Good way to insure that this sort of highway robbery continues and that poor service gets rewarded.

Here is mine.
Over the top,remember my preferences,fights for me in the kitchen-25% max
Very good,makes me want to come back and have them wait on me again.18-20%
Good 16%-18%
Average 15% always.
Rude/Poor/Dumb 0% and the loss of my buisness.
All of this is on the pre tax total

I agree with BigGuy on this. That said until I read this thread I hadn't considered the pre-tax, post-tax issue, but will do so from now on.

On Saturday we lunched at a restaurant across the street from a major museum and parked in the restaurant lot. Before our meal was over, the waiter asked if we were going on to the museum. I told him we were. He told me that he could give me a card to put in my car window so that we could stay parked where we were with no problem while we went to the museum.

Obviously his tip grew!

I wish more people could read your insane standard so there would be more public support to control out of control escalating tipping standards.

Ditto.

30% tips?? 18% tips?? Jeeezz... I am in the wrong business!!

10% maximum this side of the water, and only if the service is good. Some restaurants do the "a gratuity of [12-15%] is added for parties of x or more

Infact, I'm really p*ssed off with some Hilton hotels adding a �1 charity donation to my bill. That is absolutely out of order as you feel like a tight-arse telling them no. Which of course I have to as it is not my money.

And finally [rant] I hear that when you add a gratuity on your CC it almost never reaches the server! [/rant]

Portions of the post that previously appeared in this space has been deleted. I would provide you with a reason why, but doing so would likely be against the TOS.

But this mistakenly gives the server the idea that their inept service was good enough and they have no need to do any better

In a very Machiavellian way, I tip 50% - 100% in restaurants that are close to my home and I eat at very regularly (say 3 times a week), and 15% everywhere else. Post-tax.

Some of us act like tipping somebody is akin to taking the proverbial "pound of flesh" off our bodies! "Whaaaaa". Crack me up.

Almost all of my tipping is out of my own pocket-I do not get reimbursed for tips even on buisness expenditures.
The Only exception is my New Years tip to service providers for the estate-those I expense.
But the others add up to over $500 a year,excluding dining on my own time.
So that is a bit out of my flesh actually.

$500 - $1000 a year in tippage seems rather on the low end of the scale for a frequent flyer, traveler/diner; and easy enough to handle. I mean, that's a full year! $2 - $3 a day covers your tips for a year. Hardly a "bit of flesh", IMO; but we all have different opinions and threshholds. And if the business pays for the meal, heck, paying the tip is a bargain!

I always enjoy reading your posts!

Aloha, and Bon Appetit!

If I understand correctly, in states where food service employees can be paid less than minimum wage, once all tips are included their hourly salary must be at least equal to the minimum wage, otherwise the restaurant must pay them up to the minimum wage. This means even the worst waiter in the world is not making less than minimum wage.

There are a few states where wait staff now make the full minimum wage plus tips. I believe CA is one of those states, which makes this sort event even more profitable if it wasn't just an honest mistake.

This pretty much represents my viewpoints also.

As far as tipping on the tax: why would you reward service based upon a tax added by the state of______(fill in the blank)? How did the state of _____make your service/food/entertainment any better? If you tip the waiter on the tax you're simply rewarding him/her for being a tax collector. That's just stupid.

I'm fine if not everyone tips how I do. I'm in the industry and it's kind of an unwritten rule that servers take care of their own. But for all that say "I don't think we should tip at all" or "It's not my problem they don't pay you enough" or "It's not my fault you tip out", etc. If society deemed it necessary, they restaurant could just increase the cost of all of their items 20% and not have any more tipping. That way I actually get a paycheck and you all don't feel awkward about leaving extra gratuity. Your $30 steak now costs $36, but you don't have to tip on it. Would this make everyone happier? I wager to say everyone would complain about the price increase just as much as they've complained about over-tipping in this thread. The way we currently have it, at least you're allowed to escalate or depreciate the tip as you see fit based on service. If you just followed the price increase model, there would be little to no motivation for good service. You think you get unenthusiastic service at your local Chili's now, imagine if they were going to make the same thing if they gave you crappy service.

Chris

I would like to think I provide exemplary service to every table. I know I have my bad days, and I don't expect great tips if I screwed something up. I've been doing this job for a long time, so I would say my average tip is about 18-19% post-tax, so I guess about 21-22% pre-tax. I actually worked tonight and had six tables (slow night thanks to the Championship Game) so here's at least some data points:

1st table: party of two (probably business colleagues) $55 tab, $9 tip
2nd table: party of three (three businessmen) $127 tab, $25 tip
3rd table: party of two (couple) $44 tab, $8 tip
4th table: party of three (family) $78 tab, $15 tip
5th table: party of two (business colleagues) $70 tab, $20 tip
6th table: party of nine (business group) $320 tab, $55 auto-gratuity, no extra tip

This was a particularly good percentage night as you can see, but I would like to think that there's apparently a larger group of people who tip like me then maybe the select respondents in this thread think there are.

(As an interesting side note and back to the original topic at hand, the auto-gratuity was the worst tip percentage-wise I had tonight. )

Chris