What is today’s etiquette regarding tipping at restaurants for orders “to go”? I picked up some food from a California Pizza Kitchen the other day and got a nasty look for leaving no gratuity.
There was no server, no drinks to refill, no plates to wash, etc. Should I start tipping?
There’s a restaurant chain in the Savannah area that offers curbside service. I rarely go into this restaurant for dinner, but I do order take out 3-4 times a year. When the order comes, I usually round the total to the next dollar and then add a dollar as a tip. Ex: if the total is $21.35, I pay $23. I know it’s not 15%, but the waitressess are always pleasant and the orders are very rareley messed up.
Now wait, you’re picking it up yourself? Why would you tip for this?
If someone brings the food out to your car, maybe. But they’re just ringing you up otherwise.
I consider myself a pretty good tipper: 20+%, with a $3 minimum (e.g., for a $6-12 lunch where 20% would only be $1.20-2.40). Heck, I even tip well at Sonic (thanks to a SDMB thread about it that popped up some time ago). Ditto the local fancy coffee shop–I pay $3 for a large mocha and tip on top of that.
But for takeout? Nope. Nope way.
I tip for take - out. Even though they don’t serve you at a table, you are still getting service. If you frequent the place you should definitely tip. If you have ever worked for tips, you would probably tip.
There’s a pretty decent “take-out only” pizza place not too far from where we live. Whenever we go there, I always pay with a charge card and the receipt asks for a tip amount, just like at a “sit-down” restaurant.
I was always kind of perplexed by that until the day I asked the manager if he expected people to tip on carryout. He responded that his VISA/MasterCard charge software was just a standard restaurant package and that “No one tips for carryout.”
Not to split hairs here, but I get nasty looks all the time and have a hard time attributing them to anything specific. What makes you so sure the nasty look was for not leaving a tip?
When I used to work as a waiter, occasionally you’d have to fill a take out order. Normally we’d get tips, but not much, just maybe a dollar or so. Remember that servers get paid by tips. If they are taking, placing and gathering together stuff for your order, then you are taking up time where they might be serving there other customers. Plus a good server will make sure to offer you a drink, check to see if you need anything extra, etc. If they just hand you food in a bag, then it’s up to you to tip. Heck, it’s always up to you. I actually never could stand servers who gave dirty looks or whatever for non-tippers. It’s still part of their job to represent the restaurant courteously and professionally.
By that logic I’m supposed to tip cashiers at the department stores as well.
Give them their dirty looks right back, wfq1513.
Department store cashiers generally make a regular hourly wage and do not depend on tips for the bulk of their income. If they’re commissioned salespeople, they receive a portion of the profit in the items sold, so in effect, as long as they identify themselves as the seller in the store’s records, they DO get “tips.”
I tip for carryout from restaurants, though not from pizza places or strictly carryout places.
No tip for take out. Period.
How silly.
Most of the time tips are related to things like: how much money is spent, how many people there are in a party, and how good the service is. It’s a matter of how much time and trouble a waiter takes. There are only so many hours in a working day, and the more of them your party takes, the less they can be with someone else, and generally the more tip you ought to give.
But the amount of time “serving” a pizza, or a sandwich a fast food place is tallied in the seconds. If they want a tip, point out that you tip 10-20% when a waiter spends 1/2 hour taking orders, serving food, and cleaning up. And that prorated, they’ve just earned themselves a whopping 1/30th of that. Here’s your nickel, son.
Obviously there’s less service involved than when you’re at a table. But there’s still some service. Someone has to take the order, someone has to box it up. And of course someone had to prepare it in the kitchen, and many restaurants include kitchen staff in tip sharing.
How much is done by whom varies with the type of restaurant, and the appropriateness of tipping for carry-out likewise varies. I play it by ear, but I’m certainly not averse to throwing something into the tip jar.
If it’s a coffee shop that doesn’t have much carry-out, for example, I tip, as long as I can find out who did the extra work. Someone has to take time away from serving the traditional customers to fix your carry-out bag.
Pizza carry-out at the traditional pizza places? Where the inside customers go to the counter to place their order, and then go again to pick up their order? No way. Of course, home delivery is a whole 'nother story.
At the resteraunt I worked at this summer, whoever had the bar had to do the phone orders. They had to answer the phone, write down the order, type it into the cash register, get the plates from the kitchen and transfer the food to plastic containers, put the dirty plates in the dishwasher area, put the containers and receipt together in a bag, and keep an eye on the bag until the person came in.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but when you have a bar full of people who do tip, having to take a phone order that you’re not going to get tipped on is a pain in the neck. So people should tip a few dollars when they get carryout.
BTW, I wasn’t a waitress, I was a busboy, so I’m not usually sympathetic to waiter complaints. Much as they complain about people who don’t tip, waiters are awfully quick to short the busboy when it comes time to divide up the tips.
When I worked in a pizza parlour, all the tips for take-outs went to the cooks. Of course, 10% of ALL tips went to me since I was the dishwasher—so I loved everybody who tipped for any reason.
The only place I tip for take-out is a Mexican restaurant because they always let me wait at one of their tables, and give me chips and salsa and drinks like I was going to eat there. I don’t tip as much, but I definitely give them something.
again another no tip for takeout-no way no how
Slight hijack: Ariadne - I just want you to know that as a waitress, I always understood that my job would have been utterly impossible without the bus staff, and I trained other servers with this thought firmly in mind. Any server who worked with me and stiffed the bus staff would have been beaten with a pepper mill.
Speaking as a long time waiter (many moons ago, but that’s beside the point) and a present-day 20%+ tipper: Waitstaff does not get involved for carry-out orders. No tip.
CPK is very concerned about their restaurants’ performance & image. I would make management aware of any dirty looks I received from employees.
It all depends on the place. If you are getting takeout from someplace as a one time deal, just do what feels right. If you don’t tip on an order I don’t think that you will burn in hell for that.
BUT, if you get takeout regularly from something other than a fast food place, pay attention to who is doing the work. I frequent a Friday’s and know a lot about what goes on there. They used to have a “to go” person during the day who got a half way decent wage (maybe $8 / hour). She got some tips which was gravy so to speak.
Now the bartender handles the to go orders and my friend who just celebrated 20 years at Friday’s still gets a wage of $2.13 an hour. I think that she deserves a tip for all the running around, ringing up the order and offering free ice tea or coke if you have to wait, etc.
I used to believe that it wasn’t necessary to tip for to go orders, but now I know it’s not that simple. So those who make blanket statements that it is “silly” or wait staff does not get involved, you might want to reevaluate your assumptions.
I think I’m the only one here, then, that tips for takeout (at a place that I would have tipped if I’d eaten in). I’ll explain.
Back in the day, I waited tables myself. Now, one of the places I worked paid the waitstaff over minimum wage and asked guests not to tip. But one waiter I worked with there had a second job at a place downtown, tending bar. She was responsible for all takeout orders. She told me she was privately upset when she didn’t get tips for takeout (which was pretty much always), because the place she worked reported her income as $2.01 per hour plus 15% of whatever her sales were on the register (which was computerized.) So she was basically being taxed on income she wasn’t receiving. Now, I worked a long time with this lady, she would never in a million years have given a customer a nasty look because they didn’t tip. But she was at a disadvantage to the other servers, since she did a fair amount of takeout orders, and she was being taxed on tips she wasn’t getting for it.
As a result of that story, and also because I’ve served food myself for a living and tend to tip heavily as a result anyway, I always tip for takeout. However, I’m also very impatient with rude servers, and would never tolerate dirty looks–make management aware of rude servers, is my advice.