Mandatory 25% tip

[casmith07]

lol...remind me never to go to San Francisco if that passes.

 

[Kevinicus]

I have no problem overtipping if they went out of there way to "enhance the dining experience"

I've never had this experience...what's it like?

The most I hope for is they don't ruin the experience at all.

 

[Rynie]

lol...remind me never to go to San Francisco if that passes.

Ah homie, San Francisco is by far the illest city in America that I've visited. I still haven't been to NY, or Chicago though. I'd still imagine I'd rate San Fran as highly.

 

[Hostile]

Here's how to solve everything. Do away with tips completely, add to the price of the meal and pay them a taxable salary with benefits.

5 bucks says no one wants to do that even though it is honest.

 

[Reality]

Here's how to solve everything. Do away with tips completely, add to the price of the meal and pay them a taxable salary with benefits.

5 bucks says no one wants to do that even though it is honest.

It would put the financial burden back on the business owners and most are so used to not having it, they won't support it.

Though most people prefer flat pricing for things they buy even consumables.

#reality

 

[Hoofbite]

The whole percentages thing gets me.

You go to a "decent" place for a drink and it's some hottie wearing a short black skirt and the drinks and food is more expensive so that validates a larger tip? Without even considering the quality of the service or drinks and food?

What has this girl done that automatically deserves larger tips than the old woman working at Perkins or IHOP?

I generally tip more than the standard percentage.....whatever it is. 15% according to some, 20% according to others. Although I don't calculate the actual percentage, it just works out that way. If I get really good service from a local sports bar or something, I'll tip more because my expectations were exceeded and the cost of the time spent eating and drinking is actually reasonable.

I think the whole idea of 15% regardless of venue is ridiculous. The waitress, bar wench or whatever isn't doing anything more than the local diner waitress. She just looks better.

I think I am actually more likely to tip a greater amount if the place I go to is reasonably priced, comfortable and the environment is solid. I don't need someone crawling up my *** every 5 minutes asking me if I would like them to do something for me.

If I get items on the house, I usually tip that amount to the person serving me. A guy I know gave me a few drinks on the house and something to much on one time. I was totally expecting a tab of about $35 but when it came it was only $24. I tipped the guy like $18.

Pretty much how I base my tips. I expect an amount before the bill comes and if it is under, I tip my expect amount and the difference between expected and actual.

If the bill comes and it exceeds my estimate for the quality of food and service, I generally tip just enough to not feel like some slime ball. Typically if I am in that situation I don't go back.

 

[Phrozen Phil]

didn't we have a waiter thread about a year ago about his subject. I recall it became quite lengthy. It was all Hos's fault. BTW, I usually tip 20%.

 

[Bigdog]

This is a true story. I took my then 95 year old grandmother (lived to be 101) out for breakfast one day at her favorite restuarant. The waitress brought the meal and everything was great. Afterwards, I went to the bathroom and then we went to the car. As we were going down the road my grandmother looks at me and hands me some money. She said "You left this on the table. You know you really should be more careful leaving money around because people might take it." I told her that was the tip for the waitress. Without skipping a beat, she responded "you know she gets paid." I just shook my head.

 

[ajk23az]

I'm a college student and even I tip 20%. If the service is pretty bad, it goes to 15% but nothing lower than that.

When I get golf for free (I work at a course in PHX), I tip the outside service guys at least $15-20.

Anyone that doesn't tip is a penny pincher, plain and simple.

 

[JD_KaPow]

Here's how to solve everything. Do away with tips completely, add to the price of the meal and pay them a taxable salary with benefits.

Great minds...

http://cowboyszone.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4177794&postcount=7

 

[AbeBeta]

Here's how to solve everything. Do away with tips completely, add to the price of the meal and pay them a taxable salary with benefits.

5 bucks says no one wants to do that even though it is honest.

That's pretty much the deal in many countries.

We've decided however that wait staff need to be at the mercy of fickle and often overly cheap patrons. I can understand if you work a commission sales job and have to deal with that, but something like waiting tables? You are at the mercy of so many other factors that often your "bad job" (e.g. taking forever to bring a meal) likely has nothing to do with how you, personally are performing.

 

[AbeBeta]

If I get items on the house, I usually tip that amount to the person serving me. A guy I know gave me a few drinks on the house and something to much on one time. I was totally expecting a tab of about $35 but when it came it was only $24. I tipped the guy like $18.

Dude, I hate to tell you this... if you get something on the house, it isn't someone tossing you a freebie. That money, or at least a huge chunk of it is expected to come back in tip. that isn't even about tipping, it is about you and the staff making a deal to keep the transaction between you.

 

[AbeBeta]

lol...remind me never to go to San Francisco if that passes.

Lol. let's not visit one of the country's finest cities b/c you might have to pay an extra $4 at dinner.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

Here's how to solve everything. Do away with tips completely, add to the price of the meal and pay them a taxable salary with benefits.

5 bucks says no one wants to do that even though it is honest.

Waitstaff makes $2.13 an hour, federal minimum is $7.25. Triple your labor cost on that end of things including bus staff, hostesses, and bartenders since they're compensated out of what the waitstaff brings in as well.

Now you've reached bare minimum wage. The staff I manage average $45 an hour without the $2.13 factored in. Even "turn and burns" like Chilis, Applebees, TGI Fridays, etc make $25 to $40 an hour on a weekend night.

What's the level of service look like now when I'm paying them even $14 an hour? I've cut their income by at more than 1/3 while increasing labor cost on my end at least by 300% at minimum wage. At a Chilis you might have 20 servers on a weekend night. Their cumulative labor hit is $43. Playing the realist and going to $14 an hour I'm at $280 that has to be made up somewhere. Oh yeah, we've still got to factor in the bartenders, bus staff, and hostesses in there as well. What's that going to do to labor costs?

You, as the customer, are going to eat every cent of the cost of them standing around doing nothing because of a late rush AND you'll get crap service when I've cut down to 3 servers running 7 or 8 tables apiece to minimize labor costs as much as possible. You're paying for Saturday morning dead time, Sunday afternoon dead time, 2:30 to 5:30 everyday when there's hardly a soul out eating, but enough to justify staying open since you're doing prep work anyway.

Corporate restaurants already subsidize their labor by using the waitstaff to do closing work to get minimum wage people off of the clock as soon as possible.

Now your $40 meal at a casual dining restaurant is realistically in the $100-$120 range since you've exponentially increased a huge percentage of labor that used to be negligible. What's that going to do to a business? Increase the sales of a restaurant or price out most of the customers?

Let's not forget the service sucks because the level of employee servicing your table went from $25-$45 labor quality to minimum wage or maybe double minimum wage quality. They've got no incentive to do anything more than an adequate job.

People complain about the lack of service in the service industry, well taking the tipping out of a meal will bring a whole new level of dissatisfaction to the public that they've never seen before.

Bon Appetit.

 

[ZeroClub]

Both systems (tipping v. nontipping) are imperfect but both can work.

 

[Kevinicus]

Waitstaff makes $2.13 an hour, federal minimum is $7.25. Triple your labor cost on that end of things including bus staff, hostesses, and bartenders since they're compensated out of what the waitstaff brings in as well.

Now you've reached bare minimum wage. The staff I manage average $45 an hour without the $2.13 factored in. Even "turn and burns" like Chilis, Applebees, TGI Fridays, etc make $25 to $40 an hour on a weekend night.

What's the level of service look like now when I'm paying them even $14 an hour? I've cut their income by at more than 1/3 while increasing labor cost on my end at least by 300% at minimum wage. At a Chilis you might have 20 servers on a weekend night. Their cumulative labor hit is $43. Playing the realist and going to $14 an hour I'm at $280 that has to be made up somewhere. Oh yeah, we've still got to factor in the bartenders, bus staff, and hostesses in there as well. What's that going to do to labor costs?

You, as the customer, are going to eat every cent of the cost of them standing around doing nothing because of a late rush AND you'll get crap service when I've cut down to 3 servers running 7 or 8 tables apiece to minimize labor costs as much as possible. You're paying for Saturday morning dead time, Sunday afternoon dead time, 2:30 to 5:30 everyday when there's hardly a soul out eating, but enough to justify staying open since you're doing prep work anyway.

Corporate restaurants already subsidize their labor by using the waitstaff to do closing work to get minimum wage people off of the clock as soon as possible.

Now your $40 meal at a casual dining restaurant is realistically in the $100-$120 range since you've exponentially increased a huge percentage of labor that used to be negligible. What's that going to do to a business? Increase the sales of a restaurant or price out most of the customers?

Let's not forget the service sucks because the level of employee servicing your table went from $25-$45 labor quality to minimum wage or maybe double minimum wage quality. They've got no incentive to do anything more than an adequate job.

People complain about the lack of service in the service industry, well taking the tipping out of a meal will bring a whole new level of dissatisfaction to the public that they've never seen before.

Bon Appetit.

So, what you're saying is...people really need to stop tipping so much because they are making WAY too much money? That's what I got out of that.

 

[casmith07]

Lol. let's not visit one of the country's finest cities b/c you might have to pay an extra $4 at dinner.

You're not going to dictate to me the cost of service. So you give a mandatory 25% tip and the waitstaff sucks - then what? I'm tipping 25% for crappy service? That's not how it's supposed to be done.

 

[Alumni2k11]

I'm a pretty good tipper anyways, so this wouldn't really effect me all that much. Unless the service was crappy of course.

 

[Hoofbite]

Dude, I hate to tell you this... if you get something on the house, it isn't someone tossing you a freebie. That money, or at least a huge chunk of it is expected to come back in tip. that isn't even about tipping, it is about you and the staff making a deal to keep the transaction between you.

I don't think this is a "one size fits all" situation.

Most often when I get something on the house, it's because the restaurant is slow or screws up. Usually they just waive the cost of my appetizer and really, it doesn't happen all that often. Maybe a couple times per year at max.

In this situation, I don't think they expect anything to come back their way. I've already paid them more than enough for taking too damn long to do whatever it was they were doing. But, because I realize it's the waiter or waitress who has to go to her manager and say, "these people have been here and hour without food" I acknowledge that she/he is doing a good job and tip her the difference.

Secondly, the freebies at bars and such aren't solely for the purposes of the bar tender to pad his pockets. If he throws you a free drink, he knows damn well you'll likely get something else anyway. And if he throws you another drink, he knows damn well you'll probably keep drinking and buying more and more stuff, increasing his tip. Additionally, I'm not buying into the expected kickback as some automatic unwritten law. Tip Code still applies. If you're a ******** of a bar tender and you pass out a couple freebies looking for a greater tip in return, you're barking up the wrong tree. You're a jerk, don't expect a free beer that costs next to nothing for you to give away to earn you some sort of latitude when the check comes. Shouldn't have been an jerk.

Lastly, establishments know if you treat someone right they will come back. If I go to a place and the service is awesome, the food is good and the environment is good I will go back. They get you liquored up, you have a good time and come back.

In the case with my friend who was bar tending, he wasn't expecting me to throw him the difference. He was doing it because he was my friend. A simple tip would have been fine for him. I wasn't expecting anything free just because I knew him and I would have been totally fine with paying the total I was expecting. I suppose if you are a regular at some bar that you frequent and you have such an arrangement that you guys have informally worked out over time, then yes it is okay to expect a tip.

But, if you are some random bar tender and give a free beer to someone without any sort of prior transaction with that person, don't get pissed if the tip doesn't come.

A tip may be on the bar tender's mind but so is getting you liquored up and generating repeat customers. Me spending more in that trip by coming back at a later date is compensation enough.

 

[Hoofbite]

Waitstaff makes $2.13 an hour, federal minimum is $7.25. Triple your labor cost on that end of things including bus staff, hostesses, and bartenders since they're compensated out of what the waitstaff brings in as well.

Bon Appetit.

Some states have higher minimum tipped wage.

And if tips don't work out to federal minimum wage, the employer already has to cover the difference.

I don't imagine many employers have to cover that often. Need like 3 tables per hour, probably less, at a local spot to come out at minimum wage.