My sisters waited tables. I have friends who waited tables. Nobody ever complained about change. Complained about tightwads who didn’t leave a tip, or left a miniscule tip, but no complaints about change.
Sure, if you leave $6 in pennies that’s obnoxious. But what kind of idiot turns down money, even in coin? If a 20% tip works out to $2 is 8 quarters seriously a problem? If a 20% tip is $25 (I don’t eat at those places too often!) yeah, leave bills if you aren’t putting it on a credit card.
Can I also point out that some companies are very strict about tips as a business expense? If something is paid by a business-issued credit card the person may be held to exactly 15%. The only way to increase that for extraordinary service is to whip out the wallet and pay with bills or coins. Takes a pretty arrogant service person to be insulted by money over and above the customary tip.
Hi everyone I’m new here, I just discovered the site. This topic is of interest to me and I thought I would reply.
I am currently working in a restarant now as a “server”. I expect my customers to leave me as much money as they feel I’ve earned, with the knowlege that 20% is the standard for tipping service. I know that amount has increased rather recently, but servers are expected to do a lot of work for their money, in fact on average servers today do much more work as far as preperation and indirect or “side” work than they did ten years ago. Thisis due to restaurant’s cutting back on the number of support employees (such as bus boys). The servers are not expected to take less tables to even things out, but to pick up the slack themselves. Servers are right to expect more money to work this hard, but it is unfortunate (and typical of any industry) that the customer ends up paying for this in the end.
Getting back to my main point, I believe and practice that 20% is the benchmark. Anything above is a bonus for an excellent job, anything below would be a penalty for something being wrong.
Very few people appreciate what hard work serving is, and that although good service should be expected (if not demanded) that humans make mistakes and that your server may be working very hard and not just on the table you’re sitting at. With that in mind let me tell you what most servers (and I im in agreement) think is the lousiest form of customer: One who runs a server around with special requests, such as extras and substitutions and many refills . . . and then leaves anything less 20% of a tip when it was obvious good service and the server busted his or her derriere to satisfy his customer. That my friends is the true insult.
THANKS for reading this which has turned out to be a mini-essay.
My wife worked her way through college as a waitress and she LOVED getting quarters. Why? So she could do her laundry at the coin-op laundry in her apartment. Money is money. Coins will buy just as much as paper – and in some cases are more useful.
Maybe, but I can’t imagine that servers are doing twice as much as they were when the standard was 10%, or even 50% more than when the standard was 15%. ( I realize that I’m not factoring in the token amout they get paid per hour, still you get my drift.)
In fact if what you say is true - that servers are doing a lot more work behind the scenes - then that should be compensated by management, not the patrons who have no way of knowing whether the server is doing a good job or not.
We live near two huge Indian casinos that both have excellent buffets. The prices are in the 13-17 dollar per person range.
20% on a 17 dollar bill would be $3.40. Although this would be fine for a full service, it seems excessive for someone who only brings you drinks and takes your plates while you head back up to the trough.
We usually wind up leaving three bucks if it’s just the two of us. Most people we ask seem to think a dollar per person is about right.
Yes, to both questions. In most restaurants, servers get paid $2-and-change and bartenders $4-and-change per hour. Minimum wage is, IIRC, $5.65/hr. I also know of one place (Melting Pot, an upscale chain of fondue restaurants) where servers get only tips.
And remember, guys, the strippers are working only for tips, so get those singles out–but that’s a different thread, isn’t it?
I totally agree with this and think it’s actually a customer’s obligation to do it this way. What are you saying if you plop down 20% for bad service? I think it’s the customer’s responsibility to let the waiter know about poor service, be it through tips or a face-to-face talk. For totally unexcusably poor service, I’m more than happy to talk to the manager. I have no sympathy for someone who’s in the customer service industry and not giving customer service. Their employers should know what the customers think of their service.
Ah, I should have realized I’d touched on one of the most controversial topics of the 21st century.
I guess my friend is full of it, which is why I asked to begin with. It seemed kind of silly to me that there was this secret code among wait staff that the customers know so little about (“He left you an 18% tip along with three quarters and a nickel? That bastard!”).
While I’ve never dumped a dollar in pennies on a waiter, I have occasionally left an extra $2 - 3 in quarters for them figuring that it was legal tender, and now they had an easier time buying Coca-cola, newspapers, or time in the laundromat.
I just ran into this issue last week in South Lake Tahoe. My friends and I talked to a server at the buffet in Caesar’s, and he said that
More people fail to tip entirely than at a full-service restaurant
Most people that do tip, tip about 10%.
We tipped this guy almost 20%, as he was friendly and exceptionally efficient (it was a crab-leg buffet, and we gave him a lot of work to do), while we tipped just over 10% the previous night for the woman who refilled our drinks but twice and brought the check.
Re thge OP: I’ve never heard of that. I always leave the change from the bill with the paper money that adds up to the proper percentage.
(caveat: this is based on the laws in the State of Pennsylvania at the time that I worked there. Things may be different other places.)
Waitstaff earned a minimum wage of $2.65. We were taxed on that minimum wage, and we were also taxed on our estimated income from tips. The state estimated that you earned a 10% tip. So here’s how it worked out.
(for the sake of this example, assume that you pay 25% taxes)
You work a 6 hour shift. You earn $15.90 in wages ($2.65 x 6 hours)
You have to pay 25% of that in taxes, so your employer will deduct $3.98, leaving you with $11.92.
You sell $400 worth of food that day.
You make an average 18% tip, so you have $72 in your pocket at the end of the shift.
The government assumes that your average tip is 10%, so they assume you have $40 in your pocket.
You have to pay 25% of that imaginary $40 in taxes–$10.
So your employer deducts $10 from the $11.98 left from your hourly wage.
So your paycheck from your employer for the day is $1.98.
But you take home $72 in cash.
In other words, waitstaff do make a small minimum wage, but it is basically negated by taxes. So the tips are their take-home pay.
I hope this makes sense. I’m sure the economics are different in very high-priced joints.
Some places also make their servers tip out at the end of the night. A certain percentage of their tips are given to the greeters, bartender (who makes her own tips, too), cooks, busboys, etc. If they don’t make 20%, they’re essentially tipping out of their own pockets.
That said, bad service will get a reduced or zero tip from me, but having spent much of my college waiting tables, I’m pretty understanding of restaurant service. I try to be a little more understanding if the restaurant is especially busy and everyone is overworked.
Oh, and to build on what Green Bean said, you are also obligated to report all your tips legally, not just the amount that the government says is your minimum. So, using his(?) example, you might end up with a zero paycheck and possibly even owing taxes.
(Servers prefer tips not on credit cards since you can under report that way).
I know nothing about how the IRS reasons but I know how they reason here in Sweden so my guess is that they charge you with taxes on the assumed 10% tip even if you received less than that.
Their logic being that you cannot be making that little and thus you are obviously trying to cheat them.
But that will still not bring the tax bill over their earnings - even if a waiter receives a zero tip, the total tax-bill including the “phantom” 10% tip is still not going to be larger than the actual earnings (unless the total deductions are over 90% of course, which would be a whole new complaint).
I assume that they get the same tax allowances as the rest of us - i.e. the first x-thousand dollars are tax free. From this point on, the tax on tips is perfectly fair (or rather as fair as the tax is on the rest of us :)). In fact, if they do not declare all of their tips, then waiters are actually getting a pretty good tax break compared to the rest of us; not all people in low-paid jobs have the luxury of this fiddle.
Which is exactly why I make a point of including the tip on the credit card.
Not necessarily. In fact servers at resorts and expensive restaurants can make loads of money for pretty easy work. This is one other reason the whole tipping thing seems so screwed up to me. Everyone says you should tip a higher percentage at pricey restaurants, but the servers there are the ones who need it the least and deserve it the least (IMO). They are already getting a bonus per plate of food simply because the bill will be more expensive, and 15% of $100 is a lot more than 15% of $30.
If you want to argue that they spend more time catering to the customers at expensive restaurants then fine, tip them extra for the extra time, but don’t just tip them extra simply because the price of the meal is higher.
