I have always wanted to know the same thing. 
I remember my Mom getting 10%, but that was in a Coffee Shop almost 40 years ago. In a “white napkin” restaurant, the tip was 15%.
If you do, you better be careful. There are a number of web sites like Lousy Tippers and bitterwaitress that put the names of people that tip below 15% on the internet for all the world to see (bitterwaitress’ Shitty Tipper Database used to list restaurant patrons that tipped below 17% but recently decreased the acceptable minimum tip to 15%). If these bad tippers lists do prove anything it’s that the minimum tip has increased from 10% to 15%.
To the OP, I’m not sure which restaurants you’re eating at, but a server expecting a 20% tip? That seems a little excessive. I’ve worked as a server at a casual dining restaurant, and 15% is perfectly acceptable. In fact, I found it quite welcome.
A mandatory gratuity of 18% is added to the bill for parties of six or more. There’s a reason why servers rush to the big parties, and this is why.
Of course, percentages can be very misleading. I’d rather be tipped 10% on a $50 check than be tipped 25% on a $5 check. It all comes down to how much money you bring home at the end of the night.
Whenever I stop by the local diner for a late-night snack, my check comes to about $8. I usually leave a $3-4 tip. Would I leave a 37.5-50% tip on a check that was substantially more expensive? Nope!
The stagnation of the minimum wage is probably a factor. The minimum wage was set at $5.15 in 1997 and not raised for ten years. During that decade, the cost-of-living-adjusted value of $5.15 in 1997 dollars fell to $3.96 in 2007 dollars. Raising the “suggested” tipping rate allowed food servers wages to hold steady without directly affecting restaurant costs.
I try not to, but when I’m not around they’ll have to rely on their walkers and canes.
[QUOTE=Hi, Neighbor!
A mandatory gratuity of 18% is added to the bill for parties of six or more. There’s a reason why servers rush to the big parties, and this is why.
[/QUOTE]
Umm, no. In fact the opposite. Generally, I get crappy service when I am in a large party, and of course the waitstaff doesn’t care to give good service as I am forced to give a large tip, no matter how bad the service is.
I no longer will patronize a restaurant (in a large party) with any such mandatory charges. :mad:
Two things:[ul][li]I don’t think it is true at all that the price of food in most restaurants tracks inflation.[*]I’ve been tipping 20% ever since I spent a summer or two making ~$2/hour** (+tips!) in a crappy chain restaurant serving people who felt that 10% was good enough. Something about working 16 hour days (I had to get a second low-paying job that was, thankfully, outside the restaurant industry) enhanced my ability to empathize with wait staff.[/ul][/li]
**What, didn’t you realize that a lot of people working in restaurants don’t even begin to earn what most people call “minimum wage?” Yeah, they’ve got another wage that’s even more minimum for waiters.
My salary also hasn’t gone up enough to adjust for inflation. Should I be expected to give more of my salary away so service folks can keep up with inflation while I don’t, which effectively means I can now afford to eat out less often?
Also, I haven’t seen menu prices stay stagnant over the years. It seems to me they have gone up accordingly.
This is the right answer. Food costs have become a steadily decreasing part of spending. If you track the amount waiters earn from tips in real dollars, it’s been pretty much stable over the last 30 years.
You’re saying a waiter in 1977 made about as much as a waiter in 2007? You’ve tracked what waiters earned in tips over the last 30 years? This would also mean a restaurant owner hasn’t raised menu prices to adjust for inflation and makes the same amount as he did in 1977. Owning a restaurant was either super profitable in 1977 or not such a good idea in 2007.
Here’s a NY Post article which claims restaurant prices in the pricier restaurants in NYC have gone up 69% in just 6 years. Yes, that article is just addressing the expensive restaurants, but I can’t buy that lower end restaurants haven’t also raised menu prices somewhat to allow for owners and wait staff to keep up with inflation. My local greasy spoon charges over $8.00 for an omelet and over $1 (can’t remember exactly how much) for a cup of coffee. I’m sure those prices would never have gone over in 1977.
I have heard these numbers as well (especially the 20-25% average tip) and it just makes me want to scream.
I tip 16% (doubling the 8% New York state tax that’s on the bill) almost exclusively. For exceptionally good service (or if I know the server), I’ll throw in a little more. I’m sure that makes me seem cheap to plenty of servers out there.
But I feel that if a server can’t even keep my water glass filled (and most can’t) then they haven’t done what I believe is the most tipworthy part of the service.
It’s not just food costs in general, it’s restaurant dining in particular.
Whenever the subject of tip inflation comes up, i like to quote from a very informative post by former member and moderator manhattan. As far as i know, manhattan worked (and probably still works) in the investment industry, so part of his job was keeping track of these sorts of changing economic indicators.
He said, in January 2005:
I think, in response to his last point, that there seems to be a “ratchet” effect with tipping. While the tipping percentage might get pushed upwards in times of relatively cheap food-away-from-home prices, it’s probably unlikely to go down even if food-away-from-home prices start to rise.
But the last several years from 2005 and particularly in Manhattan itself, were far from typical. And we are talking about tipping trends over 25 years or so. 2001 saw 9/11 and the dotcom bust - less spending on luxury goods. The burger I used to eat in college for $3.50 is now about $8 - about a 3.5%-4% rate of inflation - and about right on. Also, most peoples real income over the past 20 years hasn’t keep pace with inflation - most of us have lived with 3% raises (getting big raises switching jobs or companies) - why should waiting tables be different. A “good job” for a liberal arts major when I graduated paid about $32k. Guess what - still does.
I’ve always heard that you just double the tax to figure the tip.
As far as I am concerned, the rise in rates is due to the waitstaff reating a demand for it.
1st: 10% for great service.
2: 10%, but 15% at nice restaurants.
3. 15%, but 20% at nice restaurants with great service.
Next it will be 20%- with 25% if xxxxxxxxxxx. :rolleyes:
And if you don’t give in, you’re a cheapskate and they will post your name on some public message board. :mad:
I am starting to like buffets more and more. 
Actually, the new rules for tipping dictate you chip in a few dollars for the servers who bring you drinks and water at buffets.
So, i guess in Delaware you don’t tip at all?
Seriously, “doubling the tax” is silly. Not only do tax rates change dramatically from state to state, but in very few cases would doubling the tax result in a reasonable tip.
Tax here in Maryland is 5%, and most people believe that tipping 10% (unless you get bad service) makes you a cheapskate.
In Chicago, tax is 9%, so that rule would hold good. Personally, I tend to tip on the 20% side of things, but 15% is my baseline. When I was growing up 12% was standard (in the 80s). I think people running the “Shitty Tipper Database” should just grow the fuck up.
I don’t know if anyone else has posted this explanation yet but I agree with the confusion on why tipping % would increase. Inflation seems a poor answer given that the tipping standard is a percentage of the good/service provided which itself increases with inflation.
A good explanation would be that times of low unemployment have caused the standard of tipping to increase and can be explained like this:
During times of low unemployment the unskilled labor pool is small. Assuming the demand for servers is relatively constant, a lower supply of labor would imply that the cost (or in labor markets the wage) must be higher. Restauranteurs do not pay the majority of a server’s income, instead the customer does. However the restaurant owner needs to incentivize the same number of people from a small labor pool to work at his or her restaurant. They do this by including pre-calculated gratuities at the end of bills encouraging patrons to tip 15, 18 or 20 percent. In the cases of large groups a gratuity of 18 to 20 % is often times added without customer consent. This makes server work at this establishment seem more desirable to potential workers. Restaurant owners will encourage higher tipping in other ways whenever they need to attract more servers as well. Over a long enough period of time the culture is accepted by patrons and we end up paying a higher and higher percent for a standard tip.
This process happens individually but has a macroscopic effect on the market.
Now during times of high unemployment it would stand to reason that the value of the labor decreases because the demand stays the same but the supply of unskilled labor has increased as unemployment goes up. But that is not the case, likely for the following reason.
During times of high unemployment the labor pool available to staff restaurants is large. Assuming the demand of labor stays the same, the restaurant does not need to pay waiters a higher wage in order to attract new wait staff. In fact the law of supply and demand implies that servers should make less money. However since the majority of a server’s income is directly paid by the customer in the form of a tip the restaurant is not very highly incentivized to lower the tip amount. That duty falls on the customer to recognize that the value of the service provided by the waiter has decreased. Your average customer doesn’t feel the economic effects of the growing and shrinking labor pool and is therefore ill-equipped to make the appropriate judgement on the value of service. Compound that with the social pressure to not, “Be a jerk,” by tipping poorly (today would be <20%) and you can start to see why the tip wage might increase in response to market forces but not decrease as it should in other cases.
I hope this explanation is helpful and I look forward to the econ trolls waiting eagerly to publicly tear it to shreds on this relatively anonymous message board.
Well done, sir.