They might do so if you’re a repeat customer. Word gets around.
Jervoise,
Maybe I should have qualified my statement with “in America, where servers get $2.13/hr” where the costs of paying them are not factored into the cost of your product. They pay taxes on tips that they never even recieve.
I’ll save the lecture since I know nothing about your country, please do me the same favor.
15% is my baseline tip, but I can be quite generous when the service is good; especially when the waiter/ress is someone I know. I won’t stiff someone totally for bad service because I think they’ll write me off as a cheapskate, so I leave very insulting amounts.
$1 per person in my party when in a buffet joint, and $1 per pizza box for the delivery guy. With deliveries, I’m also generous if they make it to my place before the promised time.
20% or even more is my standard. The service will have to be pretty bad before I go below that.
My dad was an “anti-tipper” (he was trying to overthrow the tipping system) and it was misery going out to eat with him. Often my mom would take over and leave a tip, which was a great relief. Anyway, because of those childhood experiences, I shall always be a big tipper. We had a family friend who was a generous tipper, and he was loved wherever he went (well, also because he was a good guy). I try to follow his example.
“Maybe” you should have qualified your statement? Try “definitely.”
Cunctator made it very clear that “the situation is different here, where tipping is not as common.” Also, quite a few other people (me included) have specifically stated that tipping is not expected in Australia. And Cunctator’s location, prominently displayed in the top right section of each post, is “Sydney, NSW, Australia.”
No-one, especially not Jervoise, lectured you about US tipping habits. We have simply been pointing out that customs differ in Australia. Yet you felt qualified to call Cunctator a “cheap bastard,” and to imply that he deserves to have his food spat in, based on a practice that is perfectly normal in place where he lives.
This may not have dawned on you yet, but not every country does things exactly the same way as the United States.
I consicer myself a good tipper. I generally leave between 30-50%, 20% for average service. Then again, we tend to eat at the same few resteraunts frequently and are familliar with the wait staff and vice versa. I figure tip well, get good service next time 
I have only not left a tip twice- once my sister and I went to lunch and out waitress dissappeared- I had to track someone down to get our check- it turned out her shift ended and she just left and didn’t tell us or any of her other tables :mad:. Then another time at Olive Garden near the University, the service was astronomically slow, that waiter only got a tip (like 15 cents) because Eric and I didn’t want to wait for the change. (it was during lunch, busy but not packed)
My dad tips embarassingly low, I always feel like I have to leave more money (He once left a $2 tip on a $40+ bill with great service, so I threw down a ten- he got mad at me)
I tip 15-20% in sit-down restaurants, and it requires exceptionally bad or good service to change that. Pizza delivery gets $2-3, but I usually order only one pizza. Chinese food delivered to the university: In my magazine production class, we order food from the same place every Thursday night. We usually pool cash, and people always round up - for example, if my order’s $5.50, I throw in $7. The delivery guy usually gets a $5-7 tip. They know us very well, and every other semester, they buy an ad. 
Question, and I think it’s been mentioned before on these boards: Do you tip at Sonic? (For those in other countries, Sonic is an American drive-up fast-food chain. You park your car, push a button, call in your order and someone comes out, sometimes on rollerskates, with your food.) I view it as a fast-food restaurant no different than McDonald’s and so I don’t tip, but I’ve heard you’re supposed to and I don’t want them spitting in my food, so should I?
At restaurants I frequent I make it a habit of 20%. Word gets around and your service gets very good when the wait staff argues over who gets to serve you.
At Haircut’s or Great Clip’s i’ll tip $2 if they cut it how I like it and that makes it about $14-$15 for a haircut that I need once a month.
If I can find a good barber i’ll give him a $10 even if he charges $6 since i’m getting a great deal and I know his old man clients don’t tip him anything.
There was a thread about this very topic not too long ago. I’ll let you do the search for it if you’re interested.
Basically, my drinks tipping breaks down like this:
If I am sitting at the bar ordering from the tender (or at a table but going up to the bar for drinks): I will start out with a $2 or $3 tip on the first drink. For each drink after I wil usually tip a buck. Of course, if it is a complicated drink or if I’m ordering a round for my friends the tip will increase in proportion to the extra effort. At the end of the night if I recieved really good service I’ll drop another $5 or so. I get pretty good service that way at my usual haunts.
If I’m at a table and being served: If we’re paying as we go, I follow the same rules as above. If we are running a tab then I go to a % of the check formula. I start out at 15% and add or subtract for quality of service. It is rare that I will go below, because if the service is bad I will just go to the bar myself. For me 20% is not uncommon, and above that is quite possible for a decent server to get.
I think, though, that either way $1 per drink won’t make you look cheap to anyone. Unless, that is, you’re ordering $50 cocktails. :eek:
You know what’s really interesting?
Given the fact that Australian restaurant food prices have to reflect much higher wage levels, while US restaurant food prices reflect very low waiter wage levels (with the balance being made up by tips), you would expect that eating out would cost more in Australia.
Yet i’ve found that it often costs about the same to eat in a Sydney restaurant as it does (before tip) to eat in a New York City or Austin or Baltimore restaurant of a similar quality level. And then you have to add the tip in America.
Of course, there are a multitude of other factors that need to be taken into consideration (rent, taxes, food costs, etc.), and i don’t have the time or the knowledge to do an in-depth analysis. Still, the fact that the waiters are being paid crappy wages doesn’t seem to translate into especially low per-item costs.
Another interesting thing is the assumption (made by some people) that waiters who are not working for tips will give poor service, and that waiters in countries like the US are more professional. Well, i’ve worked as a waiter in Australia (good wages, no tips), Canada (poor wages, good tips), and England (crap wages, no tips), and my concern for giving good service was never any different in any of those places.
Furthermore, i’ve eaten at restaurants in all those places, as well as the United States, south-east Asia, and western Europe, and i’ve found that there is good service and bad service to be had everywhere. I don’t find American or Canadian waiters noticeably more or less attentive or professional than their counterparts in other parts of the world.
And “tips” did not originate as an acronym for “to insure prompt service.” From the Oxford English Dictionary:
The OED’s earliest quotation using this term dates to the early seventeenth century, and the dictionary makes no mention of an acronymic etymology.
True. And I didn’t give the full story, either. Had he expressed even a teensy bit of concern when I pointed out that the pizza box felt cool and damp, the tip would have been higher, and maybe I’d consider calling his shop for a pizza again someday. I did call the store to complain, and the manager there said something about comping me a pizza, but I’m not inclined to give the place another shot when Domino’s, although I don’t like their pizza as much, manages to give me prompt and usually cheerful service.
Like I said in the other thread, 20% rouded up to the nearest dollar, is standard for me at a sit down restuarant. More if I have one of those great servers that goes the extra mile. My wife tips 10 dollars at the hair salon no matter what she went in for. As a general rule I tip $5 for delivery orders (more if it’s an order over $50) but I have no idea why I settled on that amount. I also tend to round up to the nearest large bill, for instance If the order is $33.50, I’ll give them $40 and say keep the change.
I can absolutely attest that this is true. I order Chinese at least twice a month (always the same place), I’m usually told I have a 45-60 minute wait. I have yet to wait more that 15-20 minutes. In addition, my wife always wants extra Chinese Hot Mustard, which I never remember to order, the delivery man remembers it though.
Next time I make a statement I’ll be sure to get a global consensus first. :rolleyes:
**dnooman ** - and just to clarify things, when I’m in the USA, as I was in February, naturally I conform to the customs there and tip the usual amount. Guidebooks written for Australians make a big point of telling us that the situations are very different in the two countries and that the normal non-tipping Australian practice will **not ** be well received in the States.
For a tip jar? Usually 0%.
Otherwise, around 20%.
yeah usually between 10-20% but one restaurant, where they have all you can eat spaghetti & meatballs for a 1.50 and we usually go in a group of 5 or 6 the waitress usually gets a 600% tip.
20% as a rule of thumb. If the service is especially bad, 10-15%. If it’s good I go up to 25-30%.
At clubs/bars- I typically run a tab and pay with my credit card at the end of the night, and tip 20-25%, which usually works out to about $1 per drink. I have tipped bartenders as much as 50-100%, mostly when I’m one of their regulars and they “forget” to ring up a drink or three.
When I’m alone, my tabs never (at least, not at this time) exceed $13.
I have a minimum $2 tip for mediocre, nothing-special service.
If it’s someone who’s waited on me before, and they remember my habits (I usually go through a pitcher or two of tea at a sitting), I give extra consideration. Some servers just leave me a pitcher. However, some places have rules against that, so they either bring me a tall glass from the bar, or they bring me two pitchers. Also, at some places, the bartenders don’t like letting their tall glasses get outside the bar (and I understand their reasons). I’ve had servers who had previously waited on me see me with a small glass and no pitcher, delivered by the new person waiting on me, and bring me a bigger glass from the bar. Definitely the ones who sort take care of things even when they aren’t waiting on me get extra consideration on those times that they do.
If it’s someone who hasn’t charged me for my tea, I usually start with a $3 tip. If they keep that practice in the future (and I do remember these things), they get a $5 tip.
People that have no personality get less “extra consideration.” I can think of any number of good staffers that have the personality of an artichoke. I’d never tip them any less for good service, but people who look like they’re alive will receive more.
The most I’ve tipped personally in recent times is $6.50 on a $3.50 tab.
When Tucker-babe and I are out together, we usually run up about a $30 tab for a lunch and $40-45 for supper. In those cases, I tip %15 for mediocre, nothing-special service, and 20% for good service. If it’s someone who’s always been good to me when I was alone, I give a flat $15 or $20 depending upon the person and past experiences.
BTW, I eat out usually four nights a week, and usually Sunday lunch. Tucker-babe and I do lunch every Sunday, usually at the same place. Those servers get a range of 20% (never less than $5) to $10, depending upon the person and past experiences.
Wow, now I feel cheap.
Living in a middle class home in the suburbs, I was always taught that 15% was the norm for good service, 10% for less than expected, and 20+% for exceptional service. Of course, it probably differs from area to area, and I know that the minimum for you usually tip for resteraunts with good service in the city is around 20%. And when I order pizza I usually tip two or three dollars for a pie, more if the guy is really nice about it.
I’ve also noticed that my older sister (who usually treats me to lunch when we go out due to the fact that I’m her baby sister, I usually let her pick out the places we eat, and that she has slightly more money right now) tips around 25% at the places she frequents at least four times a month, otherwise she starts feeling guilty.
If there’s a tip jar, I put my spare change in it and since I’m underage and generally don’t pay for my own alcohol if I drink at all, which is once in a blue moon, I have yet to tip for drinks in bars.
At the nail salon today, I only tipped two dollars for per manicure, (I treated my sister, since she was paying for gas and lunch), and am now stuck with sub-par moon and star designs on each thumbnail for my graduation. (Really, how hard is it to make a star and not an inkblot? I wonder sometimes.) If I had more money on me, I would have tipped more but do you think my tip was obscenely cheap?
Mia~Switch~Mai
Sorry about the cheap bastard remark, I never thought to look at your location, and even if I had, I had no idea it was like that in Australia. Some people really hate tipping, in fact there are a few anti-tipping websites. Whenever I hear about people either not tipping, or grossly under tipping, I tend to, as you can clearly see, overreact.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming…
An average tip from me is about 25%; I tip very, very well because whenever we go out, we always try to develop a rapport with the waiter/waitress. At minimum, if I was pleased with the service, I’ll never leave without tipping at least 15%.
The highest tip I ever gave was about 700%.
I will not hesistate to leave no tip whatsoever if I was dissatisfied with the service.