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I’M NOT A GENEROUS guy. Which brings me to tipping.
I see a price on the menu, and I’m willing to spend that amount on the food. Then I have to spend additional money, after having consumed that food, because someone served it to me. Why?
What about the kitchen staff who cooked my meal? Should I tip them also? After all, I can’t cook, so the kitchen staff is doing me a more important service than the person who carries my food to the table. I could go to the kitchen and get the food myself. I just can’t cook it.
Why should someone serving at an inexpensive diner get less than a waiter or waitress at a high-end restaurant? The diner waitstaff are working just as hard as those at high-end restaurants. And what about the folks working behind the counter at McDonald’s? They also get me food and I don’t tip. Why not?
How much should I tip? Should it be a percentage of the bill or a certain dollar amount? At the bottom of restaurant checks, they often suggest tip amounts based on various percentages. That gives me a fighting chance of being either generous or foolish. If I go with the highest suggested percentage, I can feel generous. Unless the service was terrible, in which case I feel foolish.
Should I tip anyone who does anything for me? That’s a lot of people. Does a carpenter get tipped? He did something for me. I’m confused.
Giving money to a charity makes more sense to me than tipping. I can write off charitable donations on my taxes, assuming I itemize. I can’t do that when I tip.
I’ve never worked a job in my life where tipping was considered a standard method of compensation. My paycheck was all I ever got. Bonuses were few and far between. For that reason, I don’t see tipping as necessary.
To overcome my prejudice on this subject, I leave the tipping to my wife. She worked as a waitress in her early years, so she better appreciates what the waitstaff do. If she wants to leave a lousy tip, it’s deserved because—unlike her husband—she isn’t naturally cheap.
I never look at what my wife tips because I’d inevitably ask, “Why so much?” I could always find a reason something was wrong, whether it was the fault of the waitstaff or the kitchen staff.
Delegating this task to my wife is a win-win. My wife feels in control of our dining costs, and the waitstaff gets a better deal than they’d get from me. Everyone is happy.
I have evolved over the years on tips. I used to do 15% plus $1.00. And I would do the math. Now I’m up to 20% plus. We often go to inexpensive places where the difference between an average tip and a good tip is $1.00. That dollar means nothing to me, but if everyone did that, the workers would get a lot more. Still, I admit for the higher bills it is harder to want to tip “appropriately.” I’m like Mr. Gartland in that I get my mind set on the menu price.
As mytimetotravel asks, I wonder why the standard percentage has risen from 15% to 20%. It should remain the same as the prices go up.
As for the comments about our offsetting the employer wage costs, I assume if they paid the servers more, the price of the food would go up, so it all comes out in the wash.
Obviously, you never worked at a restaurant.
My sister’s post-covid acknowledgement to wait-staff other service-sector wage earners is “thank you for working.” My way of saying this is to overtip them, regardless of the quality of service, food or whatever.
Given how much I count my blessings to have had a satisfying career making a decent salary and funding a comfortable retirement, it’s the least I can do.
The amount of the tip is essentially meaningless to me at this stage of life, but means a lot to the recipient.
The issue is very simple, we are subsidizing the owners of the restaurant . They pay the servers the min they have to pay depending on the state. Some states require at least min wage, most require much less, usually in the 2 dollars range . Per IRS rules (tip credit rule) if the server’s tips don’t bring them ups to min wage the employer must cover the difference . Most servers make well over the min wage. Cooks, bus people and mgrs make at min wage or higher. Some cooks can make 20 dollars an hour or more.
By fed law an employer cannot force servers to share tips. They can voluntarily . The IRS has ruled time and time again that tips are “gifts” to the servers, not wages from the employers, however, they must report all tips as income.
Lucky David. He gets his wife to calculate the tips. My wife hates math, so I have to do it. . . .
Was a back kitchen worker at Dog N Suds as a teenager. Made a killer of a Coney Dog….and $1.15/hour….only could dream about tips….but flirting with the carhop waitresses, who were cheerleaders during the school year, was my tip!
I married a waitress. She wasn’t a waitress when I met her, but she had been in her teen years.
I am a generous tipper and I do it correctly. The term TIPS means “To Insure Prompt Service.” I always tell my server, “The hotter my food the bigger your tip.”
Does it always work? No…but more often than not it does.
For outstanding service…33%
For good service…20%
Unless you were horrible…10-15%.
I always think of the phrase, “Walk in another person’s shoes…” when I tip.
Some of these people live on their tips. I never forget that.
Tipping has some history to it!
According to an article I read in Time Magazine, tipping originated in the 1800s when wealthy Americans returning from Europe introduced the practice here. Initially met with resistance, it became commonplace, especially after the Civil War when former slaves often relied on tips to supplement low wages in the jobs they could get as waiters or porters.
I follow a simple rule. I tip in places where the restaurant workers have no universal healthcare. It seems to work out.
Mark, do you ask the restaurant workers if they have universal healthcare, so you can know if you plan to tip or not? I admit I wouldn’t know unless I asked them.
I’m assuming Mark’s litmus test is based on the health-care system in whatever country he’s in.
Seems that way.
As my Dad got older, he got more stingy when it came to tipping. He lived alone for five years after Mom died. I tried to visit once a week to have dinner. I’d leave directly from work, drive the hour to get there, go out to eat, and then drive home. When he paid for dinner, I saw what he would leave for a tip, and add several (necessary) dollars as cash on top of the credit card slip. Once he asked me why I did that, and I told him that the tip he left probably didn’t cover the cost of the gas the waitperson used to get to work. His response was – “OK. You pay from now on.” I did.
That’s one reason visiting Japan is so enjoyable – absolutely no tipping, to anyone for anything. Similarly, in much of Europe there is very minimal tipping, just pocket change. Of course, in those countries wait staff are paid properly. I tip in the US because of the unfair system of compensation but I’m not happy about it. I do wonder why the expected percentage keeps going up – the price of the food goes up, so the amount of the tip would increase without increasing the percentage.
Yep, having lived in Italy, it was refreshing to not tip. The restaurant simply pays their staff the wage owed, and the customer pays the bill. Simple. The U.S. method of paying waiters and waitresses half-minimum-wage and expecting the other half to be shouldered by customers is just frustrating, if nothing else. The restaurant service I received in Italy was never subpar. The lack of the incentive of a tip never seemed to enter the equation. I wonder how that would work in the U.S.
We had a great experience on vacation in Italy. I got a kick out of restaurants charging a fee to “rent” the table, even at a gelato place. I doubt the waiters got a piece of that fee, but I do recall the food was of very good quality at a good price. And we still tipped wait staff.
The “renting” thing wasn’t really a thing when we lived there, or at least in the area where we lived, which was in Budoia, near Sacile.
We traveled in Spain last Fall and felt the same way. We tipped “pay what you feel” tour guides in several cities, but that was pretty much all we tipped.
I have worked as a server at a major hotel chain for 35 years. start out with 2.00 an hour plus tips. Compared to other workers the tips make up the difference. That’s why other staff don’t share the tips. Learn DRIP investing from a retired couple who work for Exxon. retired after my second daughter finished med school at 62. Still holding the XOM I bought during the 80’s. bought some more 3 years ago for 37. I learn no matter what you do for a living, just be the best what you do.
One of the (many) things I love about my CCRC is that tipping is not permitted for the various services. Instead, once a year for the staff vacation fund and once a year for the staff holiday fund we may make a contribution. Even better, since the CCRC is a 501(c)(3) organization, the donations are tax-deductible — and I can use QCDs.
Seems like tipping by another name.
True, but it is much more convenient than having to tip the same people every time they provide such services as housekeeping and meal service. The practice of annual tipping is also customary in most of the NYC apartment buildings.
Scrooge McGartland is it? No doubt there is a bit of logic in your thinking, but that doesn’t help those who depend on tips, right or wrong.
Since COVID my tipping has gone the other way. I always tip at least 20%. I try and assess the situation and attitude of the server even how tired they appear through observation and quick chats at the table.
This may not work in a posh restaurant, but for the average place, chain or diner it does.
The result is tips of 25-30% at times – always cash handed to the server. I doubt I have ever eaten out where the server does not need the money more than me.
You sound like a fun guy…
Most wait staff depend on tips. In some places, tip money is shared with buss boys and cooks. I used to tip 15% if service was good and 20% if it was excellent. In rare cases I tip less due to poor service. I don’t like taxes so I generally prefer to exclude taxes when estimating tips. My wife and I go out to eat a lots…typically 3 times per week. One place almost every week, we like the food, the wait staff etc. There I tip higher … 25, sometimes 30%. We get treated well at that spot. That place we like, is actually the least costly … sometimes “less is more”.
We go to a Mexican place for lunch every Saturday we’re in town and have gotten to know the owner and several servers by name. They start our order when they see us coming(!). We definitely tip generously there, both because it’s a family business and we want to support them and because we go there so often and want to be well taken care of.