Yo Cisco. You and me we thinks alike! 
Y’all need to just start paying the waiters decently and get rid of the whole “sort-of-compulsory tipping”. Muuuuuuch simpler.
(IOW: I tip the same for delivery, takeout and eat-in, but it’s very little or nothing)
Hell, yes. I don’t tip on take out but I do for in-house dining (if you get me). But the proliferation of tip expectation (or hoping) is moving me towards the ‘I’m tired of helping businesses keep their costs down let’s kill tipping and raise the damn prices’ side of the argument.
Where did I see one last weekend? Oh yeah, a shoe store while buying some shoes for the baby. There was a tip jar in front of the register. Dammit.
You HAVE seen Reservoir Dogs, right? If not, even if you think you’d be averse to the content of the film, watch the first scene. After watching it I believe nothing further need be said about the question of tipping the waitstaff. (Too bad QT didn’t address the question of the take-out counter…).
I do not tip when taking out. I too pride myself in tipping well, but take out is different
Interesting, I was not aware that the waitstaff assembled orders, I thought that was kitchen duty. I do not know how common what you are saying is throughout the industry. I have seen no signs of it. You may work for a screwy restaurant. 
I will however ask next time I get take-out from a nice sit-down place.
Jim
Hooboy. Here we go again.
The waitperson who rang in your order is “tipping out” on your meal. That means that based onthe price of your meal (let’s say it’s $20, for argument’s sake) the server has to tip out a percentage of that price. In my old place of employment, it was 4-5%. Yes, that’s only a dollar, but if you don’t tip, that’s a dollar out of the server’s own pocket. Now think of 5-10 take-out orders, none of whom tip. And now take the time the server has spent packaging up your order instead of working with tables that will tip.
Overall, takeout orders were the bane of my existence because I had to give a high level of service for absolutely no return – in fact, I was paying for the privelege of boxing up your pasta.
I don’t think you should tip 15% or anything, but a buck would be nice, just to cover the cost of the tip-out. After all, it’s not like you rang in your own order, boxed it up yourself with your extra cheese and little plastic utensils and salt-and-pepper packages and whatnot.
Um, no. I won’t be tipping for take-out, ever. I take-out specifically over delivery so I don’t have to tip. And I don’t intend to change that.
Honestly. You’d think I was made of money, to just throw it around everywhere.
If the restaurant is charging their wait staff for making up take-out orders, that is between the staff and the restaurant; it is not my responsibility as a customer to keep restaurants from exploiting their employees.
And what about the people who are obviously stationed at the take-out counter for an entire shift (a la Chili’s) and who presumably are not being taken away from tipping customers? This is something I’ve angsted over for awhile, and yes, I’ve waitressed before. I’m frankly a little uncomfortable tipping in these circumstances, even (especially) if they have a “tips appreciated” sign out. It’s a nasty feeling like I’m paying an extra tax on the meal, not a good feeling like giving out a well deserved tip.
Again, I am confused, is it common in your part of Canada for people to tip for take-out? Nobody I know of in NJ does so. If the tips are not common in your area, then the restaurant’s management was being jerks. Please explain what you mean by the tip-out. To whom is the dollar going? I do not recall such a phrase from my short experience working for Friendly’s 20 years ago.
BTW: how is packing a meal a high level of service?
As a good tipper, table service means filling drinks, bringing food out in a timely manner, getting the customer billed out in a timely fashion. Attempting to be a “Mind Reader” and determining if the table wants to sit and gab, or if they want to get going on the rest of their night. (An impossible but important part of the job). I know how hard waitressing can be, I do not see many servers assembling orders or even ringing up the order in restaurants. Friendly’s does not count; we had people assigned to the counter. However, even at a very nice Restaurant where I use to use take out, the order was taken by the manager and assembled by the kitchen staff. Currently the only restaurants where I pick-up orders is the Macaroni Grill, I do not know how they do it there, but I will ask.
Jim
In a restaurant set up for takeout, then there’s no need to tip; waiters/waitresses usually are not involved in the order: it’s just taken at the register, cooked, and set aside somewhere until you call.
In the “curbside to go,” then a waiter/waitress may be bringing it out to your car. These are a relatively new development (well, not counting the drive-in restaurants of the 50s) and I don’t know if there’s a standard procedure. It would make sense to give a tip for bringing the food to your car, since that’s an extra convenience.
I usually put a tip on the credit card, but when I don’t, I have no problem with putting a zero, and have never had anyone comment on it.
I work at a food-service booth that moves around to different fairs and festivals. There are usually about 6-7 people in the booth: a register guy, a grill guy, 3-4 makers, an oddjob/clean up guy, and my boss. As a relatively new worker, i make minimum wage. We have a tip jar there, and it’s split equally among everyone. Also, people do different jobs at different times, so it’s not like someones a cashier all day. My question is, would you tip this situation?
FTR, we make about 10-15 dollars each in tip for a 9 hr shift.
There are slightly different things here (although exactly how they’re different, I’m not sure). There’s “take-out” and “curbside-to-go.” I have never tipped for take-out orders. I’ve also never used “curbside-to-go.” I did ask a server once who worked the curbside a lot about tipping. She said that, 'Yeah, they do expect tips, but not everybody does."
Well, obviously, if you weren’t made of money, you wouldn’t be going to a resteraunt for food, you’d be making your own food for a fraction of the price
(Seriously, I make spaghetti with this home made sauce, and even with the really good noodles, it costs me 8 or 10 bucks tops for enough spaghetti and sauce to keep four people fat 
)
If there’s a tip jar, tip. If not, not.
-FrL-
The “curb-side-to-go” conundrum is what gets me.
I have no idea what is expected for this new invention.
I have typically been doing $1. If it’s freezing cold outside or raining I give em $2.
Carry-out is big bucks for these restaurants. They charge prime $$ for the food and the customer never dirtys a plate, fork, glass, or table.
Oh, and a less smartass comment, I became a much better tipper after I worked as a delivery driver for Wingzone. We were paid minimum wage (unlike most waitstaff), but then again, we also had to use our own vehicles to deliver food, and were only given an extra $0.70 for each order to cover gas, so tips were very appreciated. The worst tippers were the folks living in the poorer parts of Bryan (which I didn’t begrudge them for, usually these same poor tippers were usually trying to restrain multiple hyperactive children from eating the food before they could pay me) and the guys who lived in the Corps dorms on the A&M campus.
In any case, most of my tips went to pay for gas (and the occasional quick meal in the resteraunt) and CDs to listen to in the car (You have no idea how quickly you can run through your entire CD collection while making deliveries all night). The paychecks covered my bills and rent, pretty much.
What I don’t understand about your post:
I’ve never heard of a “tip-out.” I’ve worked in food service, though not much. I’ve had a few friends who worked in food service, and they never mentioned it.
I don’t quite understand, from your post, what a “tip-out” is supposed to be exactly. What happens to it? Where does the money go?
I can’t believe a “tip-out,” even if it exists, is exacted against take-out orders as well as dine-in orders, since it is standard for people not to tip on take-out orders.
The idea that a server has to pay for a “tip-out” out of her own pocket if none is provided by the guest strikes me as illegal. I’m not a lawyer. But still… Yet you seem to see this practice as matter-of-course.
I don’t understand what you mean by saying that by packing up a take-out order, you are providing a “high quality of service.” Maybe you mean something different than I do by “take-out?” I just mean I call the restaurant, order some food to go, then go pick it up, and then leave and eat it at home.
-FrL-
Well, some of us are better cooks than others. But I get takeout food a lot, even though I can cook reasonably well. It’s because restaurants can often cook things better and more interesting than I can – I go to a variety of ethnic restaurants – and takeout food isn’t that expensive anyway.
And as far as the OP goes: I don’t like the custom of obligatory tips in the US, but I do tip the required 15% when I eat in a restaurant. However, part of the attraction of takeout food is that you don’t have to tip. (Another part is that in this part of the world you don’t pay sales tax on takeout food, though you do on meals eaten in restaurants). So I’m not going to help start a custom of tipping for takeout.