The standard rule of thumb is 15-20% tip for your server. My bill for sandwich & drink was $5.96 (including tax). Leaving $1 seemed unthinkable. Even the 33% tip I left felt chintzy as it was only $2.
Other info that may/not affect decision: There was only one other customer, an obvious regular by the names exchanged. They could have accommodated at least another 40 patrons based upon the empty tables/chairs. I was passing thru a rural area from out of state during a storm.
Just because the menu prices are cheap doesn’t mean the server is doing less work. Do you leave larger (percentage) tips for cheap food?
They start out with a 20% tip (regardless of quantity of business or price) and have to earn less. Sadly, they often do. And, my girlfriend is trying to bludgeon me into not tipping for the tax, which seems kind of trivial on a $6 tab. However, she likes going to places where we’re paying $20-30 apiece for dinner, so that makes a bit more sense.
I usually leave $5.00 - or ~20% - which ever is more. I figure they have to do the same amount of work (more or less) for a small order as a large - and I don’t want to feel guilty if I don’t feel like ordering a lot.
I do this, too (with a smaller minimum if the place is a buffet, or someplace where I’m getting my own drinks/picking up food from a counter). I call it “paying table rent.”
In the situation the OP described, I probably would have left $2 and not felt chintzy at all (unless I put the server to some particular trouble, like by having a complicated order or asking for many drink refills). I figure it’s up to the restaurant to set their prices at a level so that they, and their employees, can make a decent living.
I hardly ever feel obligated to tip more than 20%, but I often do so, and I’m more likely to do so when the food is cheap, or when I’m taking advantage of a sale price or getting water rather than buying a drink.
I have no qualms with leaving a dollar or two, if that’s the correct percentage. We almost always go out to lunch for two so even at the cheapest we usually at least leave $2.00.
I am amazed at the person who leaves $5.00 no matter what. So on a $5.95 sandwich, you’d leave an additional $5.00?
I’m not saying that’s not great. But you know, those five dollars count for me, too. I am in a position now where I am not stingy over every dollar - which behooves me even more to be careful with my money. I consider that throwing away money, to be honest!
To be honest - usually mine is a bit over $10.00 ($10.51 to be exact) when this happens, and it might depend what mood I was in. If I had $10 - I might leave exactly that, but yes - I have no problem leaving $5.00 for a $5.95 sandwich.
Usually I’d be getting a drink (and expecting them to check if I wanted a refill). I almost never eat without getting a drink - so for me this is important. Them taking my order, checking on me, bringing out my order, getting my refills, bringing out my bill - I’d feel weird leaving $1.20. If it wasn’t for the drink thing - I’m pretty sure I’d pay less.
That is just me - things aren’t super tight right now - and I figure they probably need it more than I do. Keep in mind last year I gave nothing to charity - so maybe this is my way of giving something back
I have a place where where my regular order is $10.51 and I leave $5.00 - probably 2-3 times a week. They see me coming through the window - and have my drink on my table by the time I sit down. They might do this anyway, but I like it.
20% is 20%, I don’t see what the problem is. A $5.00 sandwich will get a $1 tip - A place that makes and sells sandwiches for $5 will sell a lot of them in a day, the tips will add up. Paying more than that just seems ridiculous.
In the situation you’ve described in the OP I would indeed leave a $5 tip on a $5 and change check. If the place had been packed, maybe not.
Especially since whenever I go somewhere for lunch with table service I expect to be spending at least $10. In my mind that money was spent before I parked the car, so why not make a server smile?
I wouldn’t/couldn’t do it every day (any more than I could eat lunch out every day).
2 dollars was certainly generous and certainly the server appreciated it; the dollar + coins others have suggested would probably have been unremarkable.
As an aside: when we eat somewhere and just have water to drink (which is free), anyone else try to remember to tip on that (or rather, what a soda would have cost)? I don’t know that I explicitly do so, but we tend to round up the tip a bit anyway.
I think a dollar would have been fair - assuming this was not some more fancy place and you simply ordered the cheapest thing on the menu. But if this was at “Jake’s Sandwich Shop” and all orders were about the same price - the server probably expects the standard 15-20% = about $1.00 (and any change if you feel generous).
As others have mentioned - serving lots of orders fast like this with small tips would add up quickly, equal to a more expensive restaurant where you have a much slower turnover but higher tips.
