Restaurant servers either get 15-20% (perhaps more, if I really enjoy the service and/or conversation), or nothing at all. Their hourly rate is absolutely moot to me. For me, their hourly rate is what the employer pays the waiter for being there and doing a satisfactory job. The tip is what I pay the waiter in appreciation of the level of service shown.
Re: delivery fee – I’ve just assumed that pizza places are charging delivery fees now to cover the cost of taking orders by phone, by internet, what have you; perhaps to add on to the driver’s wages for vehicle wear. Again, my calculation of driver tip is completely removed from whatever wage they make. Pizza delivery usually gets about 15% – or $3.00 on every $20.00 I spend on food.
Re: tipping the manager – of course. The manager is doing the same work to make my drink at the bar as the normal bartender would. Again, what they make outside of our brief transaction is irrelevant. Whether it be the manager, the bartender, or the busboy, if the drink’s good and didn’t take forever, they get tipped.
In general, my tips are not at all related to the waiter’s wages. The employer pays them to show up and serve tables. I tip them for the way they serve my table.
I have never ordered a pizza from somewhere where they add delivery fees. I still order from one local place that does not do so, and still tip the driver.
Likewise, I don’t patronize restaurants that include gratuities on the check. Even ones which include it as an optional item I don’t use the item. I write 0.00 on that line, and the total without a tip. Then I tip the service staff in cash.
Of course, I do realize that forgoing the privilege of giving money to people who fail to meet my standards of business honesty is radical. The American way is to pay whatever is asked in order to get what I want right now!
Tipping is wrong. I do it, but I don’t agree with it.
Like all those fees and service charges Ticketmaster adds onto the cost of a concert ticket, businesses can have their cake and eat it too by advertising one price while the customer actually pays much more. Hell, I don’t even like getting the sales tax added on to the price of an item when I take it to the register. Add up all the money I will have to give up in exchange for the item or service, and put that on the price tag! Anything else is blatant dishonesty, if you ask me.
I never understood it either from that point of view. We’ve refused to pay for a meal that’s clearly inedible, but I’ve never had such extraordinary service that I’ve felt I’ve had to tip someone.
I’ll add my standard solution: if you want to give an unusually small (or no) tip, you need to let the wait staff/delivery driver know that BEFORE you receive the service. If you let them know, and they choose to serve you, then you’ve at least satisfied part of your ethical obligation, i.e., you’re not defrauding them of their services by a lie of omission. If you don’t, then they’re assuming they’ll get a tip within a certain range and acting accordingly, and you KNOW they’re making that assumption, and receiving services only because you don’t correct their reasonable misapprehension.
Edit: that said, I worked a totally shit job for a few weeks as a delivery driver. The $4 delivery fee the company charged was, along with tips, my ONLY compensation. The company considered me (probably illegally) as an independent contractor. I rarely made minimum wage at the job, once I calculated what I’d earned minus my vehicle costs.
This is exactly my position too. Whatever tipping may have started as, right now it is a way for a company to pay less than minimum wage and have the customer pay the difference. I don’t understand why this is acceptable: nobody would accept a company that passed on their rent expenses by advertising $20 for an item they intended to sell for $24 and then expect the customer to pay $4 to the landlord because they had excluded that cost from the advertised price.
I hate to break this to you, but if they paid over minimum wage, the customer would still pay the difference. Restauranteurs don’t have access to a magical bank account where wages appear out of nowhere, the money to pay wages comes from the money customers pay them for meals.
If you think restauranteurs simply make oodles and oodles of excess profit by screwing over customers and staff, I would suggest that you get into the restaurant business, sounds like a way to get rich quick.
Every tax you pay should be in your face. The tax has nothing to do with the store and the store should not put it in the price. I wish they did the same thing for gasoline. It’s way too easy for the State to bump up your gas tax and it not be noticed due to price fluctuations (and then those same politicians gripe about oil companies)
Except I don’t usually decide how much I’m going to tip until after the service has been performed. If I knew beforehand that I was not going to leave a tip, I wouldn’t even patronize the restaurant.
I assume you mean in cases other than reducing a tip because of poor service.
But ISTM that a restaurant charging a customer for services that used to be included in the tip (and not sharing any of that with the wait staff) is no different than merely jacking up the price of the food. If this causes the customer to reduce the tip, then the restaurant is screwing its servers. If the customer includes a percentage of the new fee in his tip, then the restaurant is screwing its customers and its wait staff, and the customer is (inadvertently) screwing the wait staff. Formerly the waiter received 100% of the “pouring fee”, now s/he only gets 15-20% of it. Ideally, the customer would simply not pay the “pouring fee” and add it to the tip. (I don’t feel myself to be morally obligated to pay the “automatic gratuity for parties of 8 or more” if I got bad service, either.)
If the restaurant said, “No, you have to pay this ‘pouring fee’” and did not give any of it to the waiter, then I guess I would tip 15-20% of the total bill and then the server would have to decide if s/he wanted to work for less. If the restaurant is screwing the wait staff, I am not morally obligated to make up the difference.
But if the restaurant did charge for that service, why should I pay the waiter/waitress also?
Of course it does. If the restaurant is charging for a service, I shouldn’t be expected to pay for that service twice by tipping for it. The wait staff should realize this. It’s up to them to insist to management that they should receive the fee as it is causing them to make less in tips, stop charging the fee, or get a job somewhere else.
Not even close.
You tell us that there are two separate services but you never tell us what they are. Getting me a drink is one service. If I’m being charged for it, I shouldn’t tip for it. Reducing the tip amount should now be expected. Tipping is a voluntary fee for service.
I explained in a subsequent post how it can be argued that the restaurant and the server provide distinct services. (Though I also explained why I think this is an irrelevant consideration.)
I’m not sure how to respond to these three disconnected sentences (two of which appear to me to be little more than slogans).
We generally tip (in restaurants) “for” services that were “charged for”. The restaurant charges me 8 bucks for my nachos. I tip a dollar sixty for those nachos. I was charged–and I tipped. This is the norm in restaurants. If you really want to follow through with the notion that “if you’re being charged for it, you shouldn’t tip for it” then you should not be tipping at restaurants, period. (Notice that there are several responses you could give me here, most of which will nicely point out the arguable distinction you asked for between service provided by the restaurant and service provided by your waiter, and will nicely point out that this distinction can be made regardless of what words are arbitrarily printed out on your bill.)
As for the second sentence quoted above, that is the very point of contention so I can say nothing other than “nuh uh.”
And your third sentence I really don’t know what to do with. Of course tipping is a voluntary payment. Nothing I have said has implied otherwise. Indeed, nothing I have said has been particularly relevant to this observation.
The service is: taking the order, delivering the nachos, getting you anything else you need, clearing the table, bringing the bill, and generally managing your dining experience. Pouring and delivering drinks, that’s part of the above service, which is normally tipped for.
I actually agree that one should tip even if there is a delivery/service charge, as long as that charge doesn’t go to the server, but it IS double charging for the same service.
No, you didn’t. You claimed that they are different services but you didn’t give an argument for it.
No. Cheesesteak already beat me to it, but we’re not tipping for the nachos; we’re tipping for the service. If I’m being charged for the service- bye, bye tip.
You’re intentionally leaving out the word “service” and replacing it with “payment”. In your nachos example, I’m not leaving a tip because the nachos exist. That’s what I’m paying for- the existence of the nachos on my table. The tip or service fee is for the “service”.
Now I guess you’ll again pick on my writing style and call my comments irrelevant. Have fun.
Can you make clear for me why the provision of materials, equipment and workers is not a service? Several people in this thread seem to have such a distinction in mind but I haven’t wrapped my mind around it yet.
Exactly. Most people know that the wait staff expect a tip of 15-20% if the wait staff provide decent service. If the wait staff don’t provide decent service, then you’re not defrauding them. If they do, and you tip (as you planned to all along) less than 15%, then you’re obtaining their services through a lie of omission.
Me, I am a lazy son a bitch. Take the total and subtract the delivery charge, then calculate the tip? Way too much like work. I calculate off the total.
I am happy to say that an extra 30 or 40 cents out of my pocket isn’t going to change my lifestyle.
Irrelevant. Most people would agree with iamthewalrus that the tip is for “taking orders and pouring drinks and so on”. If the restaurant imposed an extra fee for providing “a place to eat”, most of us would agree that that shouldn’t be deducted from the wait staff’s tip (although we might choose to never eat at a place like that) as the wait staff is not responsible for providing the place to eat. Having my drinks poured is a responsibility I expect from the waiter. It’s also one of the services I am paying him for by tipping. The restaurant charging me separately for the waiter pouring drinks is no different than the restaurant charging a gratuity on the bill. When that’s done, I don’t pay twice for wait staff service and no restaurant or wait person should expect me to.