I haven’t been there until this year and my GF and I cannot decide if I should tip them for bringing the food out to the car or if this is accepted without tip.
What do you do? What do you tip, if any?
It’s fast food. Unless the carhop offers sexual favors along with your fries, a tip is not expected or appropriate.
My experience is that tip/no tip ratio at Sonic is about 50/50, so you’re safe either way. Whatever you decide to do, I certainly wouldn’t give a big tip. Personally, I tip occassionally at Sonic and when I do, it’s a flat tip of a dollar or two.
I used to work at Sonic, and yes, tips were always very much appreciated. But the people bringing you the food do make minimum wage (not server wage); they aren’t expected to make up the difference in tips (but again, it’s been a few years since I’ve worked there).
I usually just leave them any coins and unless they did something special I doubt I’d do more than that.
That’s not right, actually. The majority of their wage comes from tips. Their model is one of a drive in, not a modern fast food restaurant.
Upon review, I defer to Deadly. My experience came from talking to a parent of a Sonic worker here in GA.
Wait. Sexual favors aren’t commonplace among Sonic servers?
Hmmmmm.
Then who was that guy?
Kidding! Totally!
From June: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=470209&highlight=sonic
From March: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=459610&highlight=sonic
They come outside to give me the food instead of having me pick it up at the window, just like a server in an indoor restaurant brings the food to my table instead of having me pick it up at the counter.
Therefore, they get a tip.
A friend of my son works at a local Sonic. She said that most people do not tip and she doesn’t expect them to. I usually only do if I know the server.
If you do tip, leave the tip in coins. The only time I ate there it was very windy and our napkins kept blowing away. Had we left a dollar it just would have been gone with the wind.
This puzzles me a little. I’ve never left a tip as I leave at Sonic, when I do leave one. I always provide it at the time of transaction. They’re not waiters, so they’re not going to be coming back to the table once they’ve handed you your food. When you do eat at an outside table, I imagine you’re responsible for tossing your own trash.
Or are you just having a laugh?
I always leave a tip at Sonic. Not 15% or anything, but something. After all, they’re bringing my food to me. I’ll usually round up to the next dollar or (if say my tab is 6.95) I’ll give them another 50 cents.
Yes and no. I was only there once but I saw them come back to pick up the trays. I think they reuse those.