The Hospitality Management School Guide to Tipping Service Employees (Waiters, etc)

Really bad advice. Tip the owner of a hair salon ? Ummm ... Thats the owner ??
Super exceptional service, maybe ?!?!

I don't tip on tax!

My tip: get with rest of the civilized world, end the tipping practice.

Keep in mind the source. They want people in hospitality services to get paid more.

mr. pink didn't tip.

and he survived.

sloppy1 said:   owenscott said:   Really bad advice. Tip the owner of a hair salon ? Ummm ... Thats the owner ??
Super exceptional service, maybe ?!?!

You don't tip because of good service.
Rather, you tip because you don't want bad service NEXT time!
Therefore, I do tip the owner of the hair salon who cuts my hair!
He has a tip jar right in front of my face all the time he is cutting my hair.
He expects a tip.

This is kind of misleading, since the owner is also the stylist. I feel like the site was implying that you tip the owner in addition to the stylist.

Obligatory (NSFW language)

Usorry said:   Keep in mind the source. They want people in hospitality services to get paid more.

Any way except for their employers to actually pay them more.

First post..bad day at work, so I thought I would blow off some steam. I have two fundamental reasons as why I don't pay tips based on a set percentage.

The first. Customers A and B go into a restaurant to have a meal. They sit together, so the service is the same. Customer A orders a sirloin steak w/sides for $15 and customer B orders a new york strip w/sides for $20. They both have water. The work by the wait person/server is exactly the same. Based on a 20% tip, customer A pays $3.00 for a tip and customer B pays $4 for the exact same service provided or 33% more than customer A.

The second. Price increases (inflation) automatically create higher tips for the wait staff. If you went to Outback steakhouse 12 months ago and bought a meal at $18 and this week you pay $20 for the same meal, you will pay 40 cents more for the same service with a 20% tip. I know this isn't a lot on it's own, but depending on how much you eat out, it definitely adds up over time.

Pay your employees more so we don't have to, deadbeats!

I would rather get good service in a restaurant and tip for it than have the waitstaff be paid more. If restaurants paid their waitstaff more the food would be much more expensive. Also the service would not be nearly as good because the incentive for the waiter to do a great job would not be there.

Also as far as complaining about tipping on a percentage when prices go up I would just say to that is don't you expect a raise every year?

I'd also be interested in knowing the appropriate tip for buffets. I always leave something, but sometimes even 15% seems a bit high, when all they do is bus and maybe bring a beverage.
I was always told 8% for buffets

I always wondered what is the right tip for a restaurant that's between fast food and full service, where you'd walk in, order at the register/counter, get a number, food is brought to you, and bussed when you're done eating. Whenever I pay with a credit card when ordering, I'd occasionally leave $1 on the tip line. Too much? Too little?

What about tipping for a to-go order at a sit-down restaurant?

jerosen said:   They say you should tip your tatoo artist 15-20%.

Do tatoo artists make minimum wage?

Clearly we need to teach English teachers more

cheepazzsob said:   blueiedgod said:   cheepazzsob said:   First post..bad day at work, so I thought I would blow off some steam. I have two fundamental reasons as why I don't pay tips based on a set percentage.

The first. Customers A and B go into a restaurant to have a meal. They sit together, so the service is the same. Customer A orders a sirloin steak w/sides for $15 and customer B orders a new york strip w/sides for $20. They both have water. The work by the wait person/server is exactly the same. Based on a 20% tip, customer A pays $3.00 for a tip and customer B pays $4 for the exact same service provided or 33% more than customer A.

The second. Price increases (inflation) automatically create higher tips for the wait staff. If you went to Outback steakhouse 12 months ago and bought a meal at $18 and this week you pay $20 for the same meal, you will pay 40 cents more for the same service with a 20% tip. I know this isn't a lot on it's own, but depending on how much you eat out, it definitely adds up over time.

I assume you have never worked in the service industry.

Get a job at a restaurant, it may change your view, and not only will you stop tipping, you may even stop eating out... (stuff picked up off the floor, cooks not washing hands after bathroom breaks, people picking their noses right above the food... )

With all due respect, I'm not advocating not leaving a tip. I'm just saying it's a little outrageous to use a fixed percentage for "good" service, when it is what I expect to begin with. 25+ years ago, 10% was considered the norm for good service. About fifteen to twenty years ago, that number went to 15%. Now we are told 20-25% should be the tip for good service. The "industry" keeps recommending a higher percentage to be paid, when the increase is already built in by price hikes of the product..... And I did work in a restaurant when I was young and decided that it wasn't for me.

I worked as a bus boy, waiter and bartender at a Catskill's resort in the summers all the way from High School through college. I was paid $2.50/hour and then they charged $10/day for room a board (lived at the resort), so I was paid pretty much nothing. Tips were the only source of real income, not the paycheck.

And as much as people don't want to stereotype, there are some generalities that everyone drew about people and their "thriftiness." However, in general, bad tippers and good tippers averaged out.

I consider my self a pretty good tipper, because I know what a server has to go through to get you that meal. Most people have this perception of a restaurant that they see on TV "reality shows" but the reality is such that you almost have to speak a number of languages to communicate with the kitchen staff, and you have to know what goes where, because the "cook" here today is a jail bird tomorrow, and the "cook" tomorrow was shooting up heroin up his vein day before...

At the end of the day, if you can afford a $50 steak dinner, then $7.50 - $10 is much lesser burden for you than the same $10 to someone buying their dinner off the dollar menu at McDonalds. And if the $10 tip is going to break the wallet, perhaps you (not meaning literally you, but genrally, people) were not in the position to afford the $50 dinner.

cheepazzsob said:   With all due respect, I'm not advocating not leaving a tip. I'm just saying it's a little outrageous to use a fixed percentage for "good" service, when it is what I expect to begin with. 25+ years ago, 10% was considered the norm for good service. About fifteen to twenty years ago, that number went to 15%. Now we are told 20-25% should be the tip for good service. The "industry" keeps recommending a higher percentage to be paid, when the increase is already built in by price hikes of the product..... And I did work in a restaurant when I was young and decided that it wasn't for me.

Here's why percentage of bill is a ridiculous means of calculating a tip:

Table A: $ 80 filet mignon - @ $40ea. x 2
$120 bottle of Duckhorn cabernet sauvignon
$200 Total
$ 40 Tip @ 20%

Table B: $ 12 shrimp appetizer
$ 14 soup @ $7ea x 2
$ 21 mushroom ravioli
$ 18 Caesar salad with shrimp
$ 16 creme brulee @ $8 x 2
$ 54 frozen dacqueries and mudslides @ $9 ea. x 6
$135 Total
$ 27 Tip @ 20%

Table B will require more than double the numbers of trips and total service time from the server as Table A and will require >10x as much bartender time (bartenders HATE frozen drinks because they take so long to make), yet its server gets only 2/3 of the tip that Table A's server receives. How on earth is that fair? Let's change it a bit and say that Table B is at an Applebees or Chilis and if they order typical dishes there, the tab for Table B will be half of Table A's bill at the nicer restaurant and in all likelihood, Table B is tipping 15%, too. So Server A gets a $40 tip for doing well under half the work of what Server B does for $15.

MISTERCHEAP said:   callenjr said:   I am tired of the obligatory tip jar everywhere I go these days. The dry cleaner, take-out joint, what have you. I feel that all of these people who make an actual hourly wage and still have their hands out turn off the general public from tipping those who deserve it, your wait staff and bartenders.

agree there...it's obnoxious.

the ONLY place that has the right to a tip jar is a coffee/donut shoppe (Dunkin/Starbucks, etc) where it's been customary for many, many years, but I have to tip the dry cleaner? the bartender at an open bar (not a cash bar) at a wedding?

As I always say..."you wanna tip?"....bet number 8 in the 4th race at Belmont!

and that is why starclucks is so profitable, they have the masses not only paying more for what I consider bad coffee products (there are much better places around here than them!) AND they have you paying even more as they can underpay their staff and the public will make up for it! What a business model!!

As to the folks behind the counter doing anything special, the coffee shops are no different than anywhere else where someone works behind a counter, they had across what you pay for, no more, no less. If you "tip" at a coffee shop, do you tip at an ice cream shop? Ice creams are as difficult coffee mixes are they not?