I live in a place where we have our fair share of Japanese tourists (Hawaii) and once I walked into a Cheesecake place with my GF and other members of her crew (party of 4)and we had a nice meal and when I grabbed the bill, 18% was added in. Maybe the waiter thought I didnt understand customs and he basically handed me a card and pointed to the Japanese section which explained it was added in. I asked him in perfect English if he thought his service was actually worth 18% and he looked surprised I actually spoke English. He said yes. I asked what the high end of tipping is and he said 20%. I asked him why he didnt give me 20 if he was going to add it in anyways. no answer but a dumb stare. I told him his service was questionable at best. left 15% so maybe he can go back to school and learn. bothered me that so many people in the service industry rely on tourism in our State but they it for granted and dont even work hard and meanwhile, the very tourists who feed the economy get treated at the bare minimum... sad!

One question (tangentially related to this topic): I have been asked a number of times, both in the UK and particularly in Australia, by people from the US (whom I have usually met because of work, though occasionally they have been tourists) about when to tip (in general), or should they tip in such-and-such an occasion, or how much they should tip.

I give the answer �.but then they don't believe me and proceed to tip even if the answer has been "no, no need to tip in this setting", or else they give a wildly inflated tip that is totally inappropriate in the setting (nobody in Australia, for example, would ever dream of leaving a tip in a restaurant of 20 per cent: it's so much and so excessive as to be embarrassing.

So my question is: given the fact that these people have asked the question in the first place indicates that they are aware that tipping practices may differ from what they're accustomed to at home � why ask if they're not going to act on the answer?

I usually tip AFTER I eat.

And herein lies the problem in the good ol USA.
Even questionable gets 15%.

Sadly the tipping disease has spread to Canada - used to be tip the tax - 15%, now that tax in Ontario is 13% - all of a sudden its expected to do 20%.

It's about custom in the location. In the USA, a tip of 15-20% is pretty common. At a high-end restaurant, 20% on the total bill (food + liquor) is normal and a bit more for excellent service. Remember, that tip is being split between the captain, the waiter, the wine steward and the bus boy (or more).

In other countries, it's built into the cost and yet in others, it's added on as "service." Some places in the USA, require it on large parties.

While agressive tactics aren't fun, it's also true that there are people who don't frequent expensive restaurants and think that if they run up a $500 tab for 3 people, it's OK to leave a $50 tip because that's what they leave at a local place back home where the waiter is handling 7 tables.

You can always be cheap at a place you're never going back to (doesn't make it right), but don't expect a level of service or not to have someone spit in your food in the kitchen, when you go back !

1. Tips are given after the meal has been consumed and after paying.
2. Tipping should be a voluntary activity at the discretion of the person paying the bill.
3. Waiters who are dissatisfied with the level of their basic wage can take their labour elsewhere.
4. What an utterly charmless person you must be. You represent all that is bad in this thread.

As an outsider to this whole tipping custom, it is kind of shocking to me that someone would chase after you to demand something that is a gratuity. As a visitor for the first time to the US later this year, I will probably leave some extra change (If I pay for a $8.50 meal with a $10 note, I would probably just leave the change) but I am not going to work out percentages and whether or not someone thinks I am stingy or whatever, because really, I don't care.

It is customary to tip, but as this thread has shown, there is no hard and fast rule about what to tip and it is clearly not a law. People chasing after me for a tip or for more of a tip (because I didn't tip the right amount, which is ridiculous) will be ignored.

And I fear no reprisal as I won't be in the city long and after something like that, I would not go back to that place to eat. I'm sorry if that offends people but coming from a culture where tipping is not the normal thing to do, I'll just do what I feel is comfortable for me and people can deal with it.

-1 You may not like it, but what DJGMaster1 wrote is the reality. Your post would indicate that you've never worked in the restaurant business.

I have no particularly aggressive tipping requests to share, but have had the "strong, silent and waiting" presentation by many masseuses, taxi drivers, rickshaw drivers, bellboys, etc.

Always interesting to read a tip thread. Reminds me again that even though I think the FT crowd is typically a well-traveled and discerning bunch, it is anything but a monolith. When I read that a poster doesn't follow (or care to try to follow) a custom, I wonder if such poster fails to follow custom anywhere. I suppose it's difficult at times to discern what is customary but even our flyertalk handy guide says 15-20% in the US for dining out.

LOL Point taken...






But this thread just *feels* so OMNI!!

I just finished an MBA. I can attest that little hardcore math is required. Sure, you can immerse in finance and go crazy with it, but you can also immerse in global strategy and/or marketing and sidestep the toughest quant bits... I actually went in thinking I'd be using a bunch of my undergrad engineering math coursework...seems sort of silly that I once thought that.

(Sorry about my OMNI state of mind.)

Often 1. If that $500 bill was a $300 bill for food and $200 for wine then yes in fact $50 is perfectly acceptable. And I do not know what restaurants you frequent, but at most higher end establishments waiters deal with more than 7 tables per night.

You missed one...some people are just plain cheap...and that seems to be in play here...thats psych 102...the next level

To a first order approximation, yes. I would vastly prefer such a system (which is not unlike the system where I live).

People seem very selective in deciding who are worthy recipients of charity. Substantially more than 10,000 people die of starvation every day - how about if I take the money I would pay in restaurant tips, and donate it to charities that feed this people? How do the people in this thread feel about that? Or is not really about helping the poor and downtrodden?

While there are some people in the world who take this opportunity to lord it over those they consider their social inferiors, I don't look at tipping as an "act of charity," and I don't tip because I feel sorry for the waiter who's making less than minimum wage.

I tip because that is the prevalent business model in this country's restaurant industry. I accept that service is not included in the menu price of a meal and just factor that into the total cost of dining out. I'm fortunate in that, if the service is really bad, I have discretion over whether or how much I choose to pay for it (just like if I received bad food I would ask that the cost of that dish be removed from the check), but I can only think of a couple of very egregious occasions where I've exercised that discretion.

If I disliked or disagreed with that business model, I'd exercise my right as a consumer to seek out places that include the cost of service in the overall price of a meal out. And if there are no such establishments, then I'd either stop eating out or suck it up and participate.

But I sure as hell wouldn't take it out on the waitstaff.