How much do you tip for restaurant service in your country?

Factual Questions
1

In America, you should tip at least 15% of the bill (not including high dollar items like a $100 bottle of champaign. Many waiters don’t understand this and expect the full percentage for these items, but that’s their problem.) for service unless it is exceptionally bad. 18-20% for decent service. More for exceptional service.

I think that this varies somewhat in different areas of the country, so let me tell you that this is what waiters in Baltimore expect. I believe that in the south they tip less, because when working in a touristy area, I noticed that southern accents generally indicated poor tips. Greeks generally tipped the most and almost all the rest of foreign tourists tipped poorly, if at all, up until the mid 90’s when some of them started catching on. During the World Cup there were many Europeans in Baltimore and 30-40% of them tipped reasonably. A year later I got out of the business to pursue a different career.

Also, if you sit down at the beginning of dinner rush and linger through to the end of dinner rush without spending much money you are likely to piss off the server unless you tip heavily. You are depriving them of the opportunity to make money.

When I was in europe in the late 80’s, I had a tip thrown in my face. Apparently the waiter was offended by my tip. When I tried to explain that in my culture it was expected, and that I was trying to compliment him for giving good service, he stuck his nose in the air and walked away. Was I offending everyone I tipped? Was the amount wrong? Why would anyone turn down a decent tip?

On a trip to Costa Rica in 1985 I bought an elaborate dinner for 12 people at a fancy restaurant. The total bill was 13 american dollars (I could have paid in Costa Rican Pesos and came prepared for that but the menu specifically stated that dollars were preferable.). It was Christmas time. I gave the guy a 20 and told him to keep it. He tried to give it back saying in broken english that it was too much. I wished him a merry Christmas and told him to buy Christmas gifts for his family. He later somehow found the friends I had stayed with and sent a letter of thanks to me through them. Apparently I had given him the equivalent of 6 months income. I am very happy to have done a good deed for someone who gave me excellent service. I don’t feel superior to him or anything like that. As a matter of fact, he impressed me several times by adapting well to our odd requests at the meal and then again by managing to get me a letter of thanks and especially for going through the effort it took to do it. If I go back there, I will be sure to try to find him and shake his hand, but I will not put forth any more effort than going to the restaurant and asking for him. He is my superior in that respect.

Anyway, I plan on going to the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament next year and possibly touring a bit around europe. So I want to find out from the natives what the tipping expectations are. Help me out. Thanks.

P.S. This seemed like a subject that would have been previously discussed but I put “Tip” into the search engine and got no hits. I couldn’t think of what else to put in. “Gratuity” maybe. Oh well, I’ve written this nice post now. I guess I’ll go ahead and submit.

2

Actually, you must be the one who doesn’t understand this. Without getting into a debate about whether tipping is in the first place right or just or the American Way, people who dine out are theoretically supposed to tip on the entire bill - not just the cheap parts of it.

3

But I am glad that you do tip and I think it was very nice of you to give that Costa Rican waiter a tip like that. You must have made his week. :slight_smile:

Didn’t mean to sound snotty - I just think you are mistaken about not tipping on expensive bottles of wine. I am sure this will turn into a hot topic for debate as soon as other people start reading this: do TOO! do NOT! do TOO! do NOT! etc.

4

One job I work on the weekends is waiting at an improv club. I find that a good percentage of the customers there tip well over 15%, quite often hovering around 25-30%. The people go there expecting a good time and tip as part of the whole “entertainment package.” I also notice that the better the show, the better the tips.

There have been a few times where I’ve gotten well over 100% of a tip. I thanked them, naturally, but inside I’m thinking “good lord, I wasn’t that good a waiter.” But hey, if they want to give it, I’ll gratefully accept it.

What do I tip? Usually around 15-18%. I often have a hard time tipping less than 10%, even if the service was just terrible. Character flaw, I guess.

5

I tip anywhere from 15-20% unless it’s a buffet and all they bring is the drink. Then it just depends on my mood and how many time they filled the drink. I have tipped only one penny. The service was needless to say very, very lousy. Kept having to call the waitress over and all she was doing was chit chatting. I’m pretty patient if their real busy, but not patient at all if their are only a few customers.

6

Two items:

  1. I never tip the server if it is the owner of the establishment, draw your own conclusions.

  2. I have a sister that works as a manager in a restaurant. One time we were there with some friends and my sister ‘comped’ a lot of the bill reducing it from close to $200 down to around $50. The people we were with mistakenly thought they only needed to tip the server on the amount we payed, not what the real total was.

7

While I am an American, I have traveled to Europe many times for business. Tipping customs vary from country to country. I suggest you get a travel guide for the countries that you will be visiting. In Germany in particular it is customary to round the bill up to the full “mark” leaving the waiter the extra pfennigs. The custom is similar in Spain, leaving only a few psetas for the waiter. Good luck.

And as a southerner, I tip 15% for avg. service and 20% for exceptional service.

8

Bah Humbug! 15% is for good service with a smile. It starts comming down pretty quick if the waiter isn’t up to snuff. Exceptional service can get over 15%, but over 20% just ain’t gonna happen (unless it’s a very cheap bill).
As the bill goes up, i expect the service quality to go up with it. The same service that got the full 15% at a $20 resturaunt might get 10% at a $40 resturaunt.
the tip is for the service and the 15 percent is just a useful guide to help guage the effort involved, but it is JUST a guide. Grabbing a bottle requires minimal effort, and there ain’t no way a waiter is getting $15 for bringing me a $100 bottle of wine; the waiter might not like it, but oh well.
call me a cheapskate, but as i said: “Bah Humbug”

-Luckie
ps. yes, i grew up in the deep south.

9

In New Zealand, where I’m from, no tipping. None. Nada. Zip. Uh-uh.

You see, in New Zealand, waiting staff are like any other human being, and get paid for doing their job by their employer.

Seems logical to me.

I think the same is done here in Australia, but I don’t actually know for sure as I don’t go to restaurants. Food isn’t something I like to pay ridiculously obscene amounts of money for.

10

Don’t know that I speak for all Australians but…
Here for me it used to be you don’t give a tip unless you get really good service - you’re giving a bonus. Lately though it’s become the norm to tip unless you get really bad service but you usually only leave the change behind (unless service is impressive, might leave more). Sounds stingy but I’m under the impression that wages for waiters/waitresses in America are pretty poor and they need the tips whereas here they get similar wages to other jobs which have a similar skill level but which don’t get tips.

11

Here in the Czech Republic I had a hard time understanding why tipping wasn’t a norm. Then it dawned on me one day, and it’s probably important for you travellers to know- Wait staff in some (most?) European countries are paid a SALARY. Therefore, they look at a large tip like your dentist would. “Great root-canal there doc! Here’s $10 for the effort!” And for those of you that insist on it, what if I told you that even if you DO tip, the wait staff probably won’t get the money. It all goes to the restaurant. So, when traveling, look at your guide book and follow its directions, which around here state to round up to the nearest X or so (on a bill of 2,485 Koruna for 5 people, I would round up to 2,550, maybe 2,600, but NOT to 3,000).

And for foreigners, when I was waiting tables I made $2.12 an hour, about half the minimum wage. And that was at a nice restaurant (I would pull in around $75 a night in tips). The IRS and the overall society of the USA expects wait staff to be paid around 15%, thus they allow restaurants to pay hourly wages below minimum wage. PLUS, when you work the restaurant scene in the US, you aren’t guaranteed a full 40 hour work week. You might only get half of that, so the compensation has to be good enough to justify those low hours (but lots of students are wait staff, so the part time work is great for their schedules). Why don’t restaurants hire full timers? Because its better to have 20 part-timers than 10 full timers in case someone gets sick or just doesn’t show up. Whereas a restaurant job in other countries is a life career, more often than not it is a temporary job for Americans (I would estimate that of all the people I worked with in my restaurant, 90% of us were students waiting to go onto ‘other’ things). It’s only when you start getting into the fancy restaurants where the waiters KNOW their wines, meats, sauces, preperations, etc. that you start to find career wait staff. But then again, these are folks that probably make over $40,000+ a year from tips alone.

And no, you are not required to tip on big-ticket items like bottles of wine. I’ve read it in a few articles and at one restaurant it was written in the policy handbook that that was not the case, so don’t get mad at the customer. Greediness begets stinginess- If a customer feels that they are getting screwed, they will not order that wine again, or maybe not even return.

My $0.02

-Tcat

12

The rules for tipping in the South are the same as the rules for tipping elsewhere in the United States. That is an incorrect stereotype.

I guess southerners just have to live with things like that.

13

I wish there was no tipping here in Australia, but it seems to be slowly entrenching… I’m personally against it, but everyone likes to do it. Why, I have no idea. I mean the waiter does what, ferry food to your table and back? Oh, and the orders… Tough work. Now if the person is extremely good at waiting, I’ll give 'em a tip, but when it comes to be expected, and the waiter complains then the whole business has gone too far. The restaurant should foot the bill, not us.

14

While it’s OK to generalize about a country, you should look on the menu: it will usually say “Service included” to mean that the payment for the serving persons is included in the price of the meal and there is no need to tip. If it doesn’t say so, you can always ask, “Is service included?”

In many countries (Belgium, for instance) service is almost always included, but one still “rounds up” to the nearest even amount (so a bill for BEF 882 would be rounded up to BEF 890 or 900, for instance, so as not to deal with small change.

I have never had a serving person refuse a tip. After all, they are paid by the restaurant, but that money is subject to social security taxes (quite high in many countries), income tax withholding, etc. While the cash tip is supposed to be so reported, reality is that it’s often simply pocketed, and thus can be valuable to the serving person.

15

I tip 20% plus the change. The only time I won’t is if the service was poor. My definition of poor service is if my drink glass (soft brink or beer) becomes empty. That’s my biggest pet peeve while dining.

If the food is bad or late, I don’t blame the wait staff as they weren’t the ones who cooked it. They should be willing to resolve it.

I don’t tip at carryout places that have the little cup. Askig for a tip won’t get one from me.

16

Sorry if I’m profligating a stereotype about southerners not tipping. I didn’t know there was one I just noticed on several occasions that I got small tips from people with southern accents. Also, my southern relatives are poor tippers. My sample size is small so I could easily be completely off base here.

I’m hoping that somepeope who actually live in europe, especially England, will chime in here.

It was in Switzerland that I had the tip thrown in my face. I should have said that before.

17

Whan I was waiting in tables, we call people with this attitude “trash” because they didn’t know how to tip, or that a server was making $2.13 an hour.

Meanwhile, we have a board devoted to stamping out ignorance, but does Luckie see what people are saying above about tipping and adjust her narrow and ignorant worldview?

Of course not. She just says “Bah Humbug.”

I hope a waiter spills something really sticky and opt to stain forever on your most expensive garment the next time you are eating out.

Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions

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18

15% for average; 10% for below average; 20% for good. I have tipped as much as 50%, but only if things are really outstanding.

One thing I have been told is if you are not tipping for really bad service, to leave a nickel. That way, they know you didn’t just forget.

I was a bus boy in my youth. The waitresses were supposed to give me a percentage of their tips. Without exception, they stiffed me, even after I helped them out in a crush.

The customer is not always the only cheapskate.

My revenge is that I now earn 5 times what they do.

19

20% on the bottom line: food, desert, wine, drinks, beer and brandy. Tip may be adjusted up or down depending on service but I regard the tip as being based on the total. I suppose I should deduct for sales tax but I am math phobic. And when I look at the total, I always round up to the next even dollar.

$2.00 per bag for luggage handlers–sky caps, bell boys, porters, etc. 10% for taxis and shuttle drivers but I don’t know why except it is easy to calculate. $5.00 per day for hotel maid plus $20.00 when I check out.

Unlimited for really lovely long-legged scantily dressed polite and friendly cocktail waitresses who nibble my ears and neck, even if I don’t drink. Hey, its my fantasy, leave me alone.

20

I am going to apoligize in advance for the length of this post, but I feel it’s only appropriate to supply the text of what most scholars consider to be the paradigmatic example of this debate:

Excerpted from Resevoir Dogs:

'Nuff said.