A tip jar is optional. However, if I see someone has done an especially good job - say they know what my coffee is when I walk in the door, and they make it really really well, I will probably leave some change. Last year I was getting coffee often at the local coffee shop, and this woman made me coffee for me almost every time, going out of her way to make it just right. I skipped the change entirely and gave her $20 at Christmas. I figured I could afford it; it was a nice gesture, and she had made my coffee perfectly a million times during the year.
I said tip less. 0% is less than 15%. 
Having said that, I can’t think of any place I’ve been where a 0% tip was warranted. What would be an example of service like that?
I wouldn’t just not tip, in that case. I’d go to the manager and explain my issues, if the waiter was that bad - because the tip, after all, was for the waiter. It would have to be issue after issue with no apology and no effort to rectify.
I’ve done it exactly once in my life, and that was when I was younger and more headstrong. I don’t think I’d do it now.
When I was a kid, my grandma once forgot to tip the waitress when we went out to breakfast. Next time we went back, she included extra on the tip to make up for it (we had the same waitress pretty much every time we went), but she was really embarassed.
Being totally ignored after food was brought out (no asking if drink refills, dessert or anything else was wanted, while the waitress(es) were occupied in giggling conversations with guys in the bar area). Even then it wasn’t a 0% tip, but as I recall, 29 cents on a $20 restaurant bill. It’s the only time I’ve ever essentially tipped zero.
Even yesterday, when an irritating waiter forgot a request and then decided to enlighten us at length on why he had guessed we didn’t want dessert, based on his wide-ranging experience interpreting interspousal nonverbal interactions. He got about a 15.3% tip.
I did have a dinner like that once. The waitress wasn’t a giggly teenager, she had some major milage. But she would come out to check on the tables, and only check on the first couple then go back into the kitchen. We constantly tried to get her attention, but she avoided us like the plague. We had french fries but no ketchup, dammit!
Of course you didn’t mean me specifically :smack: Obvious when I reread your response. Sorry!
Oh yeah, and there was a different place where we walked in, sat down, and waited forever for the waitress. I ordered some fancy pancake dish. My companion ordered a bagel, got it, ate it, and was done. Then a guy came in, sat down beside us, and ordered the exact same thing I had. He got it, he ate it, he paid his check, and he left. And I still hadn’t gotten mine!
One might say that I shouldn’t have stiffed the waitress, as it was probably a screw-up in the kitchen. I’d be more sympathetic to that if she’d at least acted concerned about the situation.
Many years ago, while visiting a different city, I treated myself to a cut & colour. I paid by credit card thinking I could add the tip to it…but it turned out their system couldn’t do that and I had no cash on me. I felt TERRIBLE. So when I was back in that city a few months later I went back to the salon with a Christmas card with $20 inside for the hairdresser.
One Christmas my Nana ordered Chinese Food for our family dinner but didn’t tip the delivery guy. (She’s got early-onset dementia.) My mom noticed and told me, so I wrote a note explaining that “we forgot” to tip him, put $5 with it and took it to the restaurant. He was very surprised and appreciative!
So yes, it happens, and people appreciate it when you make up for it.
Funny story, one time my husband and I were at the gas station. He filled up the car while I went inside to get the Tim Horton’s coffee. As we were about to pull away the coffee shop lady ran out to get our attention…I thought he had paid at the pump like I always do, he thought I had paid inside like he always does and neither of us had paid for the gas! I remember us both looking at each other and saying in unison “I thought YOU paid?” 
Nope. I once inadvertently stiffed a waiter. I was paying for a work-related lunch and my brain farted completely on the math, and I only left about a 2 dollar tip. As I was looking at the receipt later that day, I realized what I’d done. Fortunately the restaurant was in my office building, so I popped down that afternoon and gave 10 or so dollars to the manager with my apologies. I do hope he actually gave it to the employee!!!
My father-in-law is a crappy tipper and a bad customer (in a good mood, he’s patronizing; in a bad mood, he’s a raging asshole), so when my husband and I recently took him and my mother-in-law to brunch, we were nervous when he said he’d get the tip. We waited while FIL helped MIL with her coat, and then they turned from the table. My husband left the little folder on the table, and went ahead to get the door. As they left, I turned to the host stand and slipped the maitre d’ some cash, apologizing that my FIL had stiffed our waitress, and could she please give this to her. When my FIL looked quizzically at me leaving later than the group, I said I was thanking the maitre d’ for the hospitality.
In the car on the way back to dropping them at their house, FIL pipes up with, “I forgot to tip the waitress!” My husband and I said simultaneously, “I covered it,” then looked at each other and laughed. Turns out he’d watched his dad get up, then quickly slipped cash into the folder holding the tab.
We had assumed it was intentional at the time, so we didn’t decide to “remind” him before he left the table. He’s done it before for perceived slights. (This is why I don’t go out with them often.) That’s OK, the waitress deserved a big tip for dealing with him that day.
My usual tip rate is 15% for decent service, 20% for good, 25%+ for great, 10% for adequate, and a couple pennies for crappy service. Like the time we four were literally the only ones in the place, we didn’t get our beverages or even water for 15 minutes when we told the waitress I was seriously dehydrated from heat exhaustion (my husband went to the bartender in the next room and got me some water after only a couple minutes had passed), she dropped the drinks and took off, coming back maybe 10-15 minutes later for the food order, and the food took so long that we contemplated going to the McDonalds across the way to bring over some fries. Condiments weren’t given, etc. We’d only seen her and the bartender, and doubted a manager was even around, so her tip was a few pennies and we left.
Best tip was, IIRC, 100% on a lunch and bar tab the day before Christmas; we liked the waitress and wanted to be generous for the holiday. I wrote a little note to that effect on the tab. We accidentally gave the impression we were pulling a dine-and-dash, though; we wanted to be gone when she opened the folder and saw a decent amount of cash, so my husband watched her go to the other side of the place while I gathered my stuff, then he said “go!” almost quietly enough, and I giggled as we ducked out. A peek over the shoulder revealed she’d dashed to check the table. :smack: Sorry! I hope the little scare was worth it! (We don’t do that any longer; we pay by card first, then write in the tip or pay cash after the card gets run. Then there’s no rush for them to grab the folder before we leave the place.)
I generally agree, except that if the service is truly bad, I wouldn’t even use the 10% floor. We once had a meal where the waiter took a very long time, and repeated requests, to do anything for us.
Oh, and if for some reason your table is more demanding, you should bump the tip commensurately. We used to leave a minimum 25% when we were dining out with the youngsters, since there was sure to be a certain amount of Cheerios etc. spilled on the floor. Also, the kid might be getting a 4 dollar kids’ meal, which required the same amount of work as our 10-15 dollar adult meals.
On the bad food: if the waiter didn’t come back to check on the meal, leaving me to sit with a plateful of inedible food for a long time, that might be grounds for downsizing the tip a little. That, in my mind, reflects inadequate service. The food itself, I agree, is not the waiter’s fault.
Yep - I’m generally hard pressed to get irritated enough to even go as low as 10% (despite being Canadian); however, one time my companion and I left absolutely nothing.
There were a number of different reasons including slow, surly service, not being check on, waitress disappearing forever; however, none of those things would have done it. My companion (then boyfriend) was Indian (East, not Native) as was the waitress. Let’s just say she made her disapproval of us as a couple VERY clear.
I mean, she can believe what she wants to believe, but keep her racist shit to herself on the job or get no tip.
ETA: I forgot to answer the OP! I don’t think I’ve ever forgotten, or if I have I still haven’t remembered! :eek:
This past summer, I was in Oklahoma for training on a new sorting system. I left my debit card home with my wife and daughter, with the understanding that it was to be used for all expenses, and that taking a cab to go to dinner once in a while was perfectly acceptable. Well, they went to Claim Jumper one evening, which was fine. When I got home, and saw the charge, I asked my daughter how much of a tip she had left. I was horrified to hear that she hadn’t left a tip at all.
She knows better than that, too. Hell, half the time we go out to eat, she insists on breaking out the tip calculator on her cell phone and telling ME how much I’m going to leave.
Needless to say, we went out to Claim Jumper that evening, and I had her point out the waiter from their prior visit. He wasn’t our server that evening, but he did come over to our table, and let me tell him what had happened. I tried to give him a twenty, but he refused to accept it.
I tipped extra-generously that night when the check came.
Something else you may want to know about: what’s considered good service in the US includes things like the server brightly saying “HI! I’m Kelly, I’ll be your server tonight!” and coming to the table several times to ask whether everything is all right. So if you get waiters who hover a lot more than you’re used to, just dump it into a bag labeled “cultural differences”.
Actually, that’s much more common here in the UK now as well. If done well, I quite like it. What I can’t stand is where it’s done grudgingly as if the waiter is following a (much disliked) script.
For example, last night my family and I went for a Chinese meal. During both the starter and the main course, the waiter came over to ask us if everything was OK. The thing was, it sounded like he actually cared - which was nice. We tipped about 10%, which is pretty acceptable in the UK.
My grandmother would take the money off the table after everyone had left if she thought we were tipping too much.
I wish she had the ability to be embarrassed.
Am I the only one who tips for takeout? We have a locally owned restaurant down the way from us that will prepare any meal for pickup and I always tip at least one or two dollars. It usually equates to 5-10% of the bill but I always assumed it was what was socially required. I don’t mind doing it, since they take the time to take the order and bag it up but I hope I’m not the only one who does it lol
I tip for takeout. Most of the places we order from give a 10% discount for pickup and I add that back for the tip.
At the comedy club I’m a regular at I usually tip a flat $10.00 no matter what I order. Some times It’s a $8.00 tab other times in the 20’s.