Yeah, something seems a little off there, unless "a little over" was like $435-$440. Even there, $400 pretax, $437 after tax (8.5% here), $63 tip would be at the low end of the normal range ($60-$87, basically.)

$90 is $90. Why worry about what percentage of $400 it is? It still buys $90 worth of whatever. It's not like stores charge a percentage of what you have in your wallet.

The total bill (inclusive of tax) was $412 so the server's tip was $88 or to me as a Brit around �60. Sorry but to me that is a ridiculous amount of money for just taking the order and bringing to food to the table. Take the cost of the wine off we paid the same in a tip as having him sit down and join us at the table for a meal.

My other point - as well as looking at what $90 per table tip would translate to to in weekly or annual earnings, is the inequality of wages for people doing the same job..... The Applebee's lady performed just as well as he did (if not more so as she had a lot more tables to deal with), but she would have to serve 4 tables like ours to get close to what he got. He gets more just because he's lucky enough to work in a high end year round resort charging fancy prices, while she does exactly the job in a low cost chain.

I'm not against rewarding good service and have no problem with tipping per se, but the level expected in the US is ridiculous.

That's a generous but not out of line tip by most US standards, especially if it was somewhere with a low sales tax rate.

$62 (15% after tax) or even 15% before tax would be fine. If you were over 60, you could probably even get away with acting like 10% was still the standard; when he was still around, my father-in-law did.

Complaining to a patron about the level of a tip is never OK, but it's especially poor form if you're at the very high end of the expected range already.

Likely more than that; $100 is large bill at a casual dining place like Applebee's. OTOH, she has more tables, and the level of service expected at Applebee's is lower (even if in practice she did just as well.)

you just answered your own question.

In most of the restaurants I've eaten at lately, the waiter (the person who took my order) does NOT bring any food to the table--these restaurants have "busboys", they bring (and refill) water glasses, bread to the table, and the various courses of the meal, the water (to whom I leave the tip), generally only brings me (if I'm ordering a glass) wine and the bill at the end.

Same here.

Since when is it the diners responsibility to take steps to ensure that the server obeys the tax laws, and also that he shares his tips with others if mandated by the restaurant?

It's bad enough that we're being extorted out of outrageous sums for tips in the first place, but now we're expected to become the Tip Police and de facto IRS agents?

No. Freakin. Way.

I will give my server my tip in any form I deem appropriate, and in any amount I deem appropriate. If folks dislike the system enough, perhaps the OP was right - the tipping culture in the US should be abolished and replaced with signs that say, "We pay our staff a living wage. No tipping is necessary."

I look forward to that day.

+100, but even your sign won't be good enough to stop it, as the posts about Oregon and Washington show. It would have to say, "We pay our staff a living wage and they are not allowed to accept tips. Please respect our policies."

Harsh maybe? When I worked for minimum wage way back when, that was exactly the policy of the store I worked for and everyone respected it.

I give the money direct to servers because of all those restaurant owners who pocket tips rather than give them to staff.

As for tax evasion - absolutely.

I don't think you are and i think you'd have difficulty proving it. You arguably encourage tax evasion when you ask for a discount for cash but that's another matter.

Compulsory tips or pressurised tips of the order of 25% (or face getting berated by the staff) are nothing short of an industry wide scam (particularly when they're added on wine) and when your chased out into the street legitimised mugging.

What next? The equivalent of the Resort Fee at a restaurant - compulsory $25 per person and this includes some salt and pepper, bread, cutlery, a glass of tap water, wifi, a copy of USA today to read whilst you wait and kitchen staff tips (you only have to tip for the car park attendant, doorman, receptionist, Maitre D, Sommelier, barman, cloakroom assistant, and your waiter)

I love going into self-serve restaurants, pay by credit card
and be presented with the TIP line when I sign.

Sorry, self serve = no tip.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-sh...182448587.html

Does the recommended tip percentage ever go DOWN?

It seems to be constantly subject to percentage creep, on top of the natural cost increasde that a fixed percentage would incur.

I recall when I first went to the USA in the 70s, as a young Aussie backpacker, the (American) guidebook I had bought coyly suggested that a 5% tip for good service is customary.

As if. Several abusive encounters later I gradually got used to the idea that , even then, more like 10% was considered compulsory, even if you sat at the counter, even if the service was rubbish.

One barman (and he owned the joint, ) in Texas used to chuck my 5c change in the tip jar every time I bought a 70c beer (those were the days!) with 3 quarters. I thought it was presumptuous and outrageous behaviour - although that 7.14% tip would be considered tiny and insulting today.

It was a "beer bar" under some weird local rule that you could buy bottles of beer but not draft, or buy soft drinks for mixers and bring your own spirits in a paper bag, and keep them covered. I was just standing at the bar, no seats or anything. He was just serving bottles out of the fridge. Sometimes we even had to get them and open them ourselves. But you were called all sorts of names if you didn't. Never mind, we had good banter for the two months I was there and I gave as good as I got.

But I still didn't really understand the tipping thing until an incident at the Tex-Mex joint across the street. A waitress came to me and said "Do you know those people?"

They were hippy types who occasionally drank at the bar I mentioned. She was in tears.

Five of them had walked out without paying for their meal and she was going to get docked that amount from her take. She had no wage, it was a "tips only" job and she hadn't enough to cover it anyway. I didn't even know that was legal, but apparently at that place and time, it was.

Anyway, I ran after them and persuaded them to go back and pay. They tried to make out it was a mistake but they were evasive and I suspected they had done it deliberately.

After that I was treated well at that place, although I must still have seemed like a stingy tipper.

Anyway, that's when it finally dawned on me how the system worked over there, (despite the mealy-mouthed platitudes about "reward for good service" that you still see in guidebooks/websites) so as much as I dislike the system, I tip well in the USA/Canada.

(And I can afford it these days. It was much harder as a penniless traveller anxiously scanning menus to see what I could afford. I had to keep reminding myself to allow enough cash for a tip - it wasn't normal to me)

Ever dine in Italy and get hit with a coperta, sometimes with a service charge on the menu on top of it?

It's been the same range 15%-20% for the last 20 years I've been an adult. The creep from a 10-15% range to a 15-20% range seems to have occurred while I was a kid in the 1980s, since I definitely remember 10% being normal back then and some of my older relatives still stick to it.

I can't say I remember the 1970s enough to know if 5% tip was ever OK.

I've yet to see any claims that any actually customer treats 20-25% as the normal range, and most of the claims by servers mentioned in this thread seem to be attempts to take advantage of foreigners.