Amen!

A tip is NOT charity. A good waiter can orchestrate the whole experience. A bad one gets the timing off and everything is just not quite "right" -- always interrupting at the wrong time yet never there when you need a fresh fork or a new cocktail.

A tip is paying someone for their care, service, and attention. They are WORKING. They are not a beggar asking for someone's charity.

To be a true charity, the money or gift should come from YOU, not from the pocket of your waiter.

No, a waiter is not poor and downtrodden. Neither is your doctor poor and downtrodden. Would you refuse to pay your doctor since he already has a Mercedes? You pay people tips or other payments for service in return for the service, not because you view a person who works for money as a poor, downtrodden person looking for charity. That's just silly.

If you want to give to the starving, give to the starving instead of eating at Emeril's. But if you eat at a fine restaurant and then stiff the waiter on the grounds that you are going to give the tip to the starving, I don't believe you. We both know perfectly well if you cared that much about helping the starving, you'd be dishing up meals at the soup kitchen or donating at your church or something, not pondering the creme brulee and the martini menu in a froo-froo restaurant.

If you consider those people who perform services for you as beggars asking for charity, I think you are going to have a rather unhappy experience as you go through life.

Do you ever return to a restaurant where you stiffed the wait staff on a prior visit? They DO remember.

The only charmless poster in this thread is someone who would stiff the service staff despite the fact that they did provide proper service.

Thank You. I was not trying to be provocative with my post about having one's food spat in, rather, I was just stating a fact of life that accompanies getting a reputation as someone who stiffs the wait staff. When you stiff the wait staff, you had better a) never return to that restaurant, and b) hope that the waiter you stiffed does not ever change jobs to another restaurant that you might choose to frequent, unless, of course, you do not greatly mind ingesting another person's saliva with your meal.

Thanks for pointing out that science to me. Next time I see a smiley face on my bill, I will deduct some money from my tip. That should flummox them.

These two things are not mutually exclusive. Just saying...

I agree that tipping a server is definitely not charity. Or at least it's not supposed to be. To me a tip should be a reward for good service. Servers generally work hard for their tips. I enjoy eating at a nice restaurant and getting excellent service. I also enjoy writing in that 20% tip in those cases because it's part of the overall experience. What I don't like is the rabid tipping culture that's been created in the US and that if I don't tip 20% (because the service was mediocre) I am made to feel like I've done something wrong. I also don't like that if you receive really bad service you're still expected to tip at least 10%. The reason that's expected is because of the low wage of servers in most states. That's when it goes into the realm of charity, IMO. It shouldn't be up to the patrons of a restaurant to make sure a "bad" server gets paid a decent wage.

Cristopher, I am somewhat shocked and surprised to hear that anyone from the UK, or at least London would be in any way confused as for the last 15 years at least in London from mid-level places, up to top tier, not only has it become the norm, but an extortionate rip off. It is not uncommon in London for a small "couvert" to be charged per person, for a 12.5 or 15% "service charge" to be added to the bill, which is always calculated from the price INCLUDING VAT (which is 20%), and THEN for the Tip line to be left blank (and which many morons put down 15-20%). So to put it in perspective, if your total spend at the end of the night was 200 GBP, it would consist of 30 GBP as a "tip", 23.50 GBP in "service", about 23 GBP in VAT, and 10 GBP, for the "couvert". So for 114 GBP you would be paying 86 GBP in taxes and other fees for your meal, or over 40% when all is said and done with all of your discretionary "costs" made up of double dipping calculations!

in regards to percentage tips, what do high end waiters do that other waiters don't? pour the whine? are they knowledgeable about the wine and food they serve? are they at least required to be knowledgeable?

if not, then why do they deserve a higher tip than any other server just because you are at a high end restaurant? If all they are doing is taking your order, providing your food, and taking your bill, then I would not tip them anymore than if I was at a local Outback's or other "low end" restaurant.

And when waiters do a bad job, I don't see why I should tip someone at all for their service. If the place is busy, I will understand accordingly. But if the waiter is giving me bad service for no apparent reason, I won't even tip 5%.

I am not too much of a fan of the tipping culture, but I am also not a fan of automatically paying tips if they were to put it in the price of the food (So basically I am in the middle).

Yes, yes, yes. That is exactly it. It's ironic, because the better a waiter is at his/her job, the less likely you are to notice how this experience is being orchestrated - hence the attitude by so many here that "all they do is take your order and bring your food to the table."

In short, higher-end restaurants provide a better quality experience and the waiter, as pointed out above, helps to orchestrate that experience.

I'll add another Amen!! That's essentially what I was saying earlier...it's the prevalent model, it's completely expected and known before we enter the restaurant, and it's built into the accepted cost of the meal. I too like the empowerment of controlling a portion of the payment for bad service on the rare occasions that it's justified.

I just got back from eating out. $15.16 with a comped drink. I tipped $3.84 which is about 25% for a total of $19.

What should I have done? Should I have added the cost of the drink in the tip?

When (rarely) in the US, I abide by the when in Rome... philosophy and tip for service at the appropriate level. I would rather pay a higher overall cost for food and have my waiter earn a liveable basic wage and then be able to express my pleasure in exceptional service with a tip but it's not my country and I dont make the rules (plus, I'm sure no one really cares what I think ).

What does really irritate me is something which has been touched on in the last couple of pages. I abide by the culture of the country I'm visiting, by tipping at the appropriate level and in the appropriate circumstances. I live in a country where tipping is not expected (although I guess it would be standard to round up a bill if it was fairly close), and strongly believe tourists should abide by those cultural norms and not tip as standard (and certainly not at 20%). I do tip for exceptional service and think it's fine for people to do the same, for the record.

Who comped you the drink?

My rules:

Do tip on the value of the freebie/discount:
* If I have a coupon that knocks $20 off a $100 bill, I'll still tip as if the value of the meal was $100.
* If the waiter/bartender gave me a drink on the house.

Don't tip on the value of the freebie:
* If the owner brought a drink to my table or sent over a free plate.
* If it's an after-dinner drink that's routinely given to all diners.
* If I was comped a drink because something went wrong with my meal.

I usually tip comped drinks.

Only time I don't tip full value when I use a coupon is at places where either (a) coupon use is so prevalent and standard that you're effectively overpaying by *not* showing up with a coupon or (b) the coupon had strings attached that invalidated something else, such as "happy hour".

An example of the former is a pizza joint where they've simply raised the price of the pizza to about 50% above "street value" because they've papered the neighborhood with so many coupons that nobody ever eats there without one. In that case, I just tip the bill normally.

An example of the latter is a place that is on Groupon often - but all of the non-Groupon diners there are getting 30-40% off anyway, and my Groupon is just getting another 10-20% above that. In that case, I try to guesstimate what I would have paid without the Groupon and tip on that amount.

I actually did take a whole tip back once. 6 of us went to a nice (not super nice) restaurant. The service was very lacking, but we still left a 15% tip which we all felt was more than generous. I ended up putting it on my credit card. We left and the waiter ran after us shouting that we didn't leave enough and had made a mistake. I told him he was correct. I scratched out the tip, recalculated and initialed the new lower total and told him that it was now correct. He stood there slack jawed as we got into our car and drove away.

Tipping in the US is a bit of a scam. An ever increasing percentage, it seems.

As I have travelled more, it's become more obvious. I was in Australia last month, and had generally good service. If I felt like tipping, I did. If not, I didn't.

I'm in Thailand now. Most restaurants add a 10% service charge. That's fine, as well.

I generally start at 10% in the US, and top out at 25%. Lackluster service gets the 10%. I even had a waiter change a 15% tip on a credit card slip, to a 45% tip, after I left. (Meal $10. Tip $1.50. Changed the 1 into a 4)

There seem to be a lot of restaurant servers on this thread. Saying you deserve to get your food spat on because they don't like the tip, is just criminal. I've known servers/cooks who have gotten arrested for it.