I tend to leave around 15% in restaurants. Neither very generous, nor chintzy: service has got to be truly abominable before I’ll go below that. If the service is notably good, I’ll go up to 20% or even 25%.
I think deciding whether to pay on the pre-tax or post-tax part of the bill is silly, unless the billi is really large. If the sales tax is 9%, and you’re paying 15% more on that, it comes to an extra 1.35%. Since I generally estimate 15% and round up to the nearest whole figure (or sometimes nearest 50 cents for small bills), the rounding often adds more noise than the tax. Only when the bill starts to get to $100 or more does it start to make sense to think about whether to do it on the pretax or not. But with those meals, the service matters much more, and one’s either more likely to be generous or chintzy, depending on the experience.
Here in New York, when we are splitting a bill and paying per person (rather than just dividing), I’ll add up the pretax cost of what I ate and add 25%, and that comes out very close to the cost + tax + 15% tip. Since 25% isn’t so hard to do in your head most of the time, it works out pretty well.
The challenge I have is how/whether to tip people where there isn’t ongoing service. I step up to the bar, order a $7 beer. The guy pours beer into a glass and hands it to me. It took 15 seconds, and I’m supposed to leave $1 for that? Sometimes I can figure out other things, like is he overwhelmed and still got to me in a reasonable time. Maybe I want him (or her) to like me later for my next round (but then that’s paying for hoped-for service, not actual service). If I ask the bartender to make me a martini (I’m not a martini guy, but a martini takes some work to make), it makes more sense to me.
Or people in McDonalds. They look like it’s pretty hectic there. But at some level, they are just handing me food - others are prepping it. Is that tipworthy or not?
Cabbies? How much to tip a cabbie? I usually tip 10% for a cab ride, though it often ends up being rounding up to the nearest whole figure that is close to 10%.
I have a friend who manages a well known Italian restaurant in CA. Waitstaff get minimum wage which is $8 an hour in CA plus tips. Some make 50-60k a year and don’t report a majority of that to the IRS and don’t pay FICA. And only work a few days a week. Not a bad gig if you are young.
Not to mention that generally, the people who are young and in those professions party like rock stars. They have low responsibility and a fair amount of cash, so they just party all the time.
Tipping at Starbucks is a prime example of taking it too far. There’s no difference working at Starbucks or McDonalds, but you don’t see McDonalds asking for tips.
The only argument that can make sense is when waiters get paid below minimum wage like $2-3 per hour and have to make up the rest with tips.
But Starbucks and McDonalds workers get paid Fully for the value of the work they do. Asking for tips in those is pure greed.
The only argument I could make for tipping at starbucks is if you frequent the same one and see the same people all the time and *maybe* you’re investing in preferential service. Like maybe a free up from a small to a large.
I don’t go to SBUX much anyway. If I do its usually because I can find a way to put the cost into my expenses. Or when we send interns to get coffee for the team and the company pays. I’d love to go back to being an intern sometimes, when the biggest worry is screwing up the coffee run.
I tip based on a reverse sliding scale and what I consider value. If I’m going to a higher-end restaurant, above-average service gets 18% tip pre-tax. If I’m going to a Chinese restaurant and absolutely love the food (average entree price between $10-20), I’ll give 25-33% tip pre-tax and pay in cash.
And why would it matter that it’s Chinese food? What if the waiter is a white guy at the Chinese restaurant? Do you still tip him 33%? Or a Chinese waiter working at a BBQ joint?
What if you go to a burger restaurant and the waitress of untraceable ethnic origin gives you an ambiguously seductive look as she turns to fill your water glass? Do you still tip 25%, or when she asks “can I get you anything else?”, do you say “a side order of sweet potato fries and your phone number”? Depending on the outcome, you might not be able to eat at that restaurant again.
I don’t care what the waiter’s ethnicity is. For me, good Chinese food is worth a lot more than the list price (unless we’re talking about Mr. K or Shun Lee or something like that). I’m not a value investor when it comes to food, so to me if it’s worth more to my palate than the price on the list, I’m happy to adjust for the difference. That, combined with the fact that I generally sympathize with the considerably lower wages and resulting lower tips that restaurants with lower price points experience.
I don’t tip extra based on what the server looks like, but if she’s nice to me and attractive on the eyes, then yes the phone number thing has been known to come up I’ve taken out a few servers/waitresses before and they had pretty interesting backgrounds beyond restaurants – one was a theater actress, another had left the DB Hong Kong fixed income trading desk to pursue a career in acting, and the third was a recent NYU law grad whose BigLaw start date had been deferred nine months, and she just wanted some extra cash and learn what it would be like to work at a restaurant. They were all pretty hot, too.
I was 28 and finally came to the conclusion “no more waitresses!” It was a good decision (though I did break it once since then, and that worked out well). Waitresses in New York do tend to be pretty interesting to talk to, though.
Yes, flirting has been known to improve my tip (I’m human, and making me feel attractive improves how much I enjoy the meal). But I don’t tip more if I am with a date, unless I can do it very discreetly. A good tip to a flirtatious waitress sometimes will get the date a little upset.
I see what Numi is getting at. If it’s a $10 meal and the service was excellent, chipping in an extra 50 cents hardly seems to be something that communicates “nice serving!” Similarly, if it’s a $300 meal, an extra $10 may be fine as opposed to an extra $25.
if you tip 15% across the board, why should a waitress at Denny’s get $3.75 on a $25 check but a waitress at Morton’s get $30 on a $200 check? IMO, the girl at Denny’s is prob busting her ass more than the broad at Morton’s and prob has more tables too.
i am very opposed to tipping that much money at a ‘high end’ place just b/c the food costs more.
I believe a fluid ounce is also supposed to be the volume of water that weighs an ounce. Thus a pint would be 16 fluid ounces or a pound of water. This is true for US pints, but apparently the British pint is actually a pound and a quarter of water. Not sure exactly why, but it probably has to do with Brits wanting to drink more beer from their pints.
I had a friend who said “If you want to believe that the UK is on the metric system, just walk into a pub and try to order a half a litre of beer.” I always thought that was kinda funny.
It’s interesting, no one ever pointed out to me that the system is binary, but it makes a lot of sense. It seems like the sort of thing I should have come across earlier in life, but it just goes to show that there are always more interesting things to learn.
One of the reasons that our time system is based on units of 60 (60 seconds, 60 minutes, etc.) is that 60 is readily divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, so time can be divided nicely if needed. The number 12 is divisible by 2, 3, 4, and 6, so that may be one reason why we ultimately stayed with 12 hours on a clock. Why the day would be 24 hours with current minutes rather than 12 hours with minutes that are twice as long is something I’m not so sure about, but here’s an interesting link that came up in a google search:
0% doesn’t really get the point across. Leaving nothing could be interpreted incorrectly by the waiter - maybe I never tip, maybe I forgot, maybe I’m European…whatever.
I should have said 10% for bad service. If I hate the service I try to inflict maximum emotional damage. For example, I was at Capital Grille a couple months ago and had a very unusual bout of horrible service. The total bill came to about $150. Normally I’d gladly hand over $30 but instead I gave the guy $9. He knew I went out of my way to screw him.
I’ve taken out a few servers/waitresses before and they had pretty interesting backgrounds beyond restaurants – one was a theater actress, another had left the DB Hong Kong fixed income trading desk to pursue a career in acting, and the third was a recent NYU law grad whose BigLaw start date had been deferred nine months, and she just wanted some extra cash and learn what it would be like to work at a restaurant. They were all pretty hot, too.