>I won't default to a high tip for average service just because other people are doing it.
30% and up is a high tip. 20% is not. Life is short. Be the guy/gal who puts smiles on strangers faces. You can do this by taking care of service staff.
30% and up is a high tip. 20% is not. Life is short. Be the guy/gal who puts smiles on strangers faces. You can do this by taking care of service staff.
I don't want to be delighted by the service, I'm there for the food and people I'm there with.
Good service is knowing the menu and wine/drink list. Being able to provide recommendations and advice on what to order. Trying to write down all the orders at this table while you see an empty water glass and someone is taking 5 minutes to decide which salad to order and you know there's food for another table getting cold in the window.
If you just want food and a place to sit, there's plenty of fast food/fast casual restaurants. If you go to a place with wait staff, it's because you are going to get waited on. A good wait person can be the difference in having a wonderful night or a horrible one.
However there's no night I don't cook that is 'horrible'. Its can be frustrating or amusing depending on my attitude. But if I'm sitting down and getting fed, then the rest is gravy.
When I get rude or incompetent service relative to the price point, I ask to speak to the manager, which I think is a better way to handle things.
What places don't assume that waitstaff are tipped? Fast food restaurants and in-grocery-store ready-to-eat food-service areas. And places that explicitly advertise prices with "service included" (though these are rare.)
What I don't understand is people saying they are "forced" to pay extra... Why would raising all the prices of the food 15-20% to make up for lost tips and actually forcing you pay that be better? Then you don't have the option to pay less if the service was bad.
Elsewhere in the discussion, someone notes that the vast majority would tip when buying Coke at the pub, but not at a fast food place. At either place, the process seems pretty similar to me.
It's not complicated, tips in that situation aren't extra, they are part of the compensation of the entire staff of the restaurant (the waiters usually tip the bussers and the kitchen...).
If you don't like the arrangement, you should refrain from eating in such places.
It _is_ complicated. It's so complicated that (i) there are discussions on the internet about whether 15% or 20% or 25% is fair, and (ii) there are many specialised 'tip calculator' apps.
When I walk into a restaurant, how much should I be expecting to pay for 'meets expectation' service? Is this a % of the bill, or a $ amount related to the amount of time I'm being served (a proxy for the amount of service I get)? Whatever your answer, are you confident that most other patrons of said restaurant would agree with your recommendation?
I guess if you want external validation of what is fair you can make it complicated, but I was trying to focus on tips not being extra compensation in that specific situation.
I expressed no opinion on this point.
> I guess if you want external validation of what is fair you can make it complicated
Even if I don't want external validation of what is fair, it is still complicated enough that I need to pull out a calculator after a date with my wife.
> I was trying to focus on tips not being extra compensation in that specific situation.
Agreed, and this is the reason I tip according to local norms when I'm in the US.
If anything, you'd think the cheaper meal should have a larger tip since you're occupying a spot for a cheap meal when they could have had a client sit down and spend 3x as much as you. It's all backwards, the fact that the tip is based on the dollar amount of the meal...
Do we tip because the food service industry cannot meet demands to pay all staff at least minimum wage?
Is it because minimum wage nationally is too low and people feel the need to fill in that missing %?
Why would I tip a waiter and not a customer service representative?
What about a cashier?
What criteria do you use to determine who you tip?
One guy above mentioned he tips all sorts of people and it seems like the underlying reason is because they provide a service. Everybody provides a service, do you tip everybody?
If the bottom line for tipping is that you provide a service, it seems to be a binary situation doesn't it? You either tip everybody or you tip nobody.
It's such a completely arbitrary social contract. Maybe I'm reaching too much into this. Maybe I'm just autistic, who knows.
Do you think if restaurants had to pay their staff 4 times as much (minimum wage for servers is often ~$3 per hour but they probably take home closer to $10 or more) that the prices on the menu would stay the same? Do you see how that makes Do we tip because the food service industry cannot meet demands to pay all staff at least minimum wage? the wrong question to be asking?
If i go to McDonalds and order a coke I don't tip. If i go to a pub and order a coke I do. Explain that one to me.
The owner is being obnoxious. It's not up to me to pay his/her staff. I've worked and know people who've worked in restaurants in the UK. They get paid above minimum wage and still get tips (which aren't required, but people usually round up the bill). It's not hard.
Your opinion that the structure is obnoxious does not make it any less obnoxious to fail to tip (especially when, as I said, someone walks in planning not to tip).
The only way to get around this is to mandate higher minimum wages for hospitality workers, putting every restaurant on a level playing field. This is what they do in Australia and many European countries.
20% is the default tip for good service. 30% and above is a high tip. If you have bad service, ask to speak to a manager. I'm embarrassed by the lack of empathy shown in this thread.