<p>I was recently at EATALY in NYC and their food service receipts include 3 levels of suggested tips. 15-18-20% At the Bellini station, the server emphatically pointed out the suggested tips as the receipts were presented!</p>
<p>cobrat - let me try to understand what you are saying here. Are you saying 1)some of those church goers maybe an adequate tipper when not attending church, but become poor tippers after attending church, or 2) church service tends to attract cheap people.</p>
<p>Your post is poppycock, Cobrat. We know plenty of folks who go out after church. They tip well. In addition, they tend to go to the same restaurants, and the waitstaff knows and likes them.</p>
<p>Give it a break. </p>
<p>Same deal here with churchgoers… many kids at school work in the local restaurants and they love to work Sunday after church shifts. I doubt that would happen if they weren’t getting decent tips. There is one NIGHT “service” held occasionally at one chain restaurant that they hate as the “preacher” spews rhetoric against females working at all and they won’t leave tips as that would “support it.” But they’re fringe anyway. I’m among those who wish the restaurant could refuse to serve them or include the tip in their bill, but with free speech rights and all… and they order separately rather than as a group. (So I’m told via the high school kids, so definitely hearsay, but I’ve no reason to doubt them.)</p>
<p>It’s hardly churchgoers as a group. The kids love those.</p>
<p>On a related note - how much do folks tip the maid at hotels? A percentage or flat rate or nothing? I’ll admit to flat rate on that one - and many times with an unopened bag of Lindt Truffles in addition to the tip for a multi-night stay with good service.</p>
<p>We’re still generally over 20% for lower cost restaurants and between 15 - 20 for higher. I see no reason to change based upon this thread.</p>
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<p>Oldfort,</p>
<p>I’m saying it is a common stereotype waiters/tresses hold in many areas/quarters based on their own experiences and/or what they’ve heard from other waiters/tresses on online forums catering to them. </p>
<p>Not saying it is universally applicable or it’s always right, but that stereotype is present because many of them have experienced this firsthand and complain about this among themselves to vent and also to provide tips on what days/shifts to avoid in their areas/restaurants. </p>
<p>Man, cobrat, you just taught me something about myself! =D> </p>
<p>EDIT: Just to throw some youth in this tipping data, I tip 15% as baseline for my meals. If I feel they did better, I’ll do more, but 15% is what I go for.</p>
<p>It’s not easy getting a job at those restaurants where you get very nice wages from tips. In some of those places one pays the establishment for the right to work there. My son worked at one place, far from being a fancy, special upscale place, but well trafficked, and would earn over $200 a night, and he was on the low end of the wait staff. Found it more lucrative and easier to be busboy, there as the waitresses and management paid him generously for that service as they could not keep good workers at that position. So it can depend on the restaurant. </p>
<p>I accept the system and tend to tip well unless the service is really poor. I do also short tip at places where the food falls terribly short of adequate and it was really a bad experience, even if it isn’t the waiter’s fault, because I believe that can put pressure on a place when enough people do that. The help will leave, those good, anyways. It’s rare that happens with me, however, and I don’t think I’ve done it in years. I feel if I’m going to eat out, the tip is part of the cost, and it has to really rile me to penalize the wait staff.</p>
<p>As always, CC is a fountain of information on topics unrelated to college. It’s been educational to learn that some people consider waiting tables not to be a “real job”, or that it’s a job for kids on their way to “real jobs” post college and thus are not actually deserving of a living wage. It’s also instructive to learn that there’s a widespread assumption that waitstaff cheat and lie on their taxes, and apparent ignorance that their paychecks must include withholding. SS and medicaid based on tips as well as their hourly wages. No one seems to know, either, that many restaurants, especially the chains, do not ALLOW staff to ever work FT so as not to have to pay any benefits, whether healthcare or paid time off. The picture painted of these greedy or ignorant grunts playing at a not real job while cheating everyone is rather appalling. </p>
<p>Whether or not you agree with it, in this country (the US), tipping is part of the way restaurant staff make their wages. Don’t like it? Push for laws requiring no tips and full salaries, because that’s the only way it will ever change. Fortunately, my daughter’s experience as a person who has been trained in every position at her chain restaurant is that most customers are generous and appreciate the work she and her colleagues do. </p>
<p>Wait staff should at least be paid minimum wage and be allowed to earn a full-time salary. I don’t feel that I should tip in order to allow the wait staff to have a living wage. That’s not “my job”. That’s the business’s job. Businesses should adequately pay their staff. </p>
<p>Niqqui77, that sounds logical and everyone on this thread had agreed that tipping is pretty much illogical. That said, however they juggle the bookwork the customer will pay. Maybe, the gratuity should be added onto every check. Or, it could be factored into the cost of menu items. But, one way or another you will be paying you just won’t notice or have options if the service stinks.</p>
<p>I am not saying none of my money would go towards the wait staff. They make up the staff of the business. The mony is going to get to them whether I want it to or not, but what I don’t feel awesome about is that because the business fails to adequately pay their staff, I, as a customer, have to pick up the slack, and am chastised when that slack is a certain percent? I just don’t understand that. </p>
<p>I imagine tipping as gracious act towards service you especially liked. If I felt well attended to and was put at ease, I’ll give you a tip. I do like the idea of a flatline gratuity added on to the bill. Something that covers the service, provided the wait staff means to support themselves, and makes it clear when the servers service was exceptional or not. </p>
<p>Yeah, I get it. It’s transparent and you feel like you are paying for something that the business should be paying. My point is simply that one way or another the customer always pays. The waitstaff would likely be quite happy with a mandatory 20-percent gratuity or a giant raise and price hike, as well.</p>
<p>While the church group stereotype for tipping may be true it probably has to do more with the age of the patrons. My 79 year old mother complains bitterly when someone points out that the tip should be calculated on the full amount if a discount was being applied or if they automatically add in the gratuity. I think the wait staff would be best served if the gratuity was added in every bill not just for parties of 8 or more. Pick 18%, and then let people have the opportunity to leave more.</p>
<p>Unhappy with the service, complain to management or don’t give them your business any longer. If an extra 3% is taking food out of somebodies mouth, then as stated before you shouldn’t be eating out.</p>
<p>Yes, I know the customer always pays. (Where else are they going to get the money). I’d rather things be transparent. </p>
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<p>While there’s a similar stereotype for elderly patrons, it’s not regarded with the same level of dread because:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>They understand the elderly are on fixed incomes.</p></li>
<li><p>There’s some understanding they all grew up in eras when lower percentage of tips were considered good.</p></li>
<li><p>While the tips are lower on average, they usually do leave something. </p></li>
<li><p>They don’t pull stunts where they effectively leave zilch by leaving religious tracts which look like cash instead. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Personally, I’d be for a system where the waiters/tresses are paid full salaries at/above minimum wage and the tips are completely discretionary as in other parts of the world. </p>
<p>However, if that happens, I can see many folks grousing about the rise in menu prices to compensate for that. </p>
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<p>Sorry, but this is an example of doing the job poorly. It is part of her job to make sure that the order is correct before taking it out. She didn’t do it. Once she delivered the wrong thing, she “offered” to make it right? Does this mean she was going to take their meal away and make them wait while someone produced the correct fries? Not an attractive prospect for the diner. I would suggest that when she realized that she failed to ensure that the right things were on the plate she should have immediately gone back to the pass and asked for free curly fries for the customers due to the kitchen’s error.</p>
<p>Personally, I would have tipped her anyway if I were them, but it would have been on the lower side of the range. It would have been on the higher side if she brought the curly fries and didn’t charge me extra for them.</p>
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<p>That server would have earned a low tip from me. How obnoxious!</p>
<p>Consolation-in some restaurants, where my D works, for example, the server is not the same person who takes the order. There’s an additional person in the kitchen who is supposed to check for the order being correct. So it’s entirely possible that the server was completely not at fault for serving the wrong shaped fries (and here I have to shake my head that this actually mattered to someone). And offering to fix a mistake is what you do, even if it means waiting for the fix-some people prefer that to having the wrong order. I guess I can add that any mistake is always the fault of the server no matter how many steps removed from the order and is yet another reason to short-change them on tips. I should tell D to look for other work.</p>
<p>Why wouldn’t she just say “I’ll get you those fries” and go do so? Why pose it as an “offer” and make them be the bad guy if they want to get what they actually ordered?</p>
<p>I know that there is a person in the kitchen who is supposed to check the order, and obviously they screwed up. That’s why the people shouldn’t have to pay for the right fries. BTW, I haven’t had them in years, but in my limited experience curly fries are spicy and taste different from regular fries, so I can see why a diner might care.</p>
<p>As I said, I would have tipped her anyway. (What kind of sit-down restaurant has servers who don’t take the orders, btw?) </p>
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<p>People make mistakes and if we’re not talking life or death like situations, are forgivable depending on the demeanor/attitude of the one making the mistake. </p>
<p>If anything, the fact she acknowledged the mistake and offer to make it right would mean she gets points for doing what I wished more people who screwed up working with me on projects at work and home would do: </p>
<p>acknowledge the mistake, apologize politely, and do your utmost take the initiative to fix it. </p>
<p>She probably offered because not everyone would care to make the swap. But they shouldn’t have been charged extra. That’s a whole other problem. Most of the well-known "family " chains I’ve been to do not have the waitstaff serve. It’s a completely different position. That way the waitstaff can continue to take new orders, while servers bring orders to those who have already ordered. In fact, a high-end place run by a friend of H’s does this as well. Maybe it’s the current practice around here. Only the really small non-chain restaurants that we visit have a one-person does it all style of serving/waiting tables. </p>