legacycentral bbs

I'm a server in a restaurant and I'm just curious---what do you base your tip that you leave on? (food quality, service, environment?)

The service. For the only reason that the person that gets the tip is the waiter/waitress. I'd love to give tips to the cooks, and honestly they're the ones that deserve more of the tip than the waiters. I don't think that a waiter/waitress would actually do that if I asked them to, and I doubt I'd be allowed to go back into the kitchen to give one of them money

That being said, when a waiter/waitress is rude I wont leave a tip, and that actually reminds me. We were eating at the Waffle Barn one day and we decided to mix a bunch of shit into a glass and drink it. When we started pouring in a lil mild tabasco the waitress came by and snatched up the tabasco. So we snatched up her tip and left

I've rarely not left a tip and only for extremely bad service (like they disappear completely). My tips range from 20-50% depending on how cute she is and what the bill is. A cute girl can work less for the same tip with me as an attentive dude.

Steve

I usually try to tip pretty generously... I've seen from the other side how miserly and cheap most restaurant patrons seem to be. When they only order a little bit of food, they justify a low tip because of the low total price. When they order a lot of food, they justify a low tip because of the high total price. Et cetera.

I base my choice of how much to tip on how well the wait staff serves me... One thing that always makes me happy is when my water glass is always full. It shows that I'm being paid attention, and I hate having to repeatedly ask for refills.

If I'm tipping with a credit card I usually tip a little higher, too, because I know credit card companies charge a fee for that and many restaurants pass that cost down to the recipient of the tip.

mm.. i try to stay within 10%, i guess... is that okay?

Within 10% of what?

Thanks for the replies. I was just curious to see what makes people tip the way they do. I used to be a strict 15% tipper but after taking this job I tend to be more generous than I used to. Even when I get crappy service, I always try to leave something. When I'm out w/ friends and we decide to hang out long after we're finished eating I leave extra b/c we tied that persons table up when they could have had another guest and made more money.

I 'm a 15% tipper, but when there is great service I am inclined to tip alot more

7.5% per "how's everyone doing?"

Extra if my cup stays full, or if they're supacool. Less if i have to chase them down. Way less if i have to go get stuff myself.

I dont go by percentages, I'm usualy somewhere in the 2-5 range myself. Doesnt matter how much i ordered. I also tip for haircuts and pizza deliver. Good god you don't want to not tip your pizza delivery person. Or if you don't tip them don't ever order from them again.

Im a firm believer in the $2 minimum. If its crappy service (i mean like horribly stupid and or incompetent / doesn't care) I leave the tip in change, yes I have to go out of the way to do it but I think it leaves more of an impression than not leaving a tip. You will be remembered. Whether thats good or bad I don't know
I am a very generous tipper even for mediocre service 20% or more. If its a cute girl tip more just like evolutionmovement said.

When I go to the Pour House in Boston I tip 50% or more because the bill is so damn low ... and the food so damn good ...

Steve

I almost always tip at least 15% unless the service sucks. I hate when your friends think they don't have to tip or don't tip enough and you all are on the same bill. It makes everyone look bad.

I go by Service.

If they do the following they get their tip

Come to table with menu's, order drink.

Bring back drinks, ask if we're ready.

If Ready
Then Order
Else Return in 3 to 5 minutes

After Ordering
1 return half way between meal to ask how everyone is doing, for the typical refill of drinks or bad food situation.

If attention is to me when I order and a slight amount of politness is used then the tip is warranted.

The bigger the bill the bigger the tip. IE Fancy >100$ Meals are usually 20% or more service/hotness depending (assuming the gf isn't there)

Normall I'll stick to 15% since that's what the tax is on food and it's easy math

I tip high. 20 to 25%.

I think one of the reasons people don't tip us at the restaurant I work for as well as they would at another one is b/c we have to drop the check off super early. The company says within one minute of the food hitting the table we should check back to see if the food is satisfactory and leave the check. Its ridiculous some of the times they set for us to do things in.

Yeah, when I go to a restaurant, I don’t like it when the waiter/waitress leaves the check too early. It sort of says to me “OK, I’m done, see ya later.” Even though that might not be the case, I don’t want to see the check until I am well through my meal… what about coffee? Dessert? Another beer? Then they just have to take the check back and recalculate it, which is stupid. It wouldn’t effect my tipping, though, unless I had to hunt them down to get something. That annoys me severely; my water glass or beer should stay full, or be replaced often, and my appetizer/soup/salad crockery should be gone when I am done with them. If I am very happy, I’ll tip 40%, when very unhappy, I’ll only ever go as low as the tax. Sorry, that was kind of a rant, but I think it’s pertinent.

Depends on how big her boobs are.

I'm a white boy, what can I say?

Seriously, though 20% is minimum as far as I'm concerned.

Depends on the service, how they treat me will directly affect how much I choose to reward them with. Now, I'm a cheapskate, but it doesn't make sense to reward crappy service like good service.

I use the tip calculator on my cellphone and about 15% unless im at hooters, then the tips are generally quite a bit more.

Luckily for us, our checks are computerized. When a guest wants to add dessert or another drink we just swipe a card and add it on, the computer does the rest. If you order a meal and a refillable drink (i.e. soda or tea) you get a complimentary after meal coffee if you choose.

as a fellow waiter, what i get tiped is completly based on the whims of the customors of the day, unless their regulars and i know how they tip. sometims i do something about it. for example there is a family that never tips, it got to the point were i had to charge them for everything i usuly let slide (extra soup, salad, nermous refills) because i got sick of it. once they came in with 20+ people, we all knew that none of them tiped so we chaged them 15% which is conservitive since everyone else charges 18%. well their tip came out to 2 cents above head count (great food little price) and one of them called the police to get me to give his 4 dollar share back. he had 4 people on his ticket and they had 4 drinks, for the sake of space i wrote 4.00 to the side of all the drinks on his ticket. he demanded to know why he was charged 4 dollars for a single drink. after the police left he came back soon after and for a week after and spread boxes of nails in our parking lot which we sorta share with a carwash.

they came back again within a year with the same people and this time we dicided not to charge tip. they pretended to be generous and gave a 20 dollar tip which was only 12% of the bill and 6 less than a head count. not including the 3 toddlers that mess up the salad bar and made other ruckuss and messes around.

as for whims of customors. last saturday (the day that i wait tables) all of the customors were fairly generous. this is in realitive terms as in 3 dollars a table of 2 average. i made 37 bucks from 11:30 to 4 with a very slow flow of tables. today i made 27 dollars in the same hours with a higher flow of tables (almost double) with an average of 1 dollar a table of 3.

my style is verry consitent as ive been doing this for 4 years now so i dont blame it on me rather i pin it on the cheapness of the customors. this idea was reinforced when i temped at another resturant in another part of town and with the same average flow of tables that i usualy see made over 70 dollars. partly due to the fact that even the people that got takeouts gave tips

do you all know what the hourly wage is for tipped employees in your state?

here in ND it is 3.45

in SD it is 2.50

in MN it is 5.75

interestingly there are hardly any resatraunts across the river from fargo ND in Moorehead MN.

i tip around 15-20% as a baseline.

i never leave less than 2 dollars. no matter how bad. if it is really bad i will tell the management though. i dont ask for a firing or anything lame like that. i just want them to know that there is a problem and be able to deal w/it. who knows the persons children could be really sick or their dog could have died and they are just having a "off" day. i know i have had those. and ive been doing this for about 8 years.

I cut slack on attitude for the same reason that you don't know what's going on in their lives and I like people with bad attitudes better anyway - they seem more real and trustworthy to me. They still have to be attentive, though.

My ex used to make over $100 a night at Hooters on a Tuesday and several hundred on weekends. Maybe you should try getting a job there .

Steve

evolutionmovement wrote:I cut slack on attitude for the same reason that you don't know what's going on in their lives and I like people with bad attitudes better anyway - they seem more real and trustworthy to me. They still have to be attentive, though.

My ex used to make over $100 a night at Hooters on a Tuesday and several hundred on weekends. Maybe you should try getting a job there .

Steve

one problem w/that. no hooters.