Sometimes when I use a credit card to pay a restaurant bill, I leave the tip in cash. In that case, what is the right thing to do on the line for the tip on the credit card receipt? I just put a line through it and write the actual bill amount on the “total” line, but I always walk away with the uncomfortable worry that once the cash gets separated from the receipt, it will look like I stiffed the waiter. Is there some generally accepted way of indicating on the credit card receipt that the tip was left in cash?
A related question: One of the reasons I leave the tip in cash sometimes is that I’ve heard that at some restaurants, all tips go into a pool that is then just split equally among the wait staff. If I have a particularly good waiter, I want to reward that specific person, not the whole staff. My thought is that if I leave cash, the waiter can keep all of it (or at least can keep the amount over and above an average tip, putting the rest into the pool). Is it true that some (most?) restaurants use that sort of pool system for tips?
A last question (or two): I’m showing my age here, but when I started paying restaurant bills, I was told that a good tip was 10%. Somewhere along the way, “good” became 15%. Now many people seem to consider 20% good (I know someone why was actually questioned by the waitress as to what it was about the service he didn’t like since he left “only” a 15% tip). So what is a “good” or “average” tip these days, 15% or 20%? And who decides these things? If there are any (current or recently former) wait-persons reading this, what tip percentage to you consider to be “average”? What’s the low end, below which you think the diner must have found some major fault with the service? More importantly, what is the percentage that will definitely get your attention, letting you know that the diner believed the service was way above and beyond?
Nobody cares. The recipts are turned in at the end of shift and sent to the credit card processor. As long as the server knows, nobody else matters. There are lots of reasons for no tip on a charge-tip left in cash, put on another card, maybe a pickup order with no server involved. Nobody cares.
I have NEVER worked at a place that did this unless it was a banquet setting. Frankly, I’d quit. I’m damn good at waiting tables, I’m not gonna carry some smuck who can’t handle being double sat.
I tip high- most ex waiters/bartenders do. 15% from me means you did a crappy job, frankly. Average/Good service, 20%. Exceptional-25-30%. Always tip very well if you got a few things not reflected on the bill- an extra draft, maybe condiments you were “supposed” to be charged for-guacamole is a good example. I waited tables and tended bar for years and years in college. The above is based on lots of experience from the other side of the tray.
I work at a restaurant and have the honor of going through all of the days receipts. I’ve seen a couple of different ways of dealing with cash tips when paying with a credit card. The majority of people either draw a line through the tip section, write a 0 or just leave it blank. Some people will write “cash” on the tip line and others will write “on table.” FWIW, I have to agree with weirddave. It doesn’t matter if it looks like you stiffed your server. If you left a tip, then you don’t have anything to worry about. If I see a credit card slip with no tip written in, I assume the customer left cash.
I can’t answer for pooling tips, except to say that it must suck. I wouldn’t want my hard-earned (and a good server works very hard) to go to someone who doesn’t pull his/her weight.
As for the proper amount to tip, 20% is pretty much the average tip. I believe that 15% is still considered to be the standard by people who have never served, but the servers I work with say that most of the customers leave 20%. When I go to a restaurant, I generally start at 20 and go up from there.
I read a lot of ski magazines and sometimes check out the ski bum sections. Almost always they recommend that the way to make the most money ski bumming (almost to the point that it takes you out of the bum catagory) is to get hired as a wait staff for a restaurant that services skiers (also you can ski during the day and work right after). It would seem from that the tips to the wait staff are enough compared to other jobs. Maybe that’s because the prices of the food are usually inflated and customers are more willing to go for extras on vacation.
Also I believe leaving a tip based on what the service is and the time you tie up the table worth not the food. This is hard to judge sometimes but I think it is fairer.
As for splitting the tip - I think that was more common in the past but I found out that you can state that you would like to leave a personal tip to you waiter/ress which they get the whole thing - but this usally stiffs the bus boys - so you end up having to leave 2 tips.
I used to work in a restaurant. It does not matter whether you put your tip on the credit card or pay cash; it is treated the same. Where I worked, waiters did not pool tips, but bartenders did.
I’d like to echo what BobT said. If you leave cash, be sure to zero the tip line and copy the total. We had a waiter who discovered that he could get double tips from people who left cash and did not copy the total. He just wrote in the amount he felt he deserved and totaled it himself. He finally got caught, but we don’t know how many times he got away with it.
I worked as a busboy/dishwasher for over a year. Like the rest of us who did or have done our stint in food service, I tip hugely. It’s very fucking hard work ( although Weirddave never breaks a sweat. God, he’s a cool dude ).
I tip cash when I charge a meal. I also HAND the server the cash, but that may be a NYC paranoia thing. It beats the fear of pooled tips, AND makes sure some skankpuppy doesn’t make off with the tip after I stroll out.
15% is barely acceptable service.
20% is good service.
25% and higher is great.
15% PLUS a single penny means they were mediocre, and they should take the insult and get their shit together.
Even though I’ve never done it, I thought it was 1 penny for poor service and normal tip + 1 penny for really good service. Anyone else heard of this. And do we have 2 versions that are contradictory?
The same thing goes for taking your copy of the credit receipt.
If you only fill one out and then leave both behind, you are risk of having the waiter/tress fill out the blank one with the amount they want.
And who can really remember if last month’s Bennigans dinner was $78 or $98 if you don’t have the receipt?
I think everybody has covered al your questions, but I want to point out two other reasons servers appreciate cash tips:
Chain restaurants will generally front the CC tip to the server, where as smaller joints will pay out cc tips in the regular paycheck. I even worked at a place (not for long) that removed 4% from your cc tips because that’s what they had to pay to the cc companies. Jerks.
Also, servers are supposed to declare (at least when I waitressed) their tips so they can get taxed on that money. Most big places declared 8% of your total sales as tip income OR the total amount of your cc tips, whichever was higher.
I leave whatever tip my wife tells me to. I don’t understand why you tip at all if the service was bad, though. That’s kind of defeating the purpose of tips isn’t it?
I tip 15% for average service and go up from there. If the service was bad, I don’t tip unless it’s not the server’s fault, ie the cook screwed the order or the place is packed and obviously understaffed. I’ve also found that my wife tends to expect her server to earn his tip and she’s a tougher critic than I usually am.
I worked for a chain restaurant when I was in college and grad school (two different restaurants of the same chain). In the Minnesota store, I got the national minimum wage plus tips without any tip sharing. We would, however, be expected to tip a certain % to the service bartender, the busboy and the hostess. The % was your choice, but usually about 10%, 4% and a couple of bucks & a smile, respectively.
We had 8% of our gross calculated for us and that is the amount we were supposed to report as tips for Income Tax - and you had to punch in the number yourself at the end of the night. If you deviated too much from that amount, the manager would ask you about it and let you know that you’d better start getting it right or go work somewhere else.
In the Arizona store, we got the state of Arizona wait staff minimum wage, something like $1.90 and our tips were shared based on a percentage of 8% (the amount of tips you should be making, at least) of your gross. I think it was about 15% that was taken but I can’t remember exactly. FOR EXAMPLE, if you sold $1000 worth of dinners and drinks, your expected tips were $80 and you would owe $12 collectively to the service bartender, busboys and host and hostesses. You would pay the restaurant $1012 in cash and credit card receipts - they’d distribute the money the next week or so to the others. Of course, you’d have more than $68 in your pocket if you were even a halfway decent waiter.
I much preferred the Arizona tip-sharing system because you wouldn’t have all these petty fights and comments, like when you’d start to give lower tips to coworkers for poor service - “I know you made more than $150 in tips, why’d you give me only $5? Well, your ability behind the service bar sucks and I had to wait 20 minutes for one beer - that lowered MY tips!” Especially if you think about the fact that it might be the scheduler’s fault for not having 2 service bartenders, or something like that.
So, tip-sharing isn’t all bad. Plus, the service bartender, busboys and hosts always made more in Arizona than in Minnesota - but it still wasn’t as much as the waiters got. Pretty fair overall.
A related question. I frequently only fill out the total line leaving the tip section blank, assuming the difference will just be tip. For example, if the bill was $33.23 I might just write $40.00 in the total section, sign it and take my copy. Does the tip part really need to be filled in at all?
On a recent trip to NYC, I dined at Tavern On The Green, a pretty posh restaurant. (It was beautiful, but vegetarians beware! Not much to choose from. I ended up with a beutifully prepared bowl of eight ravioli that were $4 apeice!) On the bill there were two TIP lines. One for “server” and one for “captain” or something like that. I assumed that the bussers and bartenders would get a portion of the tip from one of these guys, but I didn’t know which. The two men did different but similar jobs. Is one supposed to get a bigger tip than the other? Should I have split a 20% tip between them?
Being a hick on a trip to the big city, hellbent on getting rid of all my money, I think I left 15% for each, even though I’d normally have left 20% total.
Thanks to all who’ve responded, it’s been helpful. It’s somewhat depressing, though, to see that when I’ve left 20% thinking that it was generous, the server considered it average.
The only question that has not yet been addressed is that one; how is it that 20% is considered that basic tip amount for normal, satisfactory service? Am I wrong that ten or twenty years ago, 10% was the basic tip? And if that is true, how/when did it go up?
And, as long as I’m asking all these questions, how about going all the way back? How did more-or-less mandatory tipping in restaurants get started in the first place? I mean, tipping as a general concept is supposed to be a reward for service above and beyond. But as was pointed out already, tips for restaurant servers long ago got so entrenched that they’re factored into the basic pay and are assumed for tax purposes. How far back does the mandatory tip go, and how did the “custom” start?
Nope, you don’t need to fill in the tip section as long as the total is there. Servers add up the totals of all credit card slips when they cash out at the end of their shifts. Customers’ math can be a little shaky anyway, so you pretty much have to rely on what they wanted the total to be. Many is the time when what a customer tried to tip me and what they actually tipped me didn’t match, and probably as often in my favor as against. One time, the tip a customer had filled in was a full 10 dollars higher in the tip blank than the total (as in meal=$95, tip=$30, total=$115), and I managed to convince my manager to give it to me. He was a good man!
I’m a textbook tipper, but I will also add a little more if I tied up a table or a booth during a busy shift.
If they did something to piss me off, though, and didn’t apologize, they get ZERO. Or if I really want to send a message, a few pennies.
And I frequently get dragged by friends to a local half-price sushi restaurant where the tips are pooled. The service BITES. I’m not kidding - the servers do as little as possible, and aren’t ashamed about it. It’s like they take classes in avoiding eye contact and not noticing raised hands.
Pooled tips suck. I wouldn’t eat there except it’s $2.50 for tuna/salmon/yellowtail/etc… and although it’s “no frills,” the fish is fresh.
I work at a restuarant were the tip is pooled. It can occasionally suck. I usually get pretty good tips somewhere in the 6-10 dollar range for a forty dollar meal. I used to work with this girl who would get 2 or 3 dollars for the same amount. I hated that. Luckily she buckled under the pressure and quit so this isn’t really a problem any more. I hate to say it, but I am a reallly honest person and even if someone does tell me to keep the whole tip I end up putting it in the jar anyways. I always thought that 15% percent was normal. At least that seems to be the opinion of most of the people in this town. the only thing is that I never leave less then a dollar tip. It used to drive me nuts when I was working lunch by myself and people would leave me eighty-five cent tips for their 6 dollar meals. I know that they used their calculators to figure out the percetage and even gave me a couple cents more, but come on. I always felt really crummy after that. I don’t do the lunch shift anymore. Too much stress and it just wasn’t worth it.
That is also my experience. A tip of a round number of dollars plus one penny is a compliment to good service. I was a waiter in college 20 years ago, and this might be something that just other waiters know about.
But I think Cartooniverse has been sending his servers the wrong messages all this time.
Alright well I was a waiter at California Pizza Kitchen, and I have to say it was kinda hard work but all these people complaining is rediculous. Serving is no more difficult than any other job I’ve had. I tip 15% generally and that’s fair. I only declared 8% of my tips (actually the resturant did it automatically) so I was acctually screwing the gov’t out of 7%, this is what most servers did, so these servers who bitch about 15% cause they only make minimum wage is rediculous. plus I never had more than a 5 hour shift, unless I was on a double which rarely happened, is that a cousy job or what? Hard work: yes, harder than the average work your way thought college gig: not a chance
I don’t understand why you tip at all if the service was bad, though. That’s kind of defeating the purpose of tips isn’t it?