At the salon my wife and I go to. Men’s cut is $35 and hers is $45. They do a good job. I’ve been tipping $7. Good enough? How about on her cut? I think she tipped $5 last time. (I don’t want to be cheap, but if a 5er is enough, then I’ll go with that.)
Picked up a tiramisu for the wife at Buca di Beppo’s. Just stood at the takeout counter and bought it there. Guy at counter seemed to get a sad look when he saw I didn’t tip. Do these guys expect a tip nowadays?
Thank you for helping chip away a little more of my ignorance!
They do. I tip, or not, depending on how much work they put into it. Someone pouring me a cup of coffee gets nothing; someone making me a sandwich with a great deal of effort and attention to detail gets a buck or two. Places I’m a regular may get 50 cents even when my order is easy. Play it by ear.
7 is exactly 20% of 35 and I’ve always been told that 20% is the ideal tip.
$5 is less than $7 and $45 is more than $35 so it’s obviously a smaller tip (11%)
In Britain, tipping at shops is unheard of. It’s far too formal for tipping to enter the picture, so if a tiramisu costs 4.99 you pay 5.00 and get 0.01 change.
Same in Australia. You just pay the price in shops. I never the tip the barber. I wouldn’t dream of tipping the bloke behind the counter when I bought something in a baker’s/patisserie. If the total comes to (say) $9.30 and I hand over a $10 note, the 70 cents change is mine.
I tip 20% at the salon. I wouldn’t tip at a takeout counter. I tip for restaurant service because presumably someone visited my table several times, filled my glass, etc. When I stand in line and someone spends exactly 5 seconds ringing it up, they won’t be getting a tip.
Sweet holy shite $35 for a men’s cut! Sorry, can you tell I’m a student? The most I ever paid for a haircut was $12, and they shampooed my hair and styled it and did all kinds of crap. I almost considered getting it dyed, too, since it was so cheap. Man, for $35 I’d rather shave it all bald.
I would concur with previous posters - for salon services I would normally tip in the 15 - 25% range depending on the level of service.
I normally tip in the 20-25% range in restaurants but 0% for pickup, etc. I will sometimes tip for extra service at coffee places since I have very specific instructions and expectations.
Egad, then maybe I’m OK. The last time I had my hair cut I didn’t tip. I am not a stingy tipper, I honestly simply forgot. But my barber was an English emigre, so maybe he didn’t expect it the way a native might have. Oh well, I’ll make sure to rectify it when I go back.
You’re supposed to tip hairdressers? Is this true at Supercuts as well as snooty salons? I only get my hair cut professionally once a year, so I never thought about it much. I don’t think any of my hairdressers have been disappointed, but then again I never go to the same place twice (if I’m supposed to be tipping, I guess that’s a good thing).
I never tip people at the counter, unless I have a bunch of pennies to get rid of, then I’ll dump them in. Personally, I think tipping should be done for extra service, and putting my food in a cardboard box isn’t really an extra service, or at least it isn’t as labor-intensive as waiting on tables or delivering to houses (I would tip then). What’s next, tipping the drive-through guy at Wendy’s? I agree these people should make more than they do, but they should get their money by raising the prices so the employees can get a bigger take, not by guilting customers.
Also, thirty-five dollars for a haircut holy shit! Dude, buy some scissors. I’m a girl and I cut my hair at home and it looks just fine. Get your wife to do it if you think you can’t. And then you can do hers. Then you don’t have to worry about tipping at all.
I always tip $2 or $3 for my haircuts, which cost $8.99.
I have always been amazed that people pay more than that for a cut. Not a new style or a color or anything, just a cut.
I would never patronize an establishment that wanted to charge me more than a man to get my hair cut. Ardred has a more complicated cut than mine and there’s no WAY he’s getting off paying less, when I have less hair.
As others have noted, you are in fine shape. Your wife isn’t. 20% to the stylist if he/she is the only one touching your hair. If he/she wasn’t–if there was a shampoo person or a colorist also involved–they get part of that percentage too.
As for tipping on takeout…depends on the place. My rule of thumb is that if it’s a counter-only place whether you eat in or not (you get your own food, your own refills, etc.) it isn’t expected or required. The people behind the counter are getting paid as if they aren’t getting tipped and there is really no difference between wrapping a sandwich in paper or putting it on a plate. It’s like Starbucks; if they were particularly pleasant or helpful you can throw a buck in their jar, but it’s not part of their “wage.”
If it’s a restaurant with service, I tip between 10% and 15%. (If I eat in, I tip between 20% and 25%.) At Chili’s, for instance, their to-go person is just a waiter; he has two other tables and all the to-go orders, and honestly packaging an order to-go is more trouble in a “service restaurant” than if you ate there. I think it’s a very shoddy system from a corporate perspective, but most restaurants pay their service staff as little as humanly possible (it’s $2.13 in Texas and yes, that’s what the to-go guy at Chili’s is getting paid)
so I always tip on to-go in service restaurants. Same thing if it’s the bartender doing the take-out, which is also common.
How so? Once they box up your food and you leave they don’t have to deal with you anymore. The entire transaction takes ten minutes at the most. If you eat in, they have to refill drinks, fetch silverware, bring napkins… I don’t see how to-go can possibly be harder.
May I add in a question about tipping at Sonic? We recently got one of these in my little town and I love it- carhops on rollerskates. So cool! If I get a slushie and nothing else and it’s $1.30, I give 'em $2 and have them keep the change. If it’s a $5 meal, I usually add in an extra dollar or 2, depending on if they have to do any extra running about. Thoughts? Is this good/bad/appropriate?
