How Much Should You Tip Your Waitress?
08. May, 2009 
8 Comments
American Money… Weird…
Yesterday while I was surfing the personal finance blogosphere, I read a couple of comments about tipping. It got me thinking about what I’ve heard I am supposed to tip, and what I actually tip.
My tipping habits have changed dramatically over the last four or five years. When I started going to college, I was incredibly broke. I didn’t eat out very much, so when I did I tried to spend as little as possible. When the bill came, and I had to add on a tip, I gave as small a tip as I felt I could get away with. I excused it because I was a poor college student. I excused it because the service really wasn’t “that” good. So I gave somewhere between 5 and 10 percent.
In my second year of college I made friends with a Red Robins waitress. Suddenly I got the other side of the story. What I didn’t realize before was that I wasn’t just tipping the waitress. I was tipping the hostess, the cooks, the busboys and the dishwashers. It differs depending on the restaurant, but a number of businesses give a certain percentage (4-8%) of a night’s total sales to all the other staff before they even count the tips.
See, I thought that when I was tipping low, I was at least giving them something. In some cases, I may have cost the waitress money waiting on me, because she owed the rest of the staff a certain percentage, and to make up for my meal (and measley tip), she would have had to pay them out of the rest of her tips.
After that eye opening friendship, I’ve started to become a lot more generous with my tips. I find myself hesitating to tip 10 or 15% – a relative industry standard. I try to tip around 20%. Sure, this means that my meal costs “more” in the end, but what a lot of people don’t realize is that they have already spent that money – they just haven’t realize it yet.
You Should Not Reduce Your Tip in Order to Save Yourself Money
I equate this with stealing. I’ve never worked as a waiter, I don’t ever want to, but I do feel for them. Even if I get a bad waitress with terrible service, I still tip. A lot of them depend on the money from tips, because minimum wage really doesn’t cut it anymore. If you don’t tip, they lose money.
If you want to save money eating out, go less often. Share an entree, or an appetizer. Skip the drinks. Use coupons. There are tons of way to save money eating out – but please, don’t skimp on the tip.
How Much Should I Tip?
So if you’re going to tip, how much should you tip? I would say that the baseline is 15%. If you go out, things are normal, everything’s dandy – 15%. If you get exceptional service, or an extra drink, or if they go out of their way to make you feel comfortable, etc, go for 20%. They work hard for that dollar or two, so give it to them. If you have bad or slow service, if the food arrives cold (send it back!) or you’re getting attitude, drop it to 10%.
Personally, I do 15% and then round it up or down to an even dollar amount depending on service.
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Matt Goulart
Great article. I usually tip 10% max if the service was exceptional. If it was bad, I don’t tip at all. I don’t think tipping should be mandatory and more of an option. Nonetheless, you have added another viewpoint to my thinking of tipping. Thanks.
[Reply]
I often hear that thought process – that tipping shouldn’t be mandatory. But it is. If you ever take a look at discount coupons, they all mention that the tip should be applied to the total bill before discount. There’s no question of "if" there is a tip, there should be one. Like I said, its become so standard, so mandatory, that if you don’t tip you are charging the waitress or waiter to serve you. In my opinion, that’s straight up stealing.
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15% most of the time. 20% if the service s very good. I’ll tip less if the service is really lousy – but this only happens a couple of times per year. When I tip poorly, I doubt that I’m the only one tipping that person poorly – perhaps they’ll figure out what the problem is, or quit the job and let a capable person take their spot.
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@ Kosmo – When I receive bad service, I often assume its not their fault. They could just be having a bad day, or they could be new on the job, or something might’ve just happened that we’re not aware of that could excuse the behaviour. So while I will often tip a little less, I rarely think poorly of the person.
[Reply]
Yeah, I get what you’re saying … and if it seems possible that this is the situation, I don’t alter the tip.
I’m talking about situations where it’s obviously the fault of the server, and typically where they are being really stupid about it. In one particular instance, we were charged the wrong price for an item. The waitress seemed intent on debating the price of the item. I politely asked her to bring a menu so that we could verify. For some strange reason, she didn’t want to do this (she was bored and wanted to jerk some customers around ??). Seriously, just grab the menu and the situation could be 100% resolved. She spent plenty of time trying to argue, so it clearly wasn’t that she didn’t have the time to grab a menu.
I have no idea why she thought that issue could be resolved a "he said, she said" with me saying the item was $X and her saying the item was $Y.
Finally, I got tired of her games and just said "Fine. We’ll just take it out of your tip." Even that didn’t make her grab the menu. So I deducted the difference from her tip.
This wasn’t the first time we received substand service from this waitress.
On the way out, the cashier asked something along the lines of "was everything OK with your meal" – the standard thing they always say. We said "no" and he didn’t prompt us for more information
99% of the time, I’m happy with the service at restaurants.
[Reply]
I agree that tipping shouldn’t be mandatory. Waitresses should just get paid what they’re worth. However, as that is not the case, I do tip for waitress service. And the pizza delivery boy. But I draw the line about there. I don’t tip taxi drivers, I don’t tip my hairstylist (except for formal up-dos), I don’t tip the barrista at Starbucks… Seriously; I’m not about to tip the whole world for service that’s in their job description anyway. Oh, I DO tip housekeepers on resorts in places like Mexico and the Dominican. But back to North America.
I do have to admit, I am only a 10% tipper. I grew up in a Christian home, and while I fully understand that the waitress does not know, agree with, or care about my value system, my thought process is "God doesn’t ask for more than 10%"–(referring to tithes, Biblically based)–"why should anyone else?"
In practice, waitresses usually get a little bit more than 10%, cuz I like to make it an even dollar amount when I pay. And if they do an exceptional job–like this one guy a dozen of my friends and I had serving us in a tourist town on New Year’s Eve and still had the most enthusiastic attitude I’ve ever seen–I will tip more. But as a general rule, 10%.
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I have two responses to your comment. First, your government asks for more than 10%, do you not pay all of your taxes? (I jest)
Second, the tithe is an Old Testament (Jewish) practice. Christianity, while based on Judiasm, does not necessary take every single law that the Orthodox Jews had literally. In practice, God actually asks for 100%. What you give to your church is up to you – but don’t forget that every single penny that you "earn" is given to you from God, and you ought to recognize that by being a responsible steward of your money.
That being said, I see tipping, even if the server doesn’t deserve it, as a gift to others, something that I find to be in alignment with Christ’s values.
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We have a forum we vent this stuff out on. Waitresses deserved a little more than 10% with cost of living increases across the board while our wages stagnate. http://www.tiptheserver.com
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