In the US now even the lousiest waiter, and food expects 15% to 25% tip. It is no longer related to the service or food.

And this is the key point here. Waiter's claim their tips at the end of the night and if their total with their hourly is less than Minimum wage then the employer has to reimburse the difference. A-lot of waiters who get cash tips do not claim it in their end of night reports, so they always end up earning more than minimum wage.

I don't think tipping's about service (or culture - give me a break!). It's about restaurants being able to staff up at peak times without paying crippling award rates and jacking up the food prices to compensate. In the big cities at least, that helps a lot of places survive in the USA . I work mainly in Europe and Australia and don't have a problem with service in either area, but I find that even with tips and last-minute added tax (I always forget that one!) you still get good VFM in the USA.

Not necessarily true. A lot of servers are required to review their tips with management before they can leave, as they are expected to tip out bussers, bartenders, and/or host staff based on their total sales, not their tips. If they receive a big portion of tips via credit card, which is often added to their paychecks, not cashed out that night for them, they may leave with little to no cash, as the cash goes to tipping out others.

Why would any one be a server based on kipper's post:rolleyes:

Are you saying that employers do not have to make up the difference at the end of the paycheck? A lot of complaints are that waiters make less than minimum wage, which is not true.

I didn't say I was trying to convince anyone to be a server. :)

I have friends who are, and know that if they worked a mid-week lunch shift, they were lucky to make minimum wage after tips and tipping out bartenders and such, but before the restaurant ponied up the difference.

No. I was saying that, especially if a lot of their tips are on credit card transactions, and if their restaurant does not cash those out at the end of the night, but adds those to paychecks, then they walk out of there with very little cash.

Likewise, you seemed to imply that servers were gaming the system, reporting less in tips to management, so the restaurant would be required to pay minimum wage, while pocketing more in cash tips. I mentioned that in at least some restaurants, servers are required to review tips with management before leaving for the night, in part because they are required to tip out bartenders, bussers, and host staff.

I was mearly providing my experience working multiple server positions, and as a young 20 year old fresh from college I can attest that this has happened at many places I have worked at. In fact, I can think of none that this hasn't happened.

Yes there are places were you tip out based on total sales, but I still always walked away with a cash tip. Yes we counted our money at the end of the night, but we never had management looming over our shoulders, and we could claim how ever much we wanted minus the fee's calcutated from credit card's.

I have never met a waiter that made minimum wage, and I am merely putting it into perspective for those who think waiters walk away with hardly anything, which isn't true. Then again, this is based on personal experience and not what one of my friends told me.

When was this? Recently?

Perhaps it is where you are geographically, as compared to where I am geographically, but observations and experiences here are different.

I've sat in restaurants recently and watched servers who were cut review tips with management, and review tip outs to bar staff/bussers, etc. Mr. Kipper, when he served at Lonestar Steakhouse before college, often left with less cash than he started the day with, because of tipping the bar staff and such. He received tips on credit cards, but had to tip out staff in cash, leaving him with less cash.

But then the restaurant gave him his credit card tips, right? At the most, it's just a float until his next paycheck. When you buy something at a store, the cashier doesn't get paid until the next paycheck either. So what exactly is the issue?

Yes, the credit card tips were part of his paycheck. The issue was the implication that many servers report less tips than received, so that the restaurant paid them minimum wage, and they pocketed a lot in tips that went unreported. I pointed out that, at least in some cases, servers leave with little to no cash, depending on how tips are paid, and that in some cases, managers review tips with servers, due to tip outs and such.

I'm from Singapore, and tipping is really uncommon here. I've never had to tip at a single restaurant I've dined at... That being said, there aren't any minimum wage rates here, and Singaporeans are notoriously fussy (and difficult sometimes), so I wouldn't say being a waiter/server here is a fair deal. Especially since we pay 7% GST and 10% service charge, all to the restaurant...

If you don't have the mental capacity to calculate a 15 % tip, then society won't be interested in your views in how it should be run.

Is that 15% of pretax total?

Correct.

What, are you kidding me?! Not looking at the menu prices could turn a $40 meal into a $200 meal. But then some people have deeper pockets than others I guess.
Either way, the tip is part of the cost of the meal and probably won't be going away any time soon.

I remember this episode from Scrubs. Dr. Cox thinks it's absurd for tipping waiters because he thinks what they do is very simple. He made a tipping jar for Doctors :D

Tipping ends when it is legally included in the final bill, in the country you are in at the time. Then any additional tipping would be strictly voluntary.

France for example, includes the tip in the final bill. And the servers are usually career professionals, and not only part-time university students ( working their way through a psychosis ).

A recent restaurant bill I paid in Brasil ( as large as in Europe ) shows the total dining for four people, tax, and a 10 % included gratuity.

But people still tip if they feel the service was exceptional, or they want to.

Tipping jars, if the staff is being paid a suitable hourly wage, gives me the impression that they aren't, and thus getting by on tips alone.

http://www.slate.com/articles/busine...src=most_viral

Someone agrees with the OP. OTOH, it's never gonna happen here in the US.

In my experience (25 years ago, admittedly), servers were tipped out on a nightly basis, even on credit card tips. The checks were all reconciled at the end of the night and the tips came out of the cash drawer from the restaurant. Then the servers tipped the "runners" (glorified busboys), the bartender(s) and anyone else they deemed worthy. So the servers weren't "fronting" any of the tips.

It will only change if the restaurants change it voluntarily, and that isn't going to happen if they don't come out ahead. I would think at least a few restaurants would be happy to announce that their's was a no-tipping place and that they paid their staff a living wage.

Some restaurants have done it, here is an example:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/manhat...180242432.html

Tipping should be reserved only for exceptional service. It's one of the aspects i absolutely detest about North America, where you are expected to tip for everything every time you do anything.

At some restaurants now at least, credit card tips go in paychecks. My guess is that it is up to each restaurant as to how they want to handle it.

Good, I hope it works out for them

A new NYC-centric set of guidelines for tipping, with rationales for the suggested percentages:

http://firstwefeast.com/eat/how-to-t...-bars/s/91418/

I wasnt even going to post in the thread but then you wrote this and i totally laughed - i completed had this happen to me a few months ago. I had been in brussels, dining every day, picking stuff off the menu - each night, i paid around 20 -20 euros per meal. On the last night, i went out with a few colleaques and in our relaxed enjoyment of a job well done, none of us bothered to look at the menu and just went with the waiters suggestions. Our bill ended being 150 euros per person.

And its not like thats surprising, but just in case there's any one here who thinks you are exaggerating your numbers. Lesson learned!

20% of the wine value to the sommelier and then 20% again when it's included along with the final bill?

Any chance you wandered into a Michelin restaurant without knowing it? That seems to be about a typical price for a one-star, at least the ones I've been to recently. Your point is well taken, however, which is why I always try to research ahead of time, even if it's just a quick iphone TA/Michelin check before going in. Sometimes you get bit though.

No incentive to "upsell" there, eh? None at all :-) .

That NY guide is funny:
I thought the whole point of tipping in the US was that you DO get to decide how much they get paid, since , through the tipping system, the employer has delegated that obligation to you, the customer.

And the whole idea of tipping a percentage of the bill instead of a set amount encourages the idea that upmarket places get better tips - doesn't it? Except in bars, it seems. Do you still wonder why foreigners get confused and anxious?

How do you end it? By adopting the same system all non-tipping countries use.

Which would be what?

Remember that several states do not allow tip credits. In California and Washington, for example, minimum wage is the same whether you get tips or not. And yet, people keep tipping.

i went there, looking for the rationale behind the new 20% rule. i found none.

15% is the standard, and there is no reason to depart from it.

I remember when it was 10%. As the food prices rise and the tip percentage also rise, this results in a double increase.

I still don't see why it is up to ME to ensure a waitstaff (or other tippable person) gets a decent salary. I feel that the employer should do this, not me, but I will never win this argument. :D



DD

Want to end tipping, just don't tip,
The servers will quit, the owners will raise the prices, and pay better wages.

Ooh! Ooh! I know the rationale!

See, 15% was the standard. However, there have always been some jerks who fail to put in a tip when they're out with a group, which led to some servers getting stiffed when they did a perfectly acceptable job, so many places started adding a mandatory tip to the bill for "large" parties of 8 or more. It was called a "gratuity" or "large party surcharge" or a bunch of other names.

The mandatory large-party tip was calculated at 18% instead of the standard 15%; the "rationale" for the higher-than-standard percentage was that serving a group of 8 is somehow harder than serving two groups of 4, or a group of 5 and a group of 3, or four pair...

The 18% mandatory large-party tip, however, cause a lot of people to misinterpret and believe that 18%, not 15%, was the standard percentage for ALL tips. Hence, 18% became known as the standard.

But 18% is an odd number. People couldn't do the math in their heads, so they simply rounded up to 20%, which is much easier to calculate without your brain exploding. At the same time, since 18% became the new "standard" for regular tipping, many establishments began increasing the large party tip to 20%, again under the assumption that serving 8 people is somehow more difficult than serving 8 people. Um, yeah, because when they're all at ONE table it's a lot more tough than when they're spread out at TWO tables. Or something.

Also at the same time, many establishments re-defined the meaning of the word "large" to include groups of 6 or more, rather than groups of 8 or more. So today, you are assessed an automatic 18% or 20% mandatory tip for those LARGE groups of 6 people, because serving 6 people at one table is so much more difficult and demanding than serving a table of 5 and another table of 1.

And that's the rationale.

And in some places you will be verbally abused as you leave the premises...

I had a waitress in NYC run after me once as I had ONLY left 15%. Apparently that wasn't enough :mad:

...and in 2 short sentences we have the perfect anecdote that sums up just how screwed up tipping has got - harassed for not voluntarily tipping enough.