Last night I went out to dinner on the deck of local restaurant. Bring your dog, 5 buck burgers. they do it every Monday night just to try to get people in on a historically slow night.
Bill including tax was $31.88. I gave waitress $40 (all I had) and told her to bring back change. I thought 8 bucks was slightly larger tip than needed. Not drastically, but slightly. The change she brought back was a ten dollar bill. ???
A) why would you not bring back change (maybe not the pennies) and b) when you are asked for change, why bring back the largest possible bill? My choices were no tip, leave her the ten or (I suppose) ask her to subtract the $1.88 from the ten and bring back my the actual change.
I left the ten. When you pay cash and ask for change, why would the waitress not cash out the bill and provide the change in a slightly more manageable way other than the biggest possible bill.
I’m not against tipping and that’s not what I want this to become. I would have left her 6 bucks and kept the 2 so I could get soda at work all week. What bothers me most is the fowardness of just bring me back a ten dollar bill.
Most servers make change out of the money that they have on them, so it might be that she just didn’t have the right change. Of course, ideally in that situation if there is a register somewhere in the restaurant, one would want to get change from there, or from someone else working there. But I guess she was lazy.
I think I would have flagged her down and said “excuse me, you didn’t bring me back the right change”. That way, when she fixed it and brought back a 5, three 1’s and the change I could leave the tip that I wanted.
If she chose not to fix it for some reason, unless the service was stellar or I had some other bills in my pocket, I could leave and not feel bad about stiffing her on that tip because that would be really rude. I’d probably email the restaurant about it as well. I’d assume if she did it to me, she’s probably doing it other people because she figured out a way to work the system to get bigger tips.
That is odd. She took a rather large chance that you would only leave a five and she would have to make up the difference out of that. Did she have any way to know that you didn’t have any change to tip her? Is she your regular waitress? Maybe she didn’t have change and didn’t want to take the time to get it?
What annoys me is when the wait staff or cashier at take out gives me a lot of ones when they could have given me a five or ten, so I’ll have ones to tip with. I hate carrying around a wad of ones, but it doesn’t incline me to tip them more. Just the opposite, actually.
My tips start at 20%, and they have to earn less. Sometimes they earn more. She earned less. I would not have left a 30% tip.
If this is a restaurant that you otherwise enjoy and wish to return to, you might consider mentioning this to management as she basically short-changed the restaurant.
It would have been just over a 25% tip, but that’s neither here nor there. I don’t understand how she brought you back change that was more than the actual change from your payment. What were you supposed to do about the $1.88?
Yeah, it wasn’t the best way to go on her part. Maybe she didn’t have change, I don’t know, but I’m not sure she was trying to push you into tipping more than you’d planned.
I go to the Oyster Bar, in Grand Central, once in a while. A few times, I’ve noticed that if I pay my bill in cash, the waiters will take their time in collecting the money for the check. If, say, the check is $22, and I put $30 down, it will take forever for the waiter to pick up the check and the money. I would be planning to leave a $5 tip.
This doesn’t happen when paying with a credit card.
My theory is this: The Oyster Bar is, as I said, in Grand Central. A significant number of the customers will be having a beer and some oysters after work before getting on their train and going home.
The waiters have figured out that if the difference is only a couple of bucks, a good number of customers will just leave the money on the table and run rather than miss the train.
The forced tip was about $8. $40 - $31.88 = $8.12, or 25.5%. The $10 wasn’t the tip, it was just the “change” the waitress brought back. If you take that to mean she rounded the bill down to $30, then yeah, it would have been a 33.3% tip.
A friend and I went to a restaurant we go to quite often. I was looking at the bill and thought something didn’t seem right.
The cashier, waitress, restaurant, whoever, had added a 15% tip to the bill. I understand they will do that for parties of 8 or more, but it was only the two of us.
The waitress got screwed on that one because we always leave a large tip.
She got her 15% and nothing more.
If I had been you I would have stopped her and asked her to make change for the $10.
Don’t know if I’m the only one that does not included the tax when figuring the tip. A local restaurant I frequent leaves 15, 18, and 20 percent tip suggestions on the bottom of the bill and I noticed the amounts shown do not include the tip. I changed my thinking on tips when I first noticed this.
Have any of you ever waited tables? I used to bartend at Crapplebee’s. Waitresses have all kinds of crazy ideas of how to get their tips higher. Some work, some backfire, but that doesn’t seem to deter the waitstaff. Usually, different tactics work on different people, and it’s impossible to predict.
Those of you who hate getting ones back have never had a moron say, “well, you gave me a $5 and two ones, I hope you’re happy with a $2 tip.” I always gave back the fewest bills possible, because I assume people carry more cash than they need. The OP demonstrates this isn’t true. Why would the waitress assume he has no other cash on him?
Some people LOVE a chit-chatty waitress; I can’t stand that shit. Some people expect to be entertained by a bartender if they sit at a bar, so I had to know a few jokes and check sports scores daily. Some people sit at the bar because it’s faster or they’re heavy drinkers, NOT because they want to commiserate with the help.
Service people have shitty jobs, but bar tending is fun. And they can’t win: too many ones, too few ones; talked about her fucking kids, seemed unfriendly; kept trying to sell us shit we didn’t want, didn’t offer appetizers or dessert; didn’t bring refills until our drinks were gone, brought refills too early and the pop was all watered down by melted ice; food took too long, food came right out like she was trying to turn her section.
Yep, don’t attribute to malice, blah, blah. The waitress was probably thinking, “I’m doing this guy a favor by giving him back more change than he needs.”
I totally agree with your point of view. I think it was really rude that the wait staff did that to you. You should have asked for change (for the ten), “So that I can leave your tip.” It’s up to YOU the amount of your tip and what that person did **was **try to force a higher one. You could have asked," Why did you bring me X when my change should have been Y? Then let’s see how THAT is explained. Then ask for the correct change, so that you can tip from there. Don’t need to make a big thing about it. Say it as if you are completely confused as to the error in change.
Something that bothers me when eating out with friends: We get a single bill and divvy up the totals/tax due/and tip. I have friends who will argue about the tip that I LEAVE. They always want to leave less. I want to tip according to ‘best practices’ and then additional for the level of service I received. That is up to me! They should tip what THEY want as well. But they will invariably take the cash back and either return part of my tip to me OR put it on their CC and then, if I WAS due change, I lose it to their ‘calculations’. I often end up paying the entire tip or definitely more than my share and the wait staff doesn’t get a fair tip. Either way, I end up feeling bad/deflated no matter how good the meal/camaraderie/service was! Then I can’t wait to get out of there (not looking forward to the next time we all meet for a meal out). ******To avoid this, I make sure I take LOTS of dollar bills and change when I am eating out so that I keep control of my personal tipping. ****** If I want to tip more, I do so. Less, I do so. In fact, I now keep more cash than I usually do (for emergencies) in different denominations and lots of change so that I have it available for eating out tipping!
I don’t know why tipping has to become a ‘weird’ thing, but it definitely is.
By the same token, when I travel in Europe, TIPS are not expected. But, I tip and then some because I usually get really great service. The wait staff there are surprised and very thankful for tips. LOL, I got a kiss my first trip to Spain on our first evening out from a young waiter because I tipped well. I DO tend to tip well if I have a great time. Why not? This waiter was fantastic and friendly and it set the tone for the rest of my stay.
On the last evening of my trips to Europe I usually tip the last place/waiter where I eat/drink ALL the rest of my Euros. I save enough for transport to airport, but the rest is given as a tip. Fun for me (easier than trying to recoup in US conversion upon my return) and it is now my ritual. I think it’s good luck and just another way to say ‘Thank you for sharing your wonderful country with me.’
Next time, stand up for yourself and your personal tipping style/belief.
If she brought you a 10, you could have left nothing, leaving her stiffed not just on the tip but on part of the bill - very foolish of her.
8 dollars on a 32 dollar tab IS a bit high - not that I haven’t left that before if the service was good or whatever, but with 15-18% the norm, a 6 dollar tip would have been right on target.
I personally would have flagged her down and said “Oh, I think you gave me too much change!”. Her reaction SHOULD have been grateful, though if she WAS trying to force you to leave the full amount, she might not have been pleased.
I’ve rarely run into a situation where my change was, say, 8.13 and the waitperson has brought back just the 8.00. This tends to reduce the amount I’ll leave as a tip (and I’m not a stingy tipper as a rule).
