Okay, so I am looking for some factual answers here, but knowing how some folks on this board respond to a “tipping” thread, I hope this doesn’t end up in the Pit.
Now and again I will get the terrible urge to get some wings from a national chain restaurant in the area. So I give them a call, order a platter or two (for sharing, of course), given them my name and car make /model, and twenty to thirty minutes later pull up at the restaurant and park in the Curbside parking space. Shortly thereafter, a waiter or waitress will walk the order to my car, along with a receipt for me to pay. Here is the questions: What is the social etiquette on the amount I should tip? Zero? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? Fifty?
Mind you, I am a notorious heavy tipper when I dine in – the waiter/waitress took my order, kept my drink refreshed, checked on the expected quality of the meal, etc. etc. No problems there. But in the case of Curbside service, it usually doesn’t seem to be the same person who took my order over the phone who comes to my car, and it seems the most of what they are doing is placing an order with the kitchen (who prepares, cooks, and plates the order) and then running it out to my car, along with running the credit card. A fairly minimal amount of work, in my view, compared to serving a sit down patron. So the usual twenty percent I would tip for Dine In seems a little excessive for Curbside.
I agree that the 20+% I normally tip is excessive for curbside service. Also, however, the work here is more than if I were to order at the counter and wait for it. In these cases, I usually go 10-15%, with a dollar or two as the minimum (depends on the cost of the meal).
When I’ve used it I give em $1. If it’s freezing cold out (like below zero) or raining I’ll give em $2.
But lately when I’ve called I’ve told them it’s for carry out and that I don’t want curbside pickup and went inside to get it myself.
I’d tip 10-15%. Packaging up this stuff kind of sucks and time limits are more sensitive for take-out, especially if curbside orders are in addition to (as opposed to part of) the waitstaff’s regular customers.
Please guys, if for some reason you order food to-go at Denny’s, tip the poor thing who did it. I was a hostess at Denny’s, which is in and of itself a full-time hustle’n’bustle often-flat-out-running job.
I was also in charge of the to-go orders. This meant at least five minutes on the phone getting your order right and another five minutes getting things packaged up, etc. And god forbid if you ordered a milkshake or a bunch of salads or something. And of course my regular work kept backing up as I did all this. Customers would sit there waving money in my face and threatening to walk out, others would mutter in the waiting area that I wasn’t seating them, waitstaff would start rolling their eyes…meanwhile I’m trying to find time to ladle pancake syrup into those fussy little cups and trying to get the damned cooks to give me some gravy for your biscuits…
A couple to-go orders in an hour could get me hopelessly behind and that meant I didn’t get paid (most of my money came from waitstaff tip outs, depending on how much I helped them get drinks, etc.), meaning I was busting my ass double time for nothing.
Now and then a to-go order would throw me a couple bucks, and god that made such a difference. When you are making hostess wages, a couple bucks can make the difference between being able to buy lunch or just getting by on free coffee. We all get so few chances in this world to truly do some good for another person, and IMHO tipping a couple bucks to a hard working person making next to nothing is a golden opportunity to do just that.
thanks for this post. I often get takeout, and I usually tip between 10 and 15% but I’ve always felt that I was kind of a patsy for doing so. I guess I was one of those people who felt that, well, come on, it’s not like they have to bring the food to my table or anything. But, based on what you’ve said, it seems there’s a lot more to it. You have dispelled (some of) my ignorance.