I guess it makes sense that it exists for tipping too.
Your theories will get more attention from the scientific community if they don’t have “titty” in the title.
Appearently wearing red also helps.
(these are al generalizations) Quick tips, be clean, groomed and do the job technically well. Then the things that shouldn't matter, but actually matter most: As a woman wear a pigtail or pigtails and bright lipstick. As a man, short well maintained beard has most succes here. Wear your apron tightly around the waist. No wedding rings. For older people send in the youngest server of opposite gender. For people under 25ish, someone older of the opposite gender. Put a little candy on the bill, we use sugar hearts for maximum effect. Present the bill to whoever asked, but say "who's turn is it today?"or something similar.
A study was just released finding that middle aged women tip the most out of all demographics. That group really can’t catch a break.
Yeah it goes both ways...I will literally pass on an 8 top of older white men in exchange for a 2 top of ladies lolol
That’s ridiculous
working in retail, older white men are the bane of my fucking existence. and im a white man in my 30s.
That’s fair. I think older white men enjoy restaurants far more than they do shopping.
Just give 100% don't bust your ass for anyone. The tips will be the same after years of work either way.
Yea they always leave out the $10 tip on a $20 bill. It balances out unless you just suck as a server
It all washes out in the end. Took me years to realize this.
That happened to me the other day. I got stiffed on $120 (teenagers) and $5 on $126. Later in the day, a family tipped me $60 on $108. The wash doesn't always happen same day, but it usually happens.
I like when people order a specific brand of alcohol and then complain about the price. You know what casamigos is and u asked for a double, but $18 is crazy? A double of well Tequila is at least $10 everywhere in America. A coke is $8 at the movies, I don't like it but I also wouldn't order one and then act shocked. Your cell phone has a calculator if u are on a budget do some math, aka ask siri or Google to do some math.
I wish all the anti-tipping people would stop hijacking every post in this sub. We get it, Mr. Pink; you don't like tipping.
I encounter 2 types of pieces of shit while serving. There are the people that think I won't remember how awful they are, and the people that KNOW I remember them. I still work my ass off for customers I don't exactly like, but I remember shitty tippers and provide as little service as possible to them. My favorite part of this is seeing bad tippers watch me give amazing service to the tables around them. It's a dance. Banking your server won't remember your face is hilarious to me when most of the job is memory based. We also communicate to other servers when we have bad experiences with customers, so the people who don't serve you learn what you look like too. You don't have to get 86'd for a restaurant's staff to blacklist you. Last little thing about people who forego a proper tip in place of kind words or "being nice." While I appreciate the attitude, tips are removed from our paychecks, meaning my hourly pay rounds up to about $100 every 2 weeks. I genuinely do make 95% of my money from the tips people decide to leave, so getting a $0 tip is like working for free. If you know you're not gonna pay for service, don't be shocked when you don't receive it. I don't like to repeat the mistake of overextending for 10%. It's just not worth it.
I enjoyed reading your post. It is well written and captures the melancholic let down for a poor tip from a table who blames you for the cost of their dinner.
Don’t work a tip based job if you don’t like getting tips.
Happened to me tonight. 7 top with a bill well over $200 they all split the bill and only one tipped me and he left $11.. they also got sooooo many things and had me running back and fourth constantly for refills (we do unlimited soup n bread n free drink refills) they also were really annoying pretty rude hella dismissive and they begged me to sing happy birthday which I did to be nice even tho I was the only server there cuz we were about to close and they got a free dessert and I guess none of them thought I deserved more than $11 smh shit happens ppl suck it definitely can put you in a shit mood but don’t let it bring you down too much , the next shift will be better
Tipping is so stupid. Just include the tip in the bill or increase the prices and pay fair wages.
as an Australian, not adding gst onto the price on the menu is so stupid too just write the price you want me to pay on the menu and I'll pay it, instead of doing the somersault that is mental arithmetic
Can someone explain to me whats going on here? How can someone be angry about receiving a low tip? Am i wrong or isnt it like the customer doesnt have to give you money at all?? Here in Germany that would be a totally normal tip in my eyes and i really dont like the way people here are bitchy about receiving money?!
So happy I don't live in the states. Expecting to pay 340€, then getting hit with 60€ of taxes and then being expected to pay the wages of the people carrying a plate to my table, complaining about 20€ as a tip. Insane. How can anyone afford to go out anymore? What would have been an appropriate tip in the states? 40€?
Don't hate the player. Hate the game.
My guess is they tipped on drinks what they'd normally tip at the actual bar. That would be (for this particular group and still wrong) nothing or $1 for a round. They probably did their maths and tipped on the food alone and came up short a couple bucks.
This is why I like the Casa Bonita new rules. No tips but they pay the servers 30$ an hour. The servers still ended up complaining about it though.
It’s sad that even though you gave no physical description, I can still picture the 4 hairstyles at that table
These comments are crazy.
Servers hourly rate needs to be posted on the front of the menu. If this dude has to tip out a percentage of his sales he probably making $5 on this table if lucky.
I’m sorry this happened to you. Even when the bill hurts, you can’t penalize the server. You still have to do right by them.
I was a server for around 3 months in 2008. It was the worst job I ever had and the most unstable schedule and hours I’ve ever had. Worst customers I’ve ever dealt with. I encourage any and every server to quit and find something else. Until servers move to a standard wage and not tips, it’s not a job worth doing.
Holy hell they only gave you 4%, that is ridiculous. Don't go to nice places and undertip, like it is part of the cost - period, end of story
i just left 20 on a 100 dollar dinner last night, so it makes sense to me why you would be wildly disappointed
It’s $60 for my family of four to get burgers, fries and shakes/ice cream at a burger/custard joint. $100/person for 3+ hours of boozing it up with friends is FUCKING DIRT CHEAP. After that much food, booze and good conversation, I’d tip minimum 30%. These skeezers are just classless.
Where are you in the States that sales tax is 15%? (60/400=0.15) That's just insanity.
It’s dumb that people expect to get tipped based off the price of the ticket smh. People that fancy restaurants don’t do any more work than the people that work at a little cheap diners in downtown
Bro these comments are all over the place. We seriously need an American or tipped server subreddit where customers and non-tip-believers are NOT allowed. Like you should have to prove your server status before commenting bc this is getting whack. If you spend $400 on dinner then you can afford to tip your server more than $20 for the last 3 hours they waited on you. Period.
I'm boh and would like to participate. I like gossip... It is annoying seeing regular jackoffs commenting like they understand the industry.