Kalhoun, I don’t know your son, and I don’t know what kind of people you know, so I have no way to make any judgements about his character or work ethic.
Your son is apparently one of the few who can provide good service to the type of person that he dreads waiting on. A lot of people are not able to overcome their prejucidicial attitudes long enough to do their job well. Yes, I do believe that it is prejudiced (but not bigoted) to assume a black person will be a bad tipper because they’re black.
I commented on your post because I’ve seen similar views expressed in previous threads on this topic, and it provided a good example for the point I wanted to make.
Okay, I see that the first part of my post doesn’t really go with the second part. It should say that I can only go on the posts that you’ve made in this thread.
I never knew about the “black = bad tips” thing until he mentioned it. Then I saw it on the boards a couple of times. I was shocked to hear him say it, but it appears there’s at least some truth to it. Why? Beats me. He says he does his job and if he gets a good tip, he’s surprised. If not, it’s what he expected.
I guess it is prejudiced. We all have prejudiced ideas about some group or another. It’s how you treat people that counts. I have no evidence he’d treat a customer differently based on their skin color. In fact, he dates women of color almost exclusively. But he consistently receives crappy tips from blacks. I don’t know what to make of it. It just is.
I never really noticed a division along racial lines, but I could usually tell by the time I got the drink order whether I was going to make any money or not. Certainly by the time I brought the bread basket. It wasn’t the color of a customer’s skin, or the niceness of their clothes, or any other visual cue that tipped me off; it was how they acted. People who bitch about the prices, specify what type of jelly they want with their biscuits, bitch about the wait to be seated (even though they’re the ones who agreed to it), insist that you bring something for the children RIGHT NOW, end every interaction with “bless you”, etc. will not, as a general thing, tip you. At least not enough to cover the taxes you’ll have to pay for serving them. And they’ll usually run you ragged for your princely 1%, too. There are occasionally some surprises, but not often.
The only time I ever knew before I waited on a table of black people that I wasn’t getting a tip was when the Church of God convention was going on. By the end of the weekend, I’d learned that a table full of black people dressed in white and gold, wearing hats, and grumping about the lack of pork-free options on the menu was going to cost me money. The other servers warned me, but I didn’t believe 'em till I’d had it happen with fifteen tables. And let’s face it, the vast majority of the church groups I ran into were like that. It had nothing to do with them being black. At least they weren’t the sort of church people who leave those stupid tracts with the covers printed to look like a $10 bill.
You know this thread just doesn’t coincide with my experiences. I usually get excellent service in restuarants, so if there is a myth that blacks are poor tippers, it hasn’t had any bearing on my servers attitude. I also usually tip 20% at minimum in restaurants, sometimes more if in the case of exceptional service. I do have a best friend that is a lousy tipper though. I’m curious, have the servers here had different experiences based on the composistion of the group, i.e a bunch friends/associates vs. a family. I ask because I eat out most often with my wife and kids.
As far as delivery goes, I dont order much pizza, but order Chinese pretty often. Our total usually falls somewhere between 45-55 dollars and I typically tip $5. More if the guy actually brings the food in, they seem happy with us, in fact I thought one of the guys was gonna sit down an play video games with us.
I wonder if blacks tip black servers better, and whether whites tip white servers better.
My parents tip Italian servers higher, so I don’t think either question is out of scope.
Most of our delivery drivers who stopped delivering at work (I’m continuing on from my earlier post) are white grunger types, who have decided to stop delivering since they get no tips from the black customers.
I think there is definitely an issue with whether the patrons identify with the server/servicer.
My two aunts who are the poor tippers are equal opportunity poor tippers. They typically don’t dine in fine restaurants and when we do eat out as a family in finer establishments, my mother, my aunt who tips well and I make sure we handle the tip.
I bartended in college at a bar that had private parties almost every weekend (usually fraternity and sorority mixers). I recall that most bartenders avoided the “black” events because tips were not expected to be as good. My experience was that while I could expect to make $150-200 at the fraternity events, $50 at a “black” event would have above average.
(However, YMMV. I was friends with many of the guys in the fraternities and guys on dates with sorority girls usually liked to tip alot to try and impress them. Further, I certainly bartended “white” events where I made shitty tips, but I also had nights where I made over $350.)
I witnessed something similar at a hip hop night at one of the clubs around Indy. My friend (she’s black, btw, and does tip) and I were leaning on the bar, just watching the crowd, and we saw several groups of black women come up, order drinks, pay, and walk away without leaving a dime.
I couldn’t believe it. We asked the bartender and he said that it was very common and that he hated hip hop nights. He thought the $10 cover charge had something to do with it, but I figure everyone knows that drink tips are not included in a cover charge.
I’ve not read those studies–has anyone looked at whether black folks in general dine at waitstaffed restaurants less often than white folks do?
A friend of mine worked at a family restaurant; his experience was that people who were obviously doing their once-a-year restaurant meal (for an anniversary or something) were likely not to tip at all. They may not have realized that it was expected of them.
I know that for myself, I shamefully spent several years stiffing bartenders before I noticed somebody tipping them and started asking questions; I genuinely had no idea that bartenders got tipped. I try to tip extra these days to make up for my sins.
I think there’s a slight degree of truth, Philster, to the idea that people tip more when they identify with the person serving them.
But I’m a big believer in the idea that most people tip what they tip; level of service doesn’t make a bad tipper a good tipper, or make an excellent tipper an awful tipper. Most people I know who tip well (myself included) consider 15% to be the low end of the spectrum; that’s what you get when you sucked.
If your service was excellent, you’re going to get 25-30%. (If we’re at a bar where drinks were “forgotten” on our tab, that can go as high as 50-60%.) But even if you suck and I tip you 15%, I still fall into a “decent tipper” category. I’ve never been a bad tipper.
But if your tipping range is in the 8-12% range, level of service is not going to bump it up to 20%. People tip what they are used to tipping. I don’t know how many times I’ve waited on people at my (tourist) bar who think the world of me, take my picture, tell my boss I’m fabulous, etc., etc., and then drop four bucks on $30.
In their mind, it’s obvious that’s a good tip. They’re pressing it into my hand and thanking me. If I sucked, they would’ve tipped me $1 or $2 or nothing at all. But $4 still sucks, regardless of what they think.
My point is that people tip what they tip, with surprisingly low variance based on the level of service.
This may be a California thing, but on average the greater percentage of servers here are white, at least in the restaurants I patronize. That may be because I typically do the TGI Friday, Chilli’s type restaurants* when Im with the kids, opting for finer restaurants when I’m with my wife, friends or business associates. Anyhoo, I’m an equal opportunity tipper, it just wouldn’t occur to me to leave less than 20%.
I consider these place like The Gap, where the servers are obviously college kids.
My Aunt who is black insist on tipping even at buffets…I normally tip 10 per cent unless the service is really bad or really great. Then I will go up or down from there.
My experience as a server (15 years) indicates that AS A RULE, black people do not tip as well as white people. In my own efforts to debunk this perception, I would frequently, willingly take tables of black patrons just to prove to my fellow servers that their service must have reflected their own racism. Sadly, I was never proven right. On one evening, a group of my own black friends came in, requested me as a server, and did not tip me at all - later I questioned them about this, and one guy said, “You should know by now that we don’t tip. Do you EVER get tipped by black folks?”
To be perfectly fair, I must say that yes, I have been tipped by black people, but the stiffing incidents outnumber the tipping incidents by at least four-to-one. And no matter what color their skin, in my experience, teachers are the worst tippers.
What’s been your experience with new immigrants/foreign nationals from non-Western countries? say, chinese, indians, middle-easterners…
I hypothesize that they tip less on an average as they may find tipping awkward to begin with. This is a byproduct of growing up in a different culture. Secondly, they may not be aware of how crucial tipping is to a waiter’s salary. Of course, all this plays into their hesitatation in parting with their “hard-earned monies”. If my hypothesis bears out, there could be some parallels between their behavior and the black population (assuming both groups share a mindset that tends towards subconscious separation from mainstream American habits)
I waited tables at middle of the road places like Chili’s and a local Italian restaurant. I noticed this phenomenon too, but I think it has more to do with the kind of places where I worked and the clientele. IOW, these are people who might be, as another poster called it, “first generation” middle or lower-middle class restaurant diners unused to tipping. Many of the other places mentioned - clubs, bars, pizza or sandwich delivery places - might attract this kind of clientele too.
I suspect that at more “highbrow” places, there is more tipping parity.
About immigrants: I never waited on immigrants at the places where I worked, but Japanese people are often said to be horrible tippers, as there is no such custom here in Japan.
I try to tip extra these days to make up for my sins.