<p>Judging?
Hmmm. </p>
<p>cptofthehouse, do you really look at tipping as a “direct way to reward the house”? Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory, but I don’t think that’s how it works in practice. If the restaurants were paying their help a salary they could live on independent of tips, I would consider it a reward for good service. But restaurants pay their help lower wages expecting the customer to fill that gap with a tip. I usually tip generously-the service would have to be really bad for me not to, because even though I don’t think it should be this way, I look at the tip as part of their salary, rather than a reward. Like others, I prefer the European model. </p>
<p>Of course tipping is illogical and arbitrary–that’s because, in the US at least, tipping falls into the realm of manners, not business. I think that is what some people don’t fully grasp. It’s good manners to leave the customary tip. There seems to be some controversy as to what the customary tip is these days, but I think the current center of gravity is 20%. It does no good to complain that it used to be 10% or 15%, because manners change. Perhaps somebody can consult the most recent edition of Emily Post–that’s the actual answer to this question.</p>
<p>There seems still to be some misunderstanding about customers filing a gap left by cheap and evil restaurant owners. That is simply not the case. Do it the European way and prices will go up. It’s apples to apples. The customer is always going to pay. Surely, people realize this, don’t they?</p>
<p>In the end, yes, I do look at tipping as a way, maybe not direct, but a way to reward the establishment. If a place has poor service or leaves a bad taste (no pun intended), its demise will be hastened by workers leaving it when tips are not good. Though I myself don’t eat out enough to make much of a dent in the industry, people like my husband and brothers definitely do. My brother’s biggest expense is eating out. He lives is a small not so nice place (rent controlled) when he could definitely afford better so that he and his wife, friends, can eat out, and oh, he so enjoys it. His restaurant bills are far higher than his rent, and he thinks nothing of dropping a thousand for a meal for 4 and tipping half that amount for excellent service. He’ll also be a pain in the neck and not pay a dime in tips, also returning and getting things off the bill if they don’t meet his standards,which are, in all fairness, not extreme. He won’t come back, and he does write a lot of reviews on many eating out type boards, He and some foodies share experiences all of the time, and if he says a place is not worth it, I guarantee you it loses a lot of business. So, yes, a tip can be an early warning signal to the establishment, waiter,and management when they aren’t rolling in as they should be.</p>
<p>But in my case, I’m so grateful most of the time to get to go out and enjoy meal, and I’m lucky to have someone like my brother who can guide me to best bets,(and mentioning his name to some places where he is definitely a preferred customer, and a celebrity of sort) can get me a wonderful experience. As I said before, It’s been a while before I stiffed any waitstaff or place, and I can count the number of times in my life on one hand. I want the current model of restaurants to continue, so I support it with the suggested range of tips and I am on auto pilot as I do it.</p>
<p>My son has worked in the restaurants as wait staff and back kitchen extensively, and for those places that hire legitimately and keep the books relatively clean, the staff makes a lot of money as compared to other work such folks can get. Not just in NYC either but in some very economically depressed cities, as my son has lived in them and so worked. The other dirty secret is that a lot of the tip money is under the table, and the system is set up so that the IRS does look the other way. So much has to be reported and of course anything that has a paper trail does, but even some very otherwise by-the-books places, allow cash tips go unreported. Of course, the person then loses out on Soc sec on those amounts and there can be other ramifications, but, yes, this situation exists rampantly. </p>
<p>Most places where my son has worked, do pay minimum wage, report at least minimum wage and if the tips don’t support it, then the person is let go in time. From what I gather from him, if you can’t get minimum wage from tips, it’s time to look for another job. The times that the manager has to make up the difference from his til is when hardly anyone comes to the restaurant, and there is staff kept there, just in case. Rare, but it has happened. Legitimate places will make sure staff gets their minimum wage. But even at a lotof legitimate places, there is a lot that goes under the table. It’s not like at the retail store, my son will tell you, and it’s a established practice. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t have ever thought that the current center of gravity was 20% before reading this thread, fwiw. </p>
<p>
Perhaps, you missed a couple pages where posters spoke on this matter. I would direct you to a post number but… :)</p>
<p>To speak on the matter of the restaurant being the equivalent to retail (excluding commissioning) in regards to being paid (pay + tips), I doubt anyone on this board feels they are the equivalent in that sense. More so in the customer service area and dealing with disgruntled customers. </p>
<p>I was at a hotel recently that had eliminated tipping for most things. Are there any restaurants that have done this? There’s nothing stopping them from doing so.</p>
<p>There are certainly restaurants who have eliminated the optional part of tipping. Thus, the 20-percent gratuity is automatically tacked on to the tab. Actually, this has been the practice for large groups in some establishments for decades. </p>
<p>The problem here really isn’t individual restaurants and evil owner/managers refusing to pay their staff good wages. Not many are going to voluntarily pay more than the law allows because they don’t see it as good business. How many here realize that the federal minimum wage for tipped workers has not changed in 22 years? That’s a lifetime-longer than some servers have been alive. Only 7 states require waitstaff to be paid the regular minimum wage. And of course, $2.15 is worth a lot less than it was 22 years ago. And yet, efforts to eliminate these low wages keep failing in the legislature. Hmm. Imagine that. Restaurant lobbies and conservatives don’t WANT to pay these people more! So the 2 million + in the industry keep slogging along. I said this above-if you don’t like subsidizing the restaurant workers serving you, then work to change the model by which they are paid. Maybe after 24 or 25 years things can change.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.moneytalksnews.com/2013/04/26/restaurant-waitstaff-stuck-at-2-13-minimum-wage-for-22-years/”>http://www.moneytalksnews.com/2013/04/26/restaurant-waitstaff-stuck-at-2-13-minimum-wage-for-22-years/</a></p>
<p>PG, it is also news to me that 20% is supposedly the new minimum. I don’t buy it. I think it is a matter of wishful thinking. I should add that I am more inclined to leave a larger percentage on a lower-priced meal/item. If I buy a $1.50 cup of coffee, I’ll throw 50 cents in the tip jar. I’m not going to leave a 33% tip on an expensive meal.</p>
<p>It is like realtors who try to persuade everyone that offering a higher-than-normal commission is a good investment in getting your house sold. What a crock. Realtors are knocking themselves out to sell ANYTHING.</p>
<p>Well, that’s not really accurate. Plenty of restaurant employees are actually quite happy with the current system. It’s not as though they are making slave wages. Some of these jobs are highly desirable and the competition is quite fierce, You’d be surprised. No-one is making 2.15 per hour .It’s complicated.</p>
<p>Emily Post says 15-20%. That’s about as definitive an answer as you are going to get, from somebody who has some authority on manners, and who doesn’t have a vested interest in the amount. They give advice on other tipping, too:
<a href=“The Emily Post Institute: Etiquette Advice & Training — Emily Post”>http://www.emilypost.com/out-and-about/tipping/89-general-tipping-guidelines</a>
There may be some local or regional variation in what’s considered good manners–I think it’s probably a bit closer to 20% in metropolitan areas.</p>
<p>Well, looks like Emily says I can keep on doing what I’m doing. </p>
<p>;) </p>
<p>Few waiters will want to switch to minimum wage fixed income vs what they are getting in tips. There was a restaurant that was the object of much nastiness, because they did pay the waiters a fixes wage, and it was a few bucks more than minimum wage, as their pay, and kept the tips themselves. A restaurant locally had the same issue when the owner decided to do the same thing. He wanted to streamline the system and make it easy for payroll. His waiters protested and picketed the restaurant, made the local news. And he was paying them $15 an hour. The wait staff was used to getting more than that and probably reporting about half of what they got, for tax purposes. Not a fancy place either. Other than some truly poor performing places, and some illegal immigrant mills, which I’m afraid are prevalent here in my area, waiters tend to do better than minimum wage. My friend’s son had a hard time leaving his job at a local midrange place as he was pocketing $200 a night and he wasn’t working that many hours for it. Son’s friend is making more money than he has in the last few years now that he has a bar tending gig after getting trained and practiced as a bar tender. Got his own place in NYC with this job. According to my starving artist son, a job as a waiter is a pretty good find, and you lose the starving adjective too.</p>
<p>I support this model and in it seems that for now, it’s working. It’s tough getting a job at a successful restaurant and tough to give it up when some career opportunities present themselves that don’t pay anywhere near what being a waiter would. I’ve seen that happen a lot.</p>
<p>I finally remembered where I saw this article–it’s worth a read:
<a href=“Tipless restaurants: The Linkery’s owner explains why abolishing tipping made service better.”>http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2013/08/tipless_restaurants_the_linkery_s_owner_explains_why_abolishing_tipping.html</a></p>
<p>That Slate article is interesting, and I think it could probably work. And in an arrangement like that, it becomes reasonable for the patron to punish the entire restaurant–i.e., by not returning, or by giving a bad online review–for bad service. The restaurant is taking responsibility for the service, and I think that could be a good thing. On the other hand, we belong to a club that has no tipping (including in its restaurant), and I’d say the service is OK, but not on a part with comparably nice restaurants. Nothing to really complain about…just O.K.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That collective groan is simply the impact of a culture of guilt and the silly propaganda that tipping should be higher than 15 percent. The reality is that, at times, 15 percent does not reflect the work of the waiting staff, but there are plenty of times that the same scale is most definitely onerous. For instance, tipping on liquor should have a different scale. And that does not stop some crazy practices to add “layers” of tipping for a barman or sommelier in the equation. </p>
<p>Here’s another reality. If restaurant were to pay its waitstaff a flat 20 dollars per hour ON AVERAGE, their staff would rebel. And for the simplest of reasons … they make a lot more. Do you think the above example of 200 per night is based on working 10 hours? </p>
<p>In the end, the ratio of education, skills, intelligence, and effort versus net pay is very much in favor of the waiting staff. There are plenty of jobs that are not so “lucky” in terms of return on education. As far as the logic of tipping, everyone would be much better served with a flat tipping scale added to all biils --as they do in most of Europe. The only reason it has not happened is simply because restaurants could not grab a part of the payments and that the employees would no longer escape the taxes. And that they could not complain about it ad nauseam. </p>
<p>Obviously, THIS forum has been congenial towards the waiters … for the good reason that many college-aged kids ended up earning money through waiting or bussing tables. The biggest issue remains one of great expectations and overly misplaced expectations of those paychecks. Hint? It is hardly too low! What if the restaurants would pay the waiters 200 or 300 percent of what they pay the guys who clean the dishes in the back and clean at night? </p>
<p>What is the price of a restaurant meal? It is the bill plus tax and tip. While the tip is variable, you have to plan to include that in the price of your meal. If the overall price is too high, then you go elsewhere, or eat at home. What it’s rude to do, in my opinion, is to decline to pay the customary tip because you think it adds too much to the overall price. Again, we can disagree about what the customary tip is–although at least the consensus seems to be that it’s between 15 and 20%–but it’s really part of the price of the goods.</p>