While this debate never seems to get resolved, I think it’s a better fit for IMHO than GD.
I was briefly a Mobile Buffalo Wing Delivery Engineer (I was a delivery boy for a Wing Zone franchise in Texas for a month and a half). We got paid $5.something an hour, plus 70 cents for each delivery, plus tips. Had to use my own car, buy my own gas, pay for my own insurance (which I wasn’t clear at the time would actually cover me if I got in an accident while using my vehicle for business use), and when I got a flat tire on my way to work, I had to miss a day of work to buy my own replacement tires.
Some folks tipped well, some tipped poorly. Mostly the job sucked and leeched a large portion of my time and energy. Got laid off because they hired too many drivers (meaning that many of us ended up just standing around in the store wiping down the counter tops instead of getting any deliveries where we could earn tips for our time.) That particular franchise ended up going belly up later that year.
You see the thing is tips used to be 10%. Then 12%, then 15% (which is when I was old enough for tipping to be an issue), then 18% and now I see 20%. How did “dang reasonable” double? How long before 25% becomes customary? Did the cost of a meal grow at half the rate of the cost of living or something?
Its not like we outsourced our food preparation.
As far as I can tell, the cost of a meal has MORE than kept up with inflation. So why the larger percentage?
My pizza comes in a box whether I pick it up or it gets delivered.
Its not a matter of whether anyone can afford the tip. Thats a silly argument.
Yeah well, there was a time when 10% was appropriate and now it seems to be 20%. How and why did that happen?
The cost of a meal may have gone up, but the minimum wage for servers has not. It’s been $2.13 since 1991. It is assumed by the law that the difference in that and standard minimum wage, at least, will be made up by tips.
Honestly, I am not defending delivery charges that do not go to drivers. I think they are BS. I’m just telling you what managers and owners say it is for when asked: charges associated with packaging your food to go. But again: this has nothing to do with the driver or his tips.
I was driving pizza not too many years ago at a bad point in my career path. I was making $2.50 an hour, plus tips, plus 75% of the $2 delivery charge. It’s not a terrible gig most of the time, but it can be very dangerous and it puts a hell of a beating on your car if you’re doing it right. 
Gas was just under $3/gallon at the time I quit, up about 25% since I started. That did put a hurt on profits, but most nights I would bank $100-150 for an 8-10 hour shift. When people asked me about the delivery charge, I would tell them a kind-of truth. “We split it.” I never said it was a 50/50 split. Other guys lied. However, I was asked more than a few times by business accounts who had $100+ orders what the normal tip rate was, I told them 10% was reasonable, and I still believe that’s fair. Sometimes I got a better tip for my honesty.
The best tip I ever got was from a guy in a very upscale hotel. He had a C-Note on a $15 order and I only had about 30 bucks on me. I offered to go down to the front desk for change, but he took my $30 and gave me a $55 tip! That was pretty awesome. When people ask me about what they should tip, my answer is always $2-3 or 10% minimum, whichever is higher. That could work out to 20% on a small order, but I rarely had $10 deliveries.
About the danger thing, it’s real. In two years, I was robbed at gunpoint once and narrowly escaped another attempted robbery because a neighbor happened to walk out of her front door at 2AM. Otherwise, I would have been toast. Even if you live in a “good neighborhood” you should tip your delivery people well. They risk a lot to bring you your food.
Every driver I ever met with more than a year experience had at least one robbery or near robbery story. One guy I worked with got his ass beaten and his car stolen. Another was actually abducted and basically tortured for a full day before they left him a mess. Just after I quit the business, a young guy at another local place with a young wife and kids was brutally beaten with pipes and barely lived.
A $3 tip isn’t going to kill you if you can afford a delivery order. Be good to service people. Even if you don’t agree with the tipping system, acknowledge that it exists and until you can change the rules, please abide by them.
Takeout, no. But I’m pretty generous with waiters and delivery drivers, 20-25% tip. The guy who brought my pizza after Snowpocalypse 2010 got more like 50%. I don’t reduce the tip for delivery minimums or charges because I assume that goes to the store and it’s the driver I’m trying to pay. I would absolutely hate his job and love the person who brings food to my door and saves me having to cook, so I feel pretty generous with them.
Totally agree with this. There was an incident near where I live where a pizza guy was killed, and I know that kind of thing has happened plenty of times elsewhere. Thugs know that delivery drivers are an easy target. The thugs know delivery drivers have cash, and it’s easy to find a chance to attack them when witnesses aren’t around.
Yes. The way I look at it for delivery drivers and waitresses is: They are doing a tough job and that $3 will mean a lot more to them than it does to me, so I will give a decent tip as long as they aren’t being outrageously spiteful and rude. If you can’t spare a few bucks for the poor bastard who is delivering your pizza, don’t get pizza.
Besides, it’s pretty stupid to act like an ass to someone who handles your food. Even though my friend who works in food service says he has never actually witnessed an incident of someone spitting in the food, come on, you know that kind of thing could easily happen.
I’ve never really understood the attitude of tipping a percentage of the cost of the food. If I order something expensive, it’s no more difficult for the waiter/delivery driver to bring it to me than if I order something cheap. Why should I pay differently based on the price of my food? I should tip differently based on how difficult the individual’s job has been to serve me, not because I ordered the dish that costs more. If I’m picky and demanding and want various special things, I should tip more because of that, but not because I ordered more expensive food. Of course, if the reason the food is more expensive is because I ordered a lot more of it, that does increase the work and difficulty of serving me, so that merits an increase in tip. But not if it’s because I ordered three extra toppings on my pizza.
Do I sense a note of sarcasm? It’s for delivery, but not for the deliverer. It’s just another bullshit way for a company to charge you more for the same thing while advertising prices that don’t include it. It’s like TicketOverlord adding a service charge to ticket prices or Untitled Airline charging to check a bag.
I am 55 and and my earliest memory (let’s say 1970) of appropriate tipping in a sit-down restaurant was 15%, with 20% for a “white tablecloth” restaurant with a higher level of service. Today I generally tip 20% unless the service is mediocre, but a minimum of 15% (if the service deserves less than 15% I tell the manager). But I do not remember when 10% was *ever *appropriate.
On the other hand, expensive restaurants seem to have a lot more people per customer, and thus more attentive service (which also means less tables per server). And maybe they have to split it more ways. I swear that last time I ate at Canlis, at least 6 different people came to the table at one point or another.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that. I never got robbed, but I did have to deal with obnoxious drunks, and on one occasion, a one-legged guy chasing me down the street (I got away, obviously. He only had one leg, and I had a car). Food delivery guys are an easy mark because they almost always carry cash on them, and they have to go into areas that might be unfamiliar to them in order to do their jobs. Add onto that the big lit up sign on their car that draws attention to them.
In certain neighborhoods, my boss would tell me to throw the sign in the trunk before I left the store to do the delivery. Being that my boss was a convicted felon*, I assumed he knew which neighborhoods were bad ones.
*That said, one of the best bosses I ever had.
I agree. Sometimes I’ll have breakfast at the local diner. Two eggs, toast and bacon. $3.49. With coffee it comes to $4.23. Should I tip the waitress 84 cents? I usually throw down 2 bucks which is nearly a 50% tip.
But what is the difference to her if I ordered double steak and eggs and my bill came to $20? My two bucks is a paltry 10% tip, but she didn’t do any more or less work either way.
I usually don’t put a lot of thought into how much I tip. I know I’m not using my graphing calculator to figure out what 15% of my share of the meal is, I just throw in whatever sounds fair, and do my best not to be one of “those” customers while the server is dealing with me.
To address this, it’s not the price of meals that haven’t kept up, it’s the server’s base wage that hasn’t. Unless you’re in a fine dining ($100 a plate) establishment, your server is paid around 2 bucks an hour, and it’s been the same wage for years. I think this has been slower to increase than the regular minimum wage, which hasn’t exactly been keeping up with inflation either.
(I’m speaking of the US, as presumably are you… servers make a better base wage and tips are consequently less expected, or not expected, in European countries.)
Theoretically the restaurant is supposed to make up the difference if their servers don’t take home at least the regular federal minimum wage, but servers really have no power in this, so a hell of a lot of illegal activity goes on. Some years back I worked for a cafe that would take the credit card processing fee out of any credit card tip I received. Being broke, I wasn’t in a position to sue, so I just got out as soon as I could (which still took months).
So, essentially, you are directly paying the server their wage, instead of the restaurant paying it, and therefore you end up being responsible for cost of living increases.
Honestly, knowing that the tipping system in the US is a giant scam that screws the server and allows restaurant owners to get away with all sorts of insane shit that wouldn’t stand in any other service industry (say, retail), I figure an extra buck or two out of my pocket is not that big a deal when someone else is busting ass to make a living.
And as other people have said, the delivery charge goes to the restaurant, not the driver, who, I believe, also makes the “tipped employee” minimum, not the regular minimum.
OK you’ve convinced me. I will no longer deduct the $2 delivery charge from driver’s tip.
Now can someone tell me why I should tip for take out?
Maybe I should start tipping the cashier at the McDonalds.
I tip very well during inclement weather because at that point they are doing something more than providing a convenience. Just like I tip very well when we go out to eat with my neices (they put a LOT of wear and tear on the wait staff, its really above and beyond).
For the sake of accuracy it should be noted that in many states the minimum wage for servers is higher than that. The FEDERAL minimum wage is $2.13, but the actual wage varies by state.
Very true. But it is worth pointing out that restaurant owners often push to have state minimum wages lowered to match the national guidelines. They gave it a major shot in Florida just this year.
No. Although I note that subsequent to my post people have said that actually a portion of the delivery charge does go to the deliverer.
Same can be said of the taxi driver (who generally receives tips) as well as the hot dog cart vendor (who doesn’t).
I used to order pizza from the same place for years (I stopped when they started endorsing political candidates) and I don’t think I ever had the same delivery guy twice in all that time. Thats not a reason not to tip but threat of retribution is not a reason to tip.
I am younger than you and remember 10-15% tips being within the acceptable range. Then it became a solid 15% and now it seems to be creeping towards 20%.
The IRS assumes that wait staff gets at least 8% on all their checks. Its a rebuttable assumption but how the heck do you prove you didn’t get a tip.
By $100/plate, I assume you mean $100/person and frankly 20% tips seem to be more common there than anywhere else.
I am not entirely convinced that the inflationary effect on the tips minimum wage justifies another 5% but, I am not as bothered by sit down service tipping as I am by tipping on top of delivery charges and tipping for take out.
I try to pay my tips in cash for this very reason.
Yeah, I’m not sure we need to make waiting tables a middle class profession but I am pretty comfortable with a 15 or 20% tip scale for sit down. I can even accept that delivery drivers shouldn’t be penalized for delivery charges, I simply won’t order from those places anymore.
I’m still trying to figure out why a tip is required on top of a take out charge.