I’ve mentioned in previous threads that I have no issue with tipping the chef / kitchen directly when provided with good food but poor service, and I didn’t get a contrary response, but what about the reverse? I understand that in America it is expected that the waiter will pass a proportion of their tips to other staff. How would it be seen in America if I were to tip the waiter and to tell him or her that the tip was for their good service and not for the average-standard food (or wine or whatever), so they are not to tip out staff group X - the kitchen, the bus-boy, whoever?
The tip is not for “good service”. It’s because the minimum wage for restaurants is less than normal because they expect tips to be added.
Here we go again.
Re the OP: I think you can tell the waiter that all you want, but in reality, they are still going to tip out as expected for their restaurant, even if only not to start trouble. I would hope they’d pass on the comment, but you could always cut out the middleman and speak to the manager.
It;s been a long time (about 15 years) since i worked as a waiter in North America, and that was in Canada, not the US.
But we never had to tip out the kitchen staff. The host/hostess, busboys, and bartenders: yes. But none of our tips ever went to the chefs.
I’m not sure if this has changed, or if US restaurants work differently.
I doubt they will pass on your message. Nobody likes to be rated by others, as you should know from personal experience being rated by others, and nobody likes people who rate others. The attitude becomes “Who does he think he is anyway, Diamond Jim passing out his measly ten bucks to us peons on his estate?”
I would see it as:
- Unrealistic to expect the waiter to confront his coworkers in such a way.
- Cowardly to expect someone else to do your dirty work for you. (If you are capable of tipping other staff directly, you are capable of expressing your dissatisfaction to them.)
- A sign that you either don’t understand the concept of tipping or are looking for a way to save a few pennies - in America, “average-standard” gets a tip. The only acceptable reason for withholding tips is when something is seriously substandard. (I don’t like the way the system works, but that’s how it is.)
Like others said, the restaurant/hotel or whatever already has a tip sharing policy in place. You can’t really compromise that as a customer and it would be bad form to try to do so. Kitchen staff usually gets paid an agreed upon wage anyway so don’t even think about them. Waiters and bartenders basically work for tips in most restaurants so you should have a good reason before you stiff them although it is your right to do so. It is a screwy system but it isn’t going to go away soon and hospitality establishments in the U.S. generally have good customer service partly because of the tipping system.
See, this claim comes up virtually every tipping thread, and i’ve yet to see any evidence for it apart from general “common sense” arguments or abstract appeals to notions of incentive.
Sure, on the surface it seems fairly self-evident to argue that a tipping system would encourage good customer service. There is, in theory at least, an incentive built into the system for service staff to provide good service. And, by contrast, in non-tipping countries, the server’s knowledge that he or she is on a fixed hourly rate means that there might be little incentive to “go the extra mile.”
The thing is, though, in my own experience one is just as likely to receive good service in a non-tipping society as in a tipping society, and bad service can also easily be found in both places. While i recognize that my experience is anecdotal, it is not trivial; i’ve lived for years in countries with tipping systems (Canada, USA) and countries without (UK, Australia), and when i was younger i also worked as a waiter and bartender in both systems (in the UK, Australia, and Canada).
While i recognize that i might have had subconscious motivations that were not evident to my conscious mind, i honestly do not feel that i ever slacked off any more as a waiter in the non-tipping countries than in the tipping ones, nor that i pushed myself any harder in the tipping places. While the idea of a tip theoretically implies an incentive to work well, so does the idea of losing your job. I’ve seen people fired for being bad servers in places like Australia and the UK, and it seems to me that this would provide just as much motivation as concern over the amount of a tip.
The whole alleged difference in incentive between tipping and non-tipping societies breaks down even further when tipping becomes, as it has in the United States, a de facto compulsory part of the charge. As others in this thread have noted, most people will leave an adequate to respectable tip even if the service has been fairly mediocre, and a generally competent level of service will usually draw a customer’s “default” tip, whether that be 15 or 18 or 20 percent. And many restaurants, for larger tables (6 or more in some places; 8 or more in others) the establishment will actually place a tip amount on the bill, usually in the order of about 18 percent.
As i said, i know that theoretically tipping provides an incentive, but in practice i’ve found that it is very difficult to trace broad discrepancies between tipping and non-tipping cultures when it comes to the quality of service. In my experience, in all of these places, quality of service varies far more within societies than between them, and the biggest determinant tends to be the quality and type of the establishment itself.
Just MHO.
Being a person who worked back in the kitchen, I’d be a little offended. We work hard back there to make sure that your food tastes good, that your dishes are clean, and that when you asked that waiter for a pitcher of water he could get it for you promptly. You see the waiter, but you don’t realize that some of what you appreciate and attribute to the waiter is coming from the kitchen staff.
Some US states don’t have a “tip credit”; the staff is paid minimum plus tips. In others, it’s substantially less than minimum plus tips.
Also, each restaurant will have its own tip-sharing system in place before you ever walk in the door. Some will simply allow each person to take all their own tips and the kitchen gets screwed, sometimes all tips are pooled and split equally (something I enjoyed when I wanted a more predictable income rather than an erratic one) and others have complex systems where a busboy might get 10% of the tips left at the counter, while waitresses pick up all their own and get none of the counter… It varies widely, and trying to circumvent this can do little but create frustration in the back.
Servers don’t tip out the kitchen (normally). If they are tipping out other employees it will usually be bussers, bartenders, and expediters (if the restaurant has them). Some may also include the hosts. But not the kitchen staff.
So, if the food or water is merely average - i.e. you don’t do your job - but the service is good - i.e. they do theirs - you wouldn’t object to not having your share of the tip?
If the food is crummy you complain to management and let it be known you don’t expect to be paid for such shoddy food.
Tipping is not only for the individual but also for a team effort. People don’t go to a resturant for service alone anymore than they go for the food.
As others have said, each resturant has it’s own method of dividing tips, if any. And each state has different laws regarding how tips can be divided.
If the food stinks I’d complain to management and state you expect a reduction in your bill then tip the waiter on the basis of the original bill. If no reduction is made then I’d simply not come back. Or you could be a jerk and not leave a tip.
If you’re a waiter and you’re at a place where they serve lousy food you can’t expect good tips. It’s not fair but so what, I can name you a hundred other jobs where it’s not fair, where you put in a 100% and get back zero. I know places that have let people go before bonus are paid off, give unrealistic goals and redo incentive in midstream.
The bottom line is life’s unfair. A waiter is PART of a team, not a unit into himself, and if the team sucks than it’s fair that a portion of his tip is reflected.
Wait staff work hard, but so do others, I see no point according them an more favours than others who work just as hard for less or more.
Source: http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/q-a.htm
In other words, tipped employees must be paid at least $7.25 an hour, a combination of employee wages and tips.
'Scuse me- if the food and water is average, then I’ve earned my tip under the system of tipping currently in place in the States. That’s what I get for doing my job. That’s what the societal convention is. The food being average or good, but not big-tip good represents me doing my job adequately, for which I expect an adequate tip.
You tip as normal, then you speak to the manager quietly and politely and mention your issue with the busboy, etc.
Exactly.
If the service was good, it is not their fault the food was horrible (unless they were late in bringing it and it was cold or something).
I would leave the normal tip, but ask to speak to the manager and tell them your server was great, but the food was horrible.
I worked in a lot of different places as a cook and I never received any tips.
Quartz lives in the UK, where waitstaff actually get paid real money by their employers.
Even so, it is for good service. If the restaurant industry wants to take advantage of the custom, that’s their business; it doesn’t mean it’s the customer’s job to make up the difference. Nobody made you (or whoever) take a below-minimum wage job- and I’ve never known a decent server who didn’t make way more than I did when I worked in similar fields.
For the record, I virtually always tip 20% or more; I just don’t have any problem with people who tip poorly for poor service.
Anyway, how would you tip the kitchen staff? Just walk in there and hand them some dough?
As others have mentioned, I believe tipping out extends to the other serving staff (hostess, busboys, etc.) not the kitchen staff. And I’m having a hard time imagining how the busboy could so negatively impact my experience that I’d make a point of telling my waitperson not to give him the fifty cents his share of my tip probably comes out to.
The trick to being happy dining in the U.S. is to think of the tip like a tax. In nearly all cases you just pay it, but occasionally there are exemptions.
As a customer, I am always more than willing to be paid for shoddy food.