Mrs. Spritle and I don’t order delivery pizza that often, but we eat out a lot (well, we did BC - before child). I found that it always worked well to tip between 20 and 25% on an order, more if we ordered one meal to split. It’s beneficial 'cause now, whenever we go back into that restaraunt, the waiters and waitresses stumble to wait on us. 
[sub]Good pizza; bad tippers – Well SOMEBODY had to say it :D[/sub]
recalls joy filled nights, sneaking quietly into the pizzaman corrals where they all sleep on their feet, bracing oneself carefully before giving a great SHOVE and sending a pizzaman flying before running gleefully into the night
Sorry. Couldnt resist.
I usually tip like $5. Of course, that’s Canadian currency, and I tend to overtip anyway. But I usually get the same 2 or 3 pizza guys, and they’re always happy as hell to see me
Even when a new guy shows up, he always seems real happy. Maybe I have a rep at pizza pizza or something… Shows you how often I eat fast food 
Everyone at McDonalds knows my order by heart. We call each other by first names!
How is anyone supposed to know that now you are expected to get tips as part of your income? It was obviously a huge thing to you, but they don’t even care. They’ve always tipped a buck or 2. Why should that change (from their perspective)?
Related to that, did the price of the pizza go down when your wage went down? Or are the customers just getting screwed and the pockets of the restaurant owners being stuffed?
Only ONCE did I not tip-I had less money than I thought. I felt like SUCH a jerk!
I wouldn’t sneak on extra toppings. You never know when someone might be allergic-it could come back to haunt you-especially if the person who got it was a child. Not a funny thing.
for a fancy-ass little cafe on the Sunset Strip. Very nice food, lots of complicated orders, pain in the ass to get it from restaurant to house without making a big mess, but we did it.
Now, the Strip is a money area, slightly east of Beverly Hills. Currently, the lowest priced homes in the immediate vicinity probably start at slightly under a million dollars, and that’s for a dump.
About half the deliveries involved driivng deep into the hills, probably getting lost, and definitely putting some serious wear on the car.
And you would not believe how incredibly cheap the customers were. I’d bring them an order totaling $60, and get $2 tip. Or nothing!
The logic amazes me. The waitress who writes down the order and walks 10 feet gets 15-20%, but the person who drives 4 miles into the hills with their own car and gas, and uses up 20-30 minutes of their shift, sometimes in pouring rain, gets 2 bucks?
Disgusting.
I always tip delivery guys a minimum of $5, more if it’s a long way, bad weather, or a very expensive order.
People suck.
stoid
Looks like you’ve answered your own question. If the pizzas were reasonably priced (~$10 for a large), perhaps people might tip more. But if they feel like they’re getting screwed by the price, which it seems like they are (I mean, really, $1.50 extra for a few chopped onions? That’s like selling a cheeseburger and charging $3 for tomatoes and onions.), then they will take it out on the only person they can - the delivery man. (Just as some people abuse customer service reps because they are the point of contact for that company.)
As someone already pointed out, SOMEONE is making a killing if your company charges $20 for a pizza. And if management doesn’t spread the wealth to its employees, then I’ll throw a similar question your way: Why are you working for them? Sounds to me like the owners are equally to blame for the lack of decent money.
BTW, my personal tipping policy is that I tip $2 for any delivery and a buck more for each pizza after that. This is in addition to the buck that the company charges for delivery. I ASSUME they give that buck to the delivery man.
I didn’t work delivery for about 10 years; the change happened in the interim.
1990 2000
Minimum Wage $3.35 $5.15
My Wage $5.50 $4.25
Commission 6% 4%
Ave. Tip/Order $1.00 $2.25
Ave. Deliv/Hr. 4 3
Ave. Pizza $10.00 $14.00
So, in 1990 in a given hour I’d make $5.50 + $4.00 (tips) + $2.40 = $11.90 gross. Plus, I’d only be taxed on the hourly wage, so I usually netted $10.90 an hour minimum.
In 2000, it’s $4.25 + 6.75 + $1.68 = $12.68. But they report our tips (grossly underreported, but were not gonna tell) by adding the number of hours we worked as a dollar amount to our gross wage for the night. So basically I get taxed on $5.25, and therefore net $11.68 hr. More, yeah, but it should be a lot more.
Why do I work for them? They have the volume to allow 3-6 deliveries per hour. They insist on a certain level of grooming, so it at least appears that I’m not working with a bunch of scummy guys :D. And I like their product better than the others in the area. Oh, and the price for employee pizzas (carry out only) is $3, $5, and $6 for medium, large, and extra large.
I love your tipping policy, and hope you live in the western part of Alexandira, VA. :D:D
Also, we don’t have a delivery charge; our pizza is the same overpriced amount whether you have it delivered or you pick it up. :D:D:D
There was a pary here abouts not too long ago.
A Pizza was ordered.
the Pizzaguy arrived, the door was opened, there stood the man with the food in all his finery…
And as he was handing over the goods, someone ran out of the house and stole his car.
Getting stiffed for a tip don’t seem too bad now, does it amigo?
(this remains the funniest thing i’ve seen all year)
Christ, now I feel like gnawing my own arm off in guilt.
Last year we had people over to watch the U-M & MSU game. I decide to go get pizza. I knew delivery would be swamped, but figgered if I were picking it up, it’d be snappy. So I drove over to the Pizza place, put in an order, and then ran two doors down to get some other stuff at a nearby store. I return to find it’s actually taking forever because the place is swamped, and at least one person blew off their shift. While I am waiting, I listen to the people fielding phone calls, including those from drunkards, hungry impatient people, etc. Some of them must have pretty abusive, judging by the end of the conversation I could hear. The guy who was holding the fort impressed me a lot–he was taking a lot of crap yet kept his cool. His face was burned in my memory because I was stuck there waiting forever with no reading material. Except the menu.
Okay, last night we order a pizza. I open the door and it’s him. Mr. Calm And Cool, the guy I admire, is my deliveryperson. And my husband’s wallet, which I forget to check before we ordered the pizza, is short the extra $1 I would have liked to tip. I was embarrassed at the lousy tip at the time… now I feel like Mrs. Shitwad.
shuffles off to find self-flagellation gear
I always tip at least three bucks. I tip $5 if the weather is lousy. The delivery folks all know this so they always make sure to drop off our pizza first on their route.
The only problem I have is with whoever answers the phone at the local Marco’s pizza. You have to yell into the phone for him to understand anything you say and he never remembers where my street is despite the fact that I’ve ordered a pizza from the place once every two weeks for the last year. But I guess that’s why Mr. Slow doesn’t do the delivering.
As a former driver, I can empathise.
I delivered in a diverse area, that is, there were neighborhoods with million dollar homes and neighborhoods with shacks. I found that the trashier side of town tipped more than the ritzier places. All the drivers would fight going to the nice neighborhoods because for one, it was always darker because they had the fancy turn of the century streetlights and the tips were shabby. The working class neighborhoods were full of people who appreciated hard work and realized many of the drivers were working second jobs.
One of the things I hated most was the houses that had the address spelled out in letters. “Four thousand sixy four”. Made it difficult to read while driving.
Another thing was the people who would order, then run to the store and not get back in time for the delivery. Then they call back to the store and bitch, as if we are supposed to wait around in case the person decides to come home.
Other notorious non tippers- other businesses. Best Buy ordered about 30 pizzas and wrote a check for the exact amount.
Am I an asshole?
I tip the change, assuming that the change falls somewhere between 10% and 50%.
If I got a $6 sub, I’ll give the guy a $10. But, on an $9 pizza, I’ll give the same guy $10. And if I get a sub AND a pizza, he’ll get $20. I figure it all comes out right, sometimes I grossly overtip, and sometimes a little bit undertip.
Of course, if the guy’s a prick…he gets less. And if he’s good, I’ll make sure he gets a little bit more. But if it’s a really average guy, he gets the change.
I usually try & tip between $3 & $5 to my pizza delivery guy. I rarely order more than two pizzas, and it usually runs between $15 & $20. If the weather is really crappy (as it has been here in Michigan lately) I’ll tip a little more. Driving on these roads warrants hazard pay, and if those guys are going to put their lives on the line just to deliver me a pizza, they deserve more.
They only got my order wrong once, a few years ago. It was waaaaay off. And that particular delivery guy was a real asshole about it, too. He didn’t even offer to take the pizzas back & try & correct the order. I had to insist that he take them back, and he copped a serious attitude with me. It wasn’t as if they accidentally put olives on when I’d ordered them without. If that was it, hey, I can deal with that. I can just pick the olives off. No. These were Hawaiian pizzas he’d brought, and I ordered pepperoni & mushroom. He had the audacity to tell me that I was mistaken. I don’t think so.
I called the store right after he left, and told them about the problem. They acknowledged it immediately, and told me that yes, they had made the mistake. The guy at the store was just SO eager to make me happy and correct the mistake, I thought for sure that if I’d asked him to strip naked and set himself on fire, he would have, just to please me. Mind you, I wasn’t angry at the store. I was mighty pissed about the attitude of the delivery guy, though, and I told them that. I said “all I want is the pizzas I actually ordered, oh, and please don’t ever send that guy back to my house, okay?” About fifteen minutes later, a new delivery guy came over with my pizzas plus a double order of breadsticks, a two-liter of Coke, and a fistful of coupons, gifts from the management. I tipped the new guy heavily, thanked him profusely, and wrote the store a letter of appreciation.
That other crappy guy hasn’t been back to my house, either.
My general rule for tipping pizza guys is a buck plus a buck a pie. (The pizzas I usually order are about $8, and I’ll usually get one or two.) I throw in an extra buck or two if the pizza is hot or if the weather is crappy.
If tipping doesn’t appeal to your generous nature, look at it this way–I tip fairly well for the college town I live in. Amazingly, after ordering from someplace a time or two, my pizza starts to come faster.
I really make the delivery guys happy when I order pizza for a club meeting or lecture at school. (Med students don’t come to anything unless there’s food.) This is usually $100 worth or pizza, and I tip 20 or 25% depending on whether the guy meets me at the front door or brings it upstairs. (Hey, it’s the school’s money. )
Dr. J
Hey I used to be a pizza guy too…err… pizza chick
I got stiffed (pissed me off) and I got the occassional good tip (the best was a $20 tip for an $8 pizza–hey, I was pretty when I was 18)
UndeadDude (my husband) used to deliver pizza, too.
We always round up to the next dollar, and add $3 to that. We do let Nicky answer the door for the pizza, but we’re right there and making sure no scary freaks are there. He likes having a job to do and he does a good job. We always write out a check for the amount including tip, or we give him the exact cash (including tip) and tell him to say “keep the change”… he is good at holding the pizza by the edges and he’s only dropped it once. Obviously we don’t complain when the pizza is mushed because he didn’t hold it level or whatever–that’s our fault. But it helps teach Nicky about money and dealing with people and such. We don’t do it to be cute, we do it to teach our son how to do the things a person needs to do. We also let him answer the phone sometimes. This isn’t done to bug you or to be cute, it’s done to teach him how to answer the phone.
Heh…you need to tell some real pizza delivery stories.
Amateurs.
(Una, who delivered her way full-time for nearly 5 years through Engineering School for Pizza Hut)
Oh okaaay.
Well there was this one time that I delivered to a hotel room at a Motel 8 to a scruffy looking HUGE black man. He tried to fondle me, tried to get me into his room, and tried to get me to come back after I got off work.
There was the time I delivered to a very sleazy motel (the type with hourly rates) and the man who answered the door was a guy I delivered to quite frequently… at his home with his wife and kids. Behind him in the room, a woman in bed snapped at him for saying hi to me and he paid me and slunk back inside. He was wearing only boxers. She seemed to be in a bra, but had covers on.
But these don’t involve tips, so they aren’t really on topic.
Are you sure about that? I’ve worked in food service, and a 40% food cost on pizza is really high. I would expect something closer to 20% (even 15% at really nasty places.) If you’re working for an upscale place, with freshly made dough and fresh toppings, you might get close to 40%. But if you’re in the Domino’s/Pizza Hut range, there’s no way they are putting $4 worth of ingredients in a $10 pizza. If this is something management is telling you to justify your decreased wages, I’d take it with the proverbial grain of salt.
BTW, I cannot imagine not tipping someone for bringing me my food, especially when I didn’t even have to leave my house. Having spent time in the trenches (both my husband and myself) we generally overtip just for regular waitstaff; people who come to your house deserve at least as much!
I am one of those people who tries desperately to be a good customer. My definition in this case is that I don’t take up too much of the delivery-person’s time. I would not be the type to come to the door, get the pizza, spend 10 minutes looking for my purse, find a coupon, dig through purse some more, try to come up with correct change, then decide to give up and write a check, only to find that I can’t calculate 10% tip in my head, so just let me run get a calculator …
With that being said, I TRY to have my money ready when the person comes to the door, which is often a problem if you don’t know what the total’s going to be. (In my town, they don’t tell you unless you ask - and if you do, they ask you to hold the phone for a minute while you can hear them totalling it up on a calculator - oops, I’m inconveniencing them again!)
So I try to have everything ready when they come to the door, but if a pizza I expected to cost $17 comes instead to $19, and all I’ve got is a $20, the poor delivery guy gets stiffed. Sorry.
Anyway that’s my story in my own defense. When I have the opportunity, I am a good tipper.