Are you saying you subtract the delivery charge from the tip?
Why do you do this? The two are incommensurate. The delivery charge has nothing relevant to do with the employee who delivered your pizza.
If a restaurant started charging a “per table” fee, I could imagine tipping based on the total w/out the fee, and I can imagine tipping based on the total w/ the fee, but I can’t understand why one would subtract this fee from the tip. The tip is a transaction between you and your waiter. The fee would have nothing to do with this–the fee is between you and the restaurant.
You might as well tip the waiter/deliverer less when the restaurant simply raises its prices. But that would be ludicrous.
Early Eighties. Private, as in not a franchise, pizza delivery got me a little over minimum wage, plus mileage. There were bonuses at 10, 20, and 30 deliveries a night. On a busy night, the per hour wage wasn’t bad. Plus we got pizza to eat. And the manager wasn’t trying to short-shift your schedule to keep you from reaching the bonuses.
It was a college town, so the numbers were good, but the tips often stank. On the other hand, a few mulit-customer dorm runs and you made bonus without burning much gas.
Any tip is appreciated. Folding ones are nicer than jingling ones.
I glanced at the ingredient cost and suggested total pizza cost. The estimated cost of one standard medium cheese pizza was somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.10. The cheapest you could get one was for $5. That’s just raw ingredients, though.
I drove for Domino’s here about 15 years ago. We had people that would order pizzas without cheese. Then there was the one household that would order a large, with a quarter of it without cheese. :dubious:
When I was working there, I got minimum wage, mileage, and my tips. On some nights, I made $15 an hour. But I always got at least minimum wage, and gas was much cheaper then.
I delivered for Godfather’s Pizza in the mid-80’s. The delivery surcharge was $1 per pizza, of which the driver got 75 cents. I don’t know how well people tip now but back then I was lucky to pull in a couple of bucks in tips over an entire shift. Most people never tipped. One guy regularly ordered two pizzas and would tip fifty cents. :rolleyes:
And as for special orders, at one time we had a “taco pizza” that had taco sauce instead of marina sauce, plus hamburger and black olives and topped with cheddar cheese, and then they’d throw on some lettuce and tomatoes when it came out of the oven. I remember a girl ordering a taco pizza without the meat, lettuce, tomatoes or black olives – basically she ordered a cheese pizza with taco sauce! (But of course we charged her for the “specialty pizza”. :D)
That’s nothing. I run the pizzas at my restaurant, and we rented out the third floor to some old lady’s party for $600. They said they would be ordering pizzas all night, so I prepared to get hit as a I made a bunch of food for them. They ordered for margherita pizzas, and nothing else. Then they came down and said what a great job I did with them and how happy they were they came.
$600 for four tomato pizzas over olive oil. Some people just don’t make any sense.
I worked for Mothers Pizza in Hamilton in the mid-80’s. We had in-store drivers who used the company cars with the restaurant stickers all over them ('80 K-car, '79 Chevette, '85 Mustang, guess which one people wanted to use). We also used ‘independant’ drivers who use their own cars to deliver.
The in-store drivers were general labour through the restaurant and were basically floaters to do whatever was necessary. The manager would direct them to help out different departments. The took deliveries when the store got really busy. They were paid hourly wages, and kept any delivery tips.
The independant drivers were there only to take deliveries. When they weren’t driving, they weren’t making money. Mothers charged $1.50 for delivery, but the independant drivers were paid $2/delivery. This store was busy enough on Friday nights that taking 2 or 3 at a time was normal, so they’d get $6 for a 20-30 minute run. They kept any tips as well, so each delivery was worth ~$4.
Our store was busy as weekend nights usually had 80-130 deliveries/night. Occassionally the independant drivers took over 50 deliveries each in one evening (5PM-2AM). Rainy nights were the busiest and played havoc with the store policy of ‘33 minutes or it’s free’.
I think I explained my reasoning above, but I’ll try to be more clear. I consider the tip a charge for the delivery of the pizza. If the restaurant wants to specify a lower limit to that by adding a delivery charge line item, then they can do that, but I don’t see where I’m all of a sudden socially obligated to pay the company for delivering the pizza and pay the driver for delivering the pizza.
To answer your specific question of a restaurant table fee: I would tip based on the food price, and pay the table fee in addition. A tip in a restaurant is not meant to be payment for the space to eat in; it’s meant to be payment for service. If a restaurant started adding a “taking your order” fee or a “filling up your drinks” fee, I would absolutely subtract those from the tip (and, probably, speak to the manager and never eat there again) because that’s what the tip is for.
For a more analogous example: if the pizza place started charging a .25 pizza box fee, assessed to anyone who got a pizza box (pick up, delivery, doggie bag), I would not subtract that from the tip to the delivery guy, because it’s not for the delivery.
Apologies for the very much not GQ nature of my posts in this thread. If anyone wants to discuss this area further, lets start another thread.
I have been reading all the responses and do thank everyone!
I gave the guy a couple of bucks besides the $1.10 delivery charge anyway. He was a nice kid.
Pizza was baaaaaad though. I threw out half of one (mushroom on thin crust) and ate the other (pepperoni on so-called “hand-tossed” crust) after doctoring it up so that it had flavor. Dang that’s bland pizza they’re serving.
This is simply not true. A tip is a gratuity, which is a gift intended to reward or encourage good service. It is not the same as payment for the service. A tip is optional - what other payments for service do you consider optional? Rather than a restaurant, try a barber - when I pay for my haircut, I am charged $14 for the service. The tip that I add on top of that is not the payment for the service.
True, but it probably WON’T be cheddar!! missbunny, I’m with you on this one! With the possible exception of the abovementioned “taco pizza” (an abomination, but to each his own), cheddar just doesn’t belong on a pizza. Heck, not even then – I never saw authentic Mexican restaurants use anything but mild white cheese.
There’s a lot more variety in this than I knew. As an undergrad, I did this for years. People are generally pretty awful about tipping the pizza guy/girl (the BIGGEST exception is drug dealers; gotta love 'em). The job is not high paying, and we are, in a sense, risking our lives to bring you food.
The deal was this: I was an independent contractor. I got some amount for gas, which was at some historic low, so a couple bucks there. There was an individual per delivery charge, regardless of the actual bill - that’s mine - plus any tips. At the end of the day, I settle up with the place, adding up what the restaurant charges would have been; checks same as cash (no CCs), and whatever I got left is mine. So, gas $+delivery charge+any tips. Not really that much, and we try hard. Be nice. Pretend you’re at least tipping at, say, a diner.
Why do people do this? It’s the sort of job you can take or leave at short notice, like, over Spring Break, when you need more textbook money. My place was very informal about personal habits, which was nice. Work hard, be honest, after that, management don’t care. My coworkers were way cool. We get free (rather good!) pizza.