Is a 20% tip the minimum for good service?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Servant? Sheesh, get off your high horse.

Anyway, $200 on a weekend night and $100 on a weeknight is hardly easy living. At that rate, a full-time waiter/waitress would make around $700/week. That works out to $36K/year. Most restaurant jobs don’t include any benefits. In the US, $36K/year is barely middle class for one person. If there are kids and/or anyone else to support, it’s lower class. It’s not enough money to buy a house in many areas of the US. Heck, in some places, you can’t afford rent on $36K/year.

42

What cracks me up (and pisses me off) is the people (some on this board) who refuse to tip because it will force restaurant owners and the entire industry to restructure their wage schedules. If you want to be a cheap bastard and take food out of the mouths of a waitress’s children, go ahead and do so. Just don’t pretend that you’re the champion of some sweeping social reform. You’re still a cheap bastard and a thief.

43

Athena beat me to it.

Say you work five days (or nights) per week—two busy weekend nights and three other nights. Based on Eonwe’s figures that would, as Athena said, add up to about $700 a week in tips. Let’s be even more generous and say $800, just to err on the side of caution. That’s about $42K a year.

According to the United States census bureau, the median income in America in the period 2001-2003 was $43,527, with New Jersey on top at $55,221 and West Virginia on the bottom as $31,210. So, for all of you complaining about how rich these “servants” ( :rolleyes: ) are getting, we can see that even someone making more than the amount suggested by Eonwe (and derided by Future Days as “rediculous” [sic]) is still very likely to be in the bottom 50% of the population in terms of income.

Furthermore, as Athena has already noted, very few of these jobs come with benefits of any kind. So the first thing the waiter is going to have to do with all those piles of cash, apart from pay the rent and put food on the table, is fork out somewhere between three and five grand for health insurance. And if this waiter, this creature of wealth and luxury, actually wants a couple of weeks break from the drudgery of serving elitists like Future Days, he or she will have to save up enough money to cover the time off work, because many—probably most—waiters get no holiday pay.

Are there waiters who do very well out of their profession? Sure there are. I worked as a waiter for a couple of years in Vancouver, at a couple of different places. While i never made a fortune, i lived pretty comfortably, with enough money to pay the rent, put food on the table, and have a reasonable amount of spending money left over. And at one of my favourite restaurants for dining out, a pretty expensive, very popular place in Vancouver’s West End, some of the waiters had been there for years, owned their own apartments, and drove nice cars.

But this is far from the norm. A large percentage of waitstaff in the United States works very hard just to get by, and they rely heavily on their tips—not to live lives of luxury and sloth, but just to pay the rent and keep themselves feed and clothed. And, in some cases, all it takes for them to have trouble doing this is one or two customers who have the attitude that “servants” don’t deserve a 20 percent tip. A good waiter is a professional, and i’m not sure why some people seem so hostile to the idea that such a person should be able to make a decent income.

44

Busy is the key word. Some nights are slower than others, and waiters often have sidework, such as rolling silverware, that doesn’t net them tips.

45

This was directed at no one in particular here, but if it offended you, consider this my preemptive apology.

46

Don’t forget that at some places, the “100 dollars for a weeknight” would never happen. I have a friend that is a waitress at a Waffle House, and she takes home is lucky to take home 80 on a busy weekend night. Her average take is somewhere in the 40 dollar range, but I saw her get 17 dollars one night. And 4 of them were mine.

47

And that sounds like an ambitious schedule. As I understand it, a 40 hour week as a waitron is murder. And that’s if the manager gives you that many shifts.

My ex worked as full time as she could as a waitress, and she still had to work a 2nd job just to make ends meet.

48

Because if you are good at it, you can make a lot of money despite not having a college degree. Most people aren’t good at it, no matter how much training and education you put them through… good service is an art combined with the right personality. There are waiters who work in the really nice restaurants that make over 100k per year. Of course those are restaurants where your average bill for two people is well over $100, hardly typical for waitstaff.

I view it as a challenge. I am not a people-person by any means, my personality is better suited for an office job. Through waitressing, I’ve learned how to better read people, network and smooze.

I work hard at what I do and it shows in my tips. Last night, even though it was slow and the sales were only $700, I walked with $100. The most I’ve ever been tipped percentage wise was 100% ($50 on a $50 bill). The largest tip I’ve ever gotten was $400 on a $1500. I gave $200 away, since that party was very demanding and I needed some extra help with it.

The downside is that I don’t have health insurance. Although some restaurants do offer 401k and health insurance, most of them don’t. Most people I know who are waiters have a day job, school or some other obligation that provides for their health care. I can’t imagine providing for children on a waitressing job.

49

It is true that it’s often hard to get enough shifts from management, especially if you are new, or if it’s a good job. Also, you usually have to work for a while before you get given the best (i.e., big money) shifts like Friday and Saturday night.

But, as someone who worked as a waiter for about seven years before and during my college days, i don’t think that a five day, forty hour week is especially unbearable. Once you’re used to being on your feet all day, it’s actually not that bad.

I sometimes used to work a forty hour week into four days, giving me three full days off. I would work a lunch shift and then a dinner shift in the same day. It was very tiring, but the extra day off was nice.

That’s certainly not unusual.

50

I’m in California, where sales tax is about 8.25% (IIRC), so I’ll usually just double that up when calculating the tip for “average” service. For good service, I’ll generally add a couple bucks on top of this which I think generally pushes my tip up to the 20-30% range.

The exception to this is at places where my bill is <$10. I usually round up my bill + tip to $10 (unless, of course, this means a tip less than 15%), which occasionally means that I’ve left a ~50% tip.

Heh, so basically my tipping is often based not so much on generosity, but on my unwillingness to do any more math than absolutely necessary. :smiley:

51

Well, I try to push it up to 20%, usually rounding it off, so it could be a bit more or a bit less. So if a bill is like $20-21 I will leave $25.

52

No one is forcing you to tip but most people don’t want to look like a cheap jerk.

That’s one of the reasons that many places (at least places where the steaks cost more than $15) tell you “gratuity included” for parties over eight or so.

Sorry. It’s one of the side effects of living in a country where the food doesn’t suck.

53

Says the individual who has obviously never worked for NASA.

Sheesh, waiting on tables isn’t easy, but it sure isn’t an advanced science requiring years to understand the basics and only the most brilliant people in the world to come close to mastering.

As for my tipping…

15% for adequate service, 20-25% for good/exceptional service. It’s a rare time when I don’t get adequate service, so I take that on a case-by-case basis.

Buffets and delivery people get 10%.

54

What should you tip a Doper who makes you snort liquids onto your keyboard? :slight_smile:

Slight and brief hijack, as this seems the most appropriate current thread:

What’s the protocol for tipping a chambermain?

Uh, for cleaning your room only. Not for the “other stuff”?

55

5% of his/her post count.

56

is 20% the minimum for good service? I’d say yes, if you actually mean “good” and not mediocre. “good”, to me, means not having to wonder where they are, and also not wishing that they would go away. if I’m getting good service, my drink does not stay empty for more than 30-45 seconds, I’m asked how each course of my meal tastes, and I don’t wait on the check for in an inordinate amount of time when I’ve made it clear that I’m ready to pay. I’m a server, and if I give this kind of service and I don’t get around 20%, I kinda wonder why not.

personally, because I know there are plenty of cheap assholes and ignorant people in the world, I tip over 20%. I figure maybe my extra 5-10% (more if it’s great service) will make up for some of the Future dayses and the Mr. Pinks and the fuckheads who sit there long after they’re done eating, preventing the server making any more money on that table when it’s obviously busy.

as for people who tip nothing when the service is bad, shame on you. most chain restaurants these days require their servers to tip out at least 3% to bartenders, hosts, and bussers, so if you leave a tip of zero dollars, you are costing the server money. yes, they get $2.13 an hour, but that generally only covers the taxes on your declared tips, sometimes not even that. if you won’t tip what you should, tip at least 3%. even a terrible server doesn’t deserve to have to pay to wait on you.

Future days, don’t waste the money joining this message board. based on your attitude, this would not be a pleasant place for you.

57

There’s bad service, and then there’s evil bad service. One of the few occasions on which I left no tip was when my food arrived and I told the waiter that I was using a discount coupon. He glared at me, spat in my iced tea, and walked away. By all that’s holy, I am not going to tip someone who does this.

58

ok, I will concede that if someone does something openly hostile, THEN they deserve to pay to wait on you (and probably to get fired). otherwise that’s pretty fucked.

59

Good. That was the point of the whole exercise. I refuse, now and forever, to give money to someone for substandard performance. I hope it comes out of their check! If they want a tip, earn it. And by that, I mean I expect certain standards of service that are the norm. If you never refill my tea, slam the plates down and then disappear when I want the check, not only will I not leave a tip, I will actively try to get your ass fired! Count on a complaint to the manager at the very least.

60

And while we’re at it, a public service announcement: Taxi Drivers should be tipped generally the same as waitresses, though with a small fare/big tip, big fare/small tip rule of thumb.

And please don’t ever give coins.
furt

ex-hack