at a bar it's a buck a drink. when i was a bartender, any tip that was left in change was swept onto the floor behind the bar and the cleanign crew got it. we were never rude about it, but if someone gave a REAL crap tip (like a buck on a $20 order) we would hand them their dollar and one of our dollars back and kindly (and discretely) tell them they need it worse than we do. it sounds horrible, but once you've seen it in action... it makes perfect sense, and i never had anyone get pissed about it.

one thing on taxes - some places require the establishment to report X% of every order a server/bartender rings up as a received tip.

example: i serve you 5 pints and tell you that the bill is $15. you hand me $16 dollars and tell me to keep the change. the bar is required to report that i received $1.80 tip even though i didn't. (at the time the % was 12%) so keep that in mind when tipping.

as always, a tip should reflect the level of service received.

From My Daughter. I hope this is usefull.

IN regards to tipping with a credit card. Depending on if the restaurant
pools there tips or not that money that you have left on that liitle line
does go to the server. As a server you are logged into the computer system
and as you settle tables with cash/ debit/ credit card it always asks you if
you for the tip amount. Where I work at the end on my shift I print out what
we call a cash out slip adn on there it tells you the amount of money you
made in tips. If you add up all the credit card/debit and cash tips you made
the two numbers should be the same. As for restaurants that pool there tips,
I would only tip the minimun 15% because that money does not all go to your
server. As a student and a server, I really do base my tipping on the service when I go out to eat. No less than 15% though. This is because, the money you do
leave does get slit up between the kitchen staff and bartender.

I wondered if this was going to come up. I got out of restaurant management way back in 1985, but I remember that in the early eighties there was a new law passed concerning the amount of tips that service personnel claimed as income to the IRS. I know my restaurant had to get a new cash register so we could separate dine in orders from carry out orders, and waiters and waitresses HAD to claim a percentage of the dine in sales as cash received in tips. And for the folks who did not - their W-2 form came with a dollar amount typed in the #8 box where it reads "allocated tips", that they had to pay taxes on. Anyone know if this is about how it works these days?

And as for establishments just paying their staff, well, most just don't. With minimum wage at $5.15, some steak houses around here pay $2.10 an hour plus tips, of course. Their attitude is that if you cannot average $5.15 an hour during a shift, then you're not doing your job.

I wish i just got paid per hour- the whole $15-$25 that I actualy make per hour with my tips, but that's never gonna happen. I'm at the customers' mercy and I make $2.13 an hour, which usually amounts to a weekly check that says: "this is not a check"...."you owe $16.26" (for taxes).
So as far as accepting and not expecting a tip, well, if i "expect" to pay my rent and feed myself, I "expect" a friggin tip.

I vary but if the service is shitty it's a lucky day if I tip *anything*. Why the hell would I put 15% for someone to cock up my order and waste my time? If i fuck up a contact I don't paid get anything and rightly so, why should you? On the flipside if it's prompt, polite service handled well I'll tip very well. I think waitors get paid here regardlesss, I noticed the other day in Prague noone seemed to be tipping at all, at least the locals, it's so confusing.

That's kind of the problem in the end, and why I feel guilty enough to leave a tip in all but one instance (it was comedically bad service). I've had a few bad waiters/waitresses, but I suspect there are far more cheapskate customers. 15% is what I pay for the service I expect, and I go up or down from there. Seldom down, but it happens from time to time.

I imagine it's tough to be able to read some customers, but if I expect to leave a friggin tip, I expect the waitstaff to do the following:

1. Come to the table within 5 minutes of sitting down (There's leeway here if the restaurant is very busy)
2. Return with drinks in a timely fashion and take orders
3. Stop by at least once to top off drinks

Eh. It also helps their tip if they're a pretty girl.

Then I "expect" you to get a job that pays you enough to make your rent.

From this <A HREF="http://slate.msn.com/default.aspx?id=2073161">Slate.com</A> articlle:

This is *sort of* what I was about to write. As been said before, tipping has just become engrained in American culture. It's a signal of appreciation for what we expect in return: personal, friendly, helpful service. Americans like to build relationships, and perhaps there's something interpersonal about the amount of tip that is left.

I tend to be overly generous, so I tip well when there is good, attentive service. What the author mentions in her article is true me for, though: I won't necessarily tip better for excellent service (I always gives 20% regardless), but I'll definitely shave off a few bucks if the waitstaff is lousy. On the other hand, because we know waiters don't make squat for salary, we feel guilty and develop a complex about not spreading around the wealth, especially for a service that is essentially unquantifiable.

So, my question is for you folks: Would you rather restaurants automatically add gratuity or raise prices to account for service charges like they do in Europe?

ANother one: What do you do with a gift card? At Morton's, I had a $100 certificate, but I made sure to tip on that amount as well. Well, at least I tried to. I more or less fell out the front door after two bottles of wine an four glasses of whiskey.

well, let's look at real life. i took the family to disney earlier this week.

long waits abound in the sit down restaurants. ESPN zone only averaged 15-20 minutes vs. 90 minute wait at rainforest cafe, so i had opportunity to eat at ESPN a few times.

First night - Shannen was our waitress. it was very busy, but she was standing next to me before i even got my son settled in. she explained that she was very busy so she wouldn't be able to take our order right away, but she wanted to get drinks to us immediately. i appreciated the upfront honesty. i also appreciated that our drinks were on the table within 2 minutes. she was still back and chatting with us inside of 5 minutes. as i took the last drink of my iced tea, she walked up pitcher in hand and refilled it on her way to another table. this happened 3 times. shannen ruled. shannen ended up with a $20 tip. i did the math figuring an average of $10/table/hour and shannen was probably hauling in easily $50/hour at that rate. considering her excellent service, i'm sure she does much better than that.

Second night - Don't know our waitress's name. it wasn't as busy, it took at least 5 minutes before we saw her. she forgot to bring drinks back. she got wife's order wrong, and i had to stop a different server to get more iced tea. the nameless waitress got $5. yes, i felt bad - but i got poor service and i don't feel i need to reward poor service with anything extra. doing the math, i figure even if she got $5/table/hour she was clearing $20/hour - much more than her service justified. i'm sure she was griping about her poor tips later, but what the hell? you want more? do more.

You reminded me of a recent tipping incident, bn. We had a $50 giftcard to the restaurant (won as a raffle prize at some company function) and the meal came out to something like $49.50. We didn't have any cash (because we never do, but that's a different thread) so we told her to put $10 on the credit card.

She said she couldn't do that. The only thing she was allowed to do was put $1 of the meal on the credit card, and take the other $48.50 from the giftcard, and then we could add in the other $9 on the printed tip line.

I would rather the restaurants pay their staff at least minimum wage, and if they have to, raise the price of the meal one dollar or whatever AND STILL ALLOW ME TO TIP.

I wish the government didn't tax tips at all, so that waitstaff like stacey wouldn't need a tip to survive. I've watiressed before, in late 80's Oregon, where I made $2.13 an hour + tips, and they reported 15% of my tickets (subtotal not after tax) to the IRS. Regardless of how much I made in tips that day, I got taxed like every table tipped 15%.

It's a low paying thankless shit job but I never expected my customers to tip me just because I got taxed on their bill. I accepted (and appreciated) a tip because I busted my ass to serve them, and do it quickly, efficiently and happily.

When I got tired of paying more in taxes than I earned, I found another job.

I was in Australia about 2 years ago, where tipping is not the norm. We stayed at an amazing hotel right off of the harbor. We had a party of about 12, and wanted to eat at Doyle's, the restraunt right off of Circular Quay. Well, you can't get a table at Doyle's, certainly not without a reservation well in advance, and certainly not for a group that large.

I asked the concierge at our hotel if he might be able to help. Not only did he get us a table at Doyle's, it was the host table on the second floor overlooking the Sydney Opera house, in a glass atrium with a view all around. Unbelievable.

When I got back to the hotel, I tried to tip the guy by doing the "American Handshake", with a bill folded inside the hand, the kind of thing any concierge or maitre'd in the states would have picked up on. Well, he was so shocked to feel something in my hand that he dropped the bill. When it landed on the counter, he tried to hand it back to me. I tried to explain that it was my way of appreciating his efforts at landing us a table, and he was completely flustered. It was awesome.

Why is the service so much better in countries where tipping is not the norm?

-sm

Maybe it's related to the psychological issue where you stop enjoying something when you start getting paid to do it.

etc. etc (For some reason, I can't fit the whole quote in -?)

I do all of that stuff and like I said, I always make 18-20% of my gross sales in tips. That averages out to $15-$25 hour, depending on how busy it is and it's easy to make over $25 hour in the summer or on a saturday night, so, OC, um, yeah, I HAVE a job that pays the bills.
Sine I know I'm a good waitress (I get good comment cards, good tips in general and I often have people say to me "you read my mind!!" when I bring them a refill without them having to ask), I know that when I get 15% tips it's because they're just fucking cheap.

Yeah, but isn't 15% the "standard" for standard service. Those things I listed above are what I expect out of standard service. Frequency of visits, friendliness of the waitstaff, and other nebulous crap are the things that get me leaving 20-25%.