Good for you on accepting the criticism, aha.
I think in today’s world, it’s generally understood that fifteen percent is a baseline, to be adjusted upwards for good service or down for poor service.
- Rick
Aha, great name, go to the “Hillary Fat Assed Phony” thread in the Pit and read what Hillary El Cheapo did in a dinner.
Pas grande chose.
Related to the OP:
My dad once explained to me that you don’t need to leave ~20% for a bottle of wine. His reasoning was this: a $60 bottle of wine would add $12 to the tip for basically a one act service; opening a bottle of wine. Assuming good service, he deducts the cost of the wine from the total bill, leaves 20% for the food and then adds 10% of the cost of the wine to the tip.
What say the TM’s?
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them. – Malcolm Forbes
If you went to a Chili’s and paid almost $25 each for a second-rate meal, you got shafted, or perhaps you shafted yourself. Chili’s, for those of you who don’t know that chain, is one of a group of restaurants like TGI Fridays, Bennigan’s, Applebee’s, and Ruby Tuesday’s. (Yes, I’m generalizing. I know that there are slight differences between them.) These places serve decent but not spectacular food. I expect to pay $13 to $18 for a meal at any of them (and that’s counting tax and tip). If you paid $25 (not even counting tip), you really went out of the way to choose the most expensive items. If you want to save money, be more careful about what items you pick. Save money that way rather than stiffing the waitress on the tip.
Not being used to tipping, I hate it but accept the practice and comply with what seem to be the norms. However, although people do tell me that they reduce the tips when the service is bad, I have never witnessed this. For example, I was in a small cafe early one sunday morning, there was nobody else in the place. The young man, who was apparently supposed to be serving us was busier talking to a friend. he waited five minutes before even bringing a menu over, let the food sit steaming on the counter for a good three minutes before bringing it over, never asked once if we wanted anything else and never offered to refill my coffee. Of course, if this had happened at home, that would be normal 
But, when leaving, I refused to leave a tip and argued (quietly) with my American friend that he’d done nothing to deserve it whatsoever. She agreed but left a tip anyway. What is the point of tipping if people are too polite to reward or punish the service accordingly? I would love to have walked out and said ‘don’t bother looking, there’s no tip, you were useless’. And yes, i’ve done these jobs many times. For less money. And no tips :).
Tipping gets a bad rap, but how many of you have eaten in countries where the practice is not observed? Lots, I’d guess. In my experience, the service suffers tremendously. It can be difficult to get a server to take notice of you at all, much less bring what you ordered in a timely manner. So yeah, what can seem like an extravagant convention might actually be a mechanism for better overall service.
Any differing experiences in non-tipping climes?
Maybe the service would be better if we tipped before the meal? Or is that a bribe?
::: mounting a watch for Satan’s post :::
[rant] Not tipping for the wine? Yeah, and don’t bother to tip for the deserts, either, since all the waiter did was bring them and clear. Bovine excrement. Your dad is just being cheap. If he can afford to order the wine at the inflated restaurant prices, he should recognize the tip is part of the cost.
Under his argument, you wouldn’t tip based on price anyway. Doesn’t it takes the same effort on the part of the waiter to serve an $5 plate of spaghetti as it does to serve a $20 steak? I don’t swallow your dad’s argument at all.
Does your Dad TELL the waiter that he’s not tipping on the wine? or does he just sneak out with a low tip, using the wine as the rationalization so as not to feel like a cheapskate who’s just cheated the waiter out of wages?
We regularly go out with someone who consistently subtracts (“as a matter of principle”) the state tax from the bill when he figures his 15%. I think he’s just cheap (it’s consistent with other behaviours.) Principle my arse. The waiter has no idea that’s what he’s doing, the waiter just sees a low tip. [/rant]
Waitpersons usually are on very low salaries. If you can afford to eat out, then you can afford to pay them. I think it’s a crummy system, personally; I much prefer the European system that tends to add waiter’s pay into the cost of the meal. I have not noticed any better or worse service on account of the payment system; I think that depends more on the restaurant and the individual server’s attentiveness. And I’ve done a lot of international travel.
Aha, I’m glad you saw the light. I’ll give you another f’rinstance: “So we were at a restaurant and the bill was $50, but I only had two $20s and a $100 bill, so I just left the $40 and we snuck out without paying the rest.” What would your reaction have been? and why is it any different? Cheap is cheap, and cheating is cheating, and flimsy rationalizations don’t make a tail a leg.
In the UK, we do tip in restaurants, probably at a comparable or slightly lower rate than here in the US. Bars and cafes, almost never, although i’m from the north 
I think the service generally depends on the establishment. In a more expensive restauarant, the service will probably be good, although the wages no higher. In bars, service is generally OK. If you’re slow, you get fired.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask a waiter/waitress how big a tip they think they deserve?
Glad to hear my experiences may not be typical. And to your point, it would seem to make better sense to the server’s superiors evaluate his/her level of service and pay the server accordingly. Why leave it up to numbskulls like us? After all, we don’t tip airline pilots for what we figure was a pretty decent landing.
I do get a kick out of rewarding good service, though. It really doesn’t take much to make a server’s day. Think about it…slipping an extra clam here and there doesn’t mean jack to the average restaurant-goer, but it can make a server’s night to have been tipped slightly over scale.
Shit, I sound like a regular Pollyanna. I’ll shut up before somebody goes “Glad Game” on my ass.
Well, I’ve waited tables & tended bar, and I know full well that I always gave good service. It wasn’t very often that I wound up with less than 15% as a tip. Often, I received more.
The few times that I received less than 15% I always wondered whether or not I had done something to offend. But then I realized that most people tipped me well, and chalked it up to the assholicity inherent in a certain percentage of the population at large.
I also, as a rule, leave 20% as a tip. Sometimes more, seldom less.
Waste
Flick Lives!
Aha,
After re-reading this thread, there’s something I don’t understand.
you said:
Two possible situations here:
a.) you’re spending some new kind of currency I have yet to be introduced to,
or
b.) I’m a drooling idiot and I shouldn’t post before noon…
Assuming neither of the above are true, how could you have had the option to leave $8 (implies to me you either had a $5 bill and 3 $1 bills, or 8 $1 bills) but your only other choice be a $4 tip for the server? Why couldn’t you leave $7?
People who do cheap-ass things like subtract the cost of the wine or refuse to leave $0.50 extra have probably never been a server in a restaurant. I supported myself for mnay moons slinging low-cost and then over-priced hash and here’s my view on it. I tip everytime. My tip is lower if the service is bad, but I always give the server a chance to fix the problem first. I find people who have worked in the service industry are a lot more observant about good/bad service but also tip really well for good service.
Aha, I typically start off assuming the server is earning a 20% tip and then subtract from that based on any problems. A problem free meal gets a 20% tip. I’ll go over that amount if I think the service is exceptional.
Maybe I’m miserly but I didn’t think that a 10% tip on a $50+ single bottle of wine is being cheap.
Android209,
“Wouldn’t it be interesting to ask a waiter/waitress how big a tip they think they deserve?”
No, you come off as a smartass. I hate it when customers ask me that.
It was meant in a rhetorical sense.
When I was asked this, i’d say ‘That’s up to you’…simple, but wouldn’t expect much. Usually the customers were shit-faced and not asking in a snooty way, maybe trying to show off or something.
As a Canadian I am aware of our reputation in parts of the states as Canoes, (Why is a Canadian like a canoe? Both don’t tip.) Yes I know canoes are really quite tippy, but it’s not my joke. I have only tipped less than ten percent on a meal if the waitress or cook has committed a grievous error, such as giving me cold food or losing my order. If the food or serice were spectacular then I would tip 15%. My father , on the other hand, comes from a generation that was unaccustomed to tipping. We have finally started to drag his tip percentage up from 5% to 10-12%, and even now he will backslide into his old penurious ways.
Keith
You want brilliance BEFORE I’ve had my coffee!!!
Android: where on earth were you working in the service industry that you were making less than $2/hr with no tips? Laos?
Crystalguy, I’m with you. I think aha should go back tonight and give her the few extra bucks. It would make her day.
mouthbreather sed:
After re-reading this thread, there’s something I don’t understand.
Mouthbreather:
I suppose what I meant was that I didn’t have any coin change with me. Since I paid at the table I couldn’t leave 7.50 ( which is 15% of 50.00) isn’t it? So rounding that off I would have normally left the 8 bucks. Instead I just decided that 15% was too much and left just half of that…the four bucks instead. Go figure.
“I’m the best there is Fats. Even if you beat me, I’m still the best.”
(Paul Newman in The Hustler)