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<p>No it’s not. If they paid the amount listed on the menu, then they paid for their meal. </p>
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<p>How does even come into question???</p>
<p>Simple. They paid for the meal but they did not pay for the service. It’s the fourth orange.</p>
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<p>So when you go to the grocery store, do you pay the cashier separately? Or do you “not pay for the service?”</p>
<p>Cashiers are unionized & make a higher hourly wage than servers.</p>
<p>^^ if servers were paid what cashiers earn through a fixed charge added to the bills, that service charge would be a fraction of the current 15 percent, let alone the asinine 20 or 22 percent some seem to push. Again, the reality is that servers make a LOT more than cashiers and work a lot fewer hours. A system based on a fixed charge at around minimum wages paid by the restaurants would be a boon for the customers … and that is why you will never see it anytime soon. What you will hear is the continuing and cynical complaining by an industry that, just as America, refuses to live within its means and is losing all concept of a fair wage for a fair effort. </p>
<p>Wait…soooo servers are complaining about tipping, but don’t want the system fixed because they make more than they would if it was regulated?</p>
<p>No, Niquii, it’s the restaurant LOBBY that doesn’t want things to change, not the servers or other restaurant WORKERS. My D works in a very popular family restaurant chain, and I just asked her what a typical day’s tips are. One one of her weekend double shifts, when it’s a “good night” she said she gets “a lot” of tips-about $120 for 13 hours’ work, plus her hourly wages. This is nowhere near the $200-500 per five-hour shift other parents are claiming. When she works the lunch hour, about 2-3 hours a shift, her tips average $15 TOTAL. This is because it’s only the night shifts that are busy-families are not eating out at lunchtime.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that D’s job, like many in her industry, do not allow FT work, so no one is making $120 a night, every night, in tips. And this is for BUSY nights. Bartenders at her job make the most in tips. Her friends that work at straight up bars make the most of all, she says $200 is possible per night there. But again, these people are NOT working FT, so we’re NOT talking 4-5 nights at that rate.</p>
<p>Xiggi, get going-there are lobbies to be lobbied to break these greedy rich restaurant workers of their fleecing of America. The stories about them often qualifying for food stamps, low-income housing, etc. that’s all a myth. They’re rolling in dough. Smh.</p>
<p>Despite my advanced age and experience, I have learned so much from this thread. All my life I believed that tipping was a voluntary gratuitous act, done to acknowledge good service, not to pay for it. Fortunately, I don’t recall never tipping a waiter, since just now I find out that would have constituted “stealing.” </p>
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<p>I enjoy good sarcasm when I recognize it. There are probably servers who qualify for food stamps. And so are plenty of PhDs who aspire to emerge from the adjunct roller coaster. It remains that the job of restaurant server is often one of the better paying entry job for people with low marketable skills and lacking age and experience. Think Big Bang Theory for a vivid image of the example here. There is a world of difference between a middle aged server at a Route 66 diner and a perky twenty- something in the Bay Area. For all your examples of low wage per hour, you might consider the average in San Francisco, which is 30 dollars in tips PLUS the minimum guaranteed salary that inches towards 12 dollars per hour. </p>
<p>My point, if that was missed is that the current employment practices exist because they serve the industry well. If you expect me to feel sorry for people who whine about their jobs carrying a plate for a few dollars a pop, look somewhere else. If there are people screwed in that industry, you might look at the guys and girls who sweat in the under bellies of the restaurants as line cooks, dishwashers, and apprentices. </p>
<p>My conclusion is that the service charges at around fifteen percent are fair and acceptable. The claims for more are simply obnoxious and cynical. And testaments to unwarranted expectations, if not outright greed. </p>
<p>Students who work the tipping restaurants are not rolling in the dough here. My guy works fast food making slightly over minimum wage (no complaints - just a fact). He and his friends compare income. There’s not always a clear winner. If there were (and it wasn’t him) he’d switch. How much the others get depends a ton on who’s at the restaurant.</p>
<p>If I go to a fairly expensive restaurant and the bill comes in at around $225 for 4 people, it is kind of hard to leave a tip of $50. I think 15% is adequate, too.</p>
<p>I don’t think this thread has changed anyone’s mind.
Pontificators gotta pontificate.
;)</p>
<p>It’s not stealing. It’s a breach of etiquette. You steal a piece of fruit, refuse to pay for a meal, the cops will get involved. If you don’t tip unless it’s a mandatory part of the tab as it often is for large parties, you are home free, baby. Out the door and not a backward glance even if the waiter, manager, owner saw it. They can shake their fists and call you names, but no legal recourse at all. You do not OWE a tip. </p>
<p>I believe that there are places where, yes, the wait staff would vote for a minimum wage or other pay structure over tips. But not most places. The nasty little place up the road from me that I don’t frequent, won’t frequent even when I had my own kids working there? Well, it would have to be well over min wage for the wait staff to vote to overturn the tip stucture. There are apparently a number of special events and enough in tips that they are earning well over what one can earn at min wage or whatever the going rate is for work that those working there can get. My sons were at the bottom of the food chain there, literally, and they looked at me like I was nuts when I asked them if they would prefer to be paid a fixed dollar amount instead of tip sharing. They made more money there than lifeguarding at the municipal pool and they were getting $12 an hour there. There were times they worked 4-5 hours and because it was a special event, they pocketed $200, sometimes as wait staff, and ironically, more as back kitchen staff, getting a share of the wait staff’s tips. And that’s with some waitresses being suspected of pocketing some cash off the top and only pooling a portion of their tips. </p>
<p>Oh, and only about half, if that, is reported. We are talking seriously about the bottom of the barrel in terms of sit down restaurant here too. </p>
<p>But I will absolutely agree that there are places where the waiters will work for minimum wage over tips. I don’t know how it would fly over all, however. Only way to tell is to poll the waiters.</p>
<p>Goldenpooch, around here, some places are beginning to add 18% to parties as small as 5 and 6, not 8 as it was when I first moved here. So you have 5 people with a tab of $225 and you are charged a $45 tip as part of what you have to pay whether you like it or not. That one might find better food, better service at half that price, and the waiter there is likely to get under $20 for maybe even more work than the one at the more expensive place is where some illogic come into play. BUt then, at many of the less expensive places, the waiter pockets it all, and it is more likely to be cash, whereas in the pricier place, the tips are pooled, so the waiter gets only a fraction of that tip and more of the tips are reported since credit cards are more likely, so it may be more equal than it appears, But, truly, the wait staff at the more pricy places tend to make more money personally, and live a higher standard of life. Trying to get a job at one of those places is highly competitive. A lot of the cheaper places where waiters can take it all still have trouble keeping help. Those places it might be difficult to get much more than min wage. I don’t know of any place in my area unless it is family business, or has non American help that does not guarantee a minimum wage to the waiters, at least as policy. My kids have worked at a lot of these places, and they all do, and the owners/managers very rarely have to dip into their tills to supplement . They do supplement back kitchen help, by the way, and often under the table. My sons have been slipped $50s for working back kitchen when it’s a tight situation for the restaurant. Those managers absolutely do NOT want to be scouring pans and doing the grueling clean up work. </p>
<p>In what other industry is the pay scale so variable?</p>
<p>Probably any other industry where tipping is customary. Hotels. Cabs. Hairdressers. etc.</p>
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<p>Wearing blinders is often conducive to see opinions different from your own as pompous and dogmatic. Disagreeing with others does not need to include judging harshly. </p>
<p>“In what other industry is the pay scale so variable?”</p>
<p>Gosh, lots. Any industry where salespeople are compensated on commission. Probably most sales positions.</p>
<p>At least in D’s restaurant, the line cooks make more than the servers, which is why D is training to be one, with an eye towards eventually being a lead cook at a higher-end place. But like our friend who now manages one of Seattle’s popular high-end restaurants, you gotta start somewhere. Line cooks at D’s place get a higher hourly wage, enough such that they do not get tips. Bussers get a % of tips, just as servers do. And I wouldn’t hold one city (San Francisco) up as proof that servers are greedy workers rolling in it. </p>
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Why is the plight of a worker the problem of a hotel guest? I give to two local charities to help feed the homeless and when there is a disaster, I give to the Red Cross. That is where and when I like to help BUT not because a worker has poor relatives in Africa or South America.</p>
<p>Okay, tipping is not about helping the poor or paying workers salaries because mean employers don’t pay them enough. That is charity. Tipping is a custom. It’s etiquette. And, yes, it is expected. </p>