[NA] I'll get the check, you get the tip [NA]

[BrianNC]

Ever looked to see what wait staff make? 20% makes coming to work in those jobs worth showing up, is about all that is.

My parents were strict tip on food only, pretax, and not on the drinks. And even then, they tipped 15%. I don't eat out often, but when I do, I have no problem with tipping 20% on the all up bill.

My wife and I (eating separately and together) have been tipping 20% (or more) for years. And I generally always leave at least $2 even if that's more than 20% of the bill (bill under $10).

 

[flyingron]

Unless we're talking some egregiously expensive bottle of wine, I tip on the drinks. The waiter usually has to "tip out" the bartender or somm.
Most places whether you look at the before tax or after tax number isn't going to make that much of a difference. Adding 5% tax into a 20% tip calculation only makes it a 21% tip. I'm lazy, I typically just round to the nearest dollar and double it and move the decimal over.

 

[jordane93]

I pay for it all if I get everyone together.

 

[Everskyward]

I'm used to separate checks, because most of my eating out has been with co-workers on the job. There are exceptions for special occasions, or when one party has done a favor for the other one. Back in the old days, my male co-workers wanted me to ask for the separate checks so they wouldn't seem like cheapskates, not paying for the female. Luckily that stigma has mostly gone away. Geez, we're co-workers, not dating.

I also do the lazy tip thing. Double the bill and round up or down to the nearest dollar; mostly up.

 

[Zeldman]

Ever looked to see what wait staff make? 20% makes coming to work in those jobs worth showing up, is about all that is.

I worked a number of restaurant jobs in my youth. I don't tip poorly. I budget nice meals out to make sure the wait staff gets something reasonable for their time.

And of course there's always the wisdom of Fight Club... "Bring us the clean soup, please..."

You get a reputation for being a skinflint tipper at some place you go often... guaranteed they're messing with your food. Guaranteed. Seen it done. Never did it myself.

That wasn't avocado on your burger. It was green but that's where the similarities end.

I agree with you on mandatory tipping everywhere except in one place, and that's our awesome annual cruise trip on a chartered theme boat.

We know a number of the wait staff on the boat, especially our favorite bartender. ;-) That man busts his butt. We always tip him extra. I've never seen a dude so fast with our beers when he sees it's us. He knows. I haven't seen the guy in a year and he knows. I suspect a little help from tech, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's just that good.

Yep, I was in the restaurant business for 7 years. I told everyone that if anyone messes with a customers food then its an immediate firing and maybe turned over to the police. It happened only twice in that 7 years.

Another restaurant close by, one of the cooks decided it would be funny to spit in the food being served to a policeman. He left the building wearing bracelets, and was expelled from college because of the conviction.

I will tip well for excellent service. I have been known to single out the wait unit and hand the tip in person, and even have the manager come out so I can tell him what a good waiter we had.

I will tip moderately for moderate service, and I will tip poorly for poor service. It used to be a poor tip was meant to be an insult to the wait unit.

I see no reason to tip when I have to place an order through the clowns head....

My most funniest restaurant experience... Coming home from a race, we decided to eat at the truck stop café. The waitress brought our food, plates lined up down her arm, and she set my plate down in front of me first. As she was setting to other plates down, I saw a roach come up from under the left side of my plate and start racing to the other side of my plate. I slammed my hand down in the middle of the plate sending chicken fried steak, green beans and mashed potatoes flying in the air. (no cole slaw)

Everyone stopped and looked at me. I mean the entire room got deathly quiet as everyone stopped and looked. I turned my hand over and saw the squished roach, then turned my hand around so everyone could see and announced, "I got the little SOB.." Which brought the house down.

The poor waitress was mortified. I mean she was a rough looking woman, even for a truck stop, but she had never had a situation such as this. I told her to put the rest of the plates down and try again for mine.

I complained to the manager, more accurately he came over to the table pretty quickly. After he learned of what took place, he comped our meal. But I did leave a 10 buck tip to the waitress..

 

[sferguson524]

At one point in my life, some friends and I went to the same Tony Roma's EVERY friday night for about 2 years. We got to know the bartender very well, as we all smoked and the patio was part of the bar, so he served us. It got to the point that he knew what we were going to order for food and drinks..We'd walk in, acknowledge him at the bar, and within 2-3 minutes, we'd have cocktails. Our food would come out shortly after because he'd put our food order in when we walked in. He would regularly get tipped 50% + on the check. If it was near Christmas, he'd get closer to a 100% tip from each of us. Sadly he moved on to become the F&B manager at a local casino in CA and we all lost track of him.

 

[Kritchlow]

Hey....

Y'all ever go out to lunch with that guy that insists on paying with his credit card when everyone else is paying cash? You know, he gathers all the cash that you put out, including the tips, then puts it in his pocket. You find out later that what he does is give a cheap tip. This results in him getting 1.) Free meal paid by everyone else, 2.) Free cash advance, and 3.) Points on his card that he will use for his next vacation.

I always come out on the short end when I pay by card and collect cash.
Seems many people look at the bill, round down, and forget about tax & tip.

 

[jsstevens]

I do the double the check and round up thing. Unless the service is bad in which case I do 15%. I leave a minimum of $2 even on small checks (like the breakfast joint I meet friends at most Mondays-$8 for breakfast).

Somehow with Christmas Eve services our family has adopted a go out to dinner at around 8 or 9PM Christmas Eve. Not a lot of selection. We usually end up at Denny's. I make a point of tipping the waitress (never had a waiter in this case) around 100% of a 6-7 person bill. In cash which I put in their hand. I figure they're working Christmas Eve (and sure, they might be Jewish, Muslim, atheist, whatever. It's still kind of sucky night to work).

When I visited Australia, I was warned about the tipping thing. And the service (while never terrible) was quite a bit more, shall we say, laid back than here. One of the expat Brits I worked with there doesn't like our model because "Some waiter's always pestering me about refills." To each their own. Also, because the Australian's pay a living wage to their wait staff, they are not open at dead times like the middle of the afternoon. Costs to much...

John

 

[Gerhardt]

The people I dine with are the type who also reach for the check. In the grand scheme I figure it works out about even, with one exception. A good friend of mine is more adamant about picking up the check at times and probably gets it 75% of the time. He's also the type to give some pretty cool stuff to everyone he knows.

 

[flyingron]

You can't stop some people from doing it. All you need to do is make a bona fide offer to pay your share or reciprocate. But there's no point in arguing the point. My father is a check picker upper and we just recognize it's going to happen. We reciprocate on his hospitality in other ways.

I had several amusing comp'd meal stories. We had ordered at a fairly large restaurant (Clyde's in Broadlands, VA) and our wine had been served and we were waiting for our food. Looking out the window we see fire engines arriving. After a while the maitre d' comes to our table and explains we'll have to leave the building as it is on fire. We grab the wine and head out to the parking lot. We can't leave as the fire equipment is blocking our car in. Eventually, the fire is out and we are reseated except they've shut the ovens down so we're limited to certain items until they get heated back up. Of course, they've already told us our dinner was on the house (which someone at another table couldn't understand). Still most of the patrons had left already. We left a large tip for the waitress as she wasn't going to make much that night.

 

[Ravioli]

My ex-Mother-in-Law always wanted to pay and we never allowed it. She would "go to the bathroom" and give the server her charge card. Like we didn't know. She didn't realize that either my Brother in Law or I would beat her to the punch and give the server our card.

When the check came, it had been swiped on one of the "Mens" cards but given to her with her card back. She'd sign and we'd all thank her. And then she'd hand the receipt to Brother in Law since he did all her book keeping. Not sure if they've ever told her about the ruse or if it continues.

The other funny thing with her is she'd put $100 bills in my ex-wife purse or the ashtray of my car at random times. When we found them, we'd put them in the ceramic goose in her kitchen. Brother in law would take the "Goose money" and put it back in Mother's bank account. And around and around it went.

Sometimes I wonder what the gross Goose would be if we had kept any of it.

 

[cessna182b]

20% tip.... wow, I bet the wait staff love you.

And I walked away from a restaurant that had a mandatory 18% gratuity added to all checks, no matter how few are dining.

Once I went to lunch with some co-workers at a nearby hotel dining room. It was a buffet - entirely self serve, except for drinks.
So it turned out that I got the privilege of paying the mandatory 18% tip on the total - for being served a glass of water! I decided
then and there that it would never happen again. I always check the gratuity policy when eating out - and walk away from any
"mandatory tip" places. I do tip, but in proportion to the level and quality of service received.

Dave

 

[StevieTimes]

My brother's wife is from Ecuador, and they have a tradition that I think is kinda neat... maybe not tradition, but "the way it goes", or whatever.

If I invite you out? I'm paying. As in "You wanna go grab a drink or a burger or whatever?" I have now invited you, and am paying. I think in the US, if you said that to a friend, they would assume we're each paying for ourselves.

Likewise, if somebody invites you out, you can assume your night is paid for.

I like it, so I've adopted that custom. I invite, I pay. If others don't play by that rule, I don't mind, it's not assumed here. I don't assume anybody is paying for me.


Edit: sorry, I think lots of you guys are already playing by this rule, just re-read the thread...

 

[denverpilot]

Yep, I was in the restaurant business for 7 years. I told everyone that if anyone messes with a customers food then its an immediate firing and maybe turned over to the police. It happened only twice in that 7 years.

From what I saw, you missed a lot, if you only caught 2 in seven years. YMMV.

 

[weilke]

If I want to make certain to get the check, I catch the waiter or manager 1/2 way though the meal and tell them to hold it for me.

'Why don't you get the tip' is a polite way of declining someone's offer to get the tab.

 

[cowman]

When I go out to eat I don't ask for much. I'm almost entirely there for the food. Take my order quickly and know the answers to any questions on the menu, bring the food out, keep the drinks refilled. That's all I'm looking for or I can just order at the counter and get it myself too. Either works. I guess some people care about the server being witty or pretending to care about you and your evening or whatever, but for me it's received on a scale from neutral to annoying. Seriously just take my order, bring my food, and don't let me sit there with a plate of blazing hot wings and an empty drink.

I guess though my biggest objection to tipping is that I think it shouldn't be expected. It should be an extra bonus for someone if they did something really great above and beyond what you'd normally expect. Sure, the servers should get decent wages but why is that my concern as the customer? Shouldn't that be between the staff and the owner/manager? It's basically throwing me into the position of deciding how much that server should make on my table and I don't feel like that's how you should treat a customer. It should be X amount for this food item and that's all, the owner should pay the staff a reasonable wage and price the food so that he can do that. At least in my head that's how the world should work but I guess I'm stuck evaluating the worth of my waiter's service every meal instead.

Oh and another rant.... calculating a percentage is hard? Move the decimal left one digit, bam there's 10%. Double the number and you've got 20%, half it and you know what 5% is, now assemble those numbers and interpolate for a reasonable tip. Why calculate it to an exact percentage point? I normally just find something close enough that adds up to a nice round number on the total.

 

[Caramon13]

Oh and another rant.... calculating a percentage is hard? Move the decimal left one digit, bam there's 10%. Double the number and you've got 20%, half it and you know what 5% is, now assemble those numbers and interpolate for a reasonable tip. Why calculate it to an exact percentage point? I normally just find something close enough that adds up to a nice round number on the total.

lol...

My wife and I take turns paying for meals and whenever she gets the bill she gives me this look like, how does this work again? I always explain it the exact same way you described and the next time she pays its the same thing all over again. It's almost a game, but it's getting rather old at this point after 12 years of marriage...

My brother is a waiter, used to be a bartender. He's never had any other job and he's nearing 40. Never gone to college, nothing. He does fairly well, but the lifestyle gets to you after a while. When your only free time is Monday and Tuesday mornings, what does that mean for a social life?

I tip 20% (ish) as a rule of thumb wherever I go, but I haven't ever really had many occasions where I've either NOT tipped or tipped low. You have to be a really "special" person to incur that penalty from me. I totally ignore tips for things like takeout that already collected the tip when I paid. For example, Papa Johns..order a pizza and you can specify the tip at that point and pay for it. Yet when you get the receipt to sign for when they deliver, there's another tip line..like..didn't I JUST tip you for this? Why are you asking for more?

I agree about splitting the bill @Ravioli . That's stupid. I went to a lunch with my uncles,aunts and parents to celebrate mothers day with my grandmother. Was supposed to be a nice lunch and everyone other than me was ordering expensive stuff including wine, etc. Bill came and they look at me to split it with them. I had a water and a salad, maybe 10 bucks total. I ended up pressure-paying almost $100 for my water and salad. I never did that again. In fact, a few years after that they tried to do it again, and I outright told the waiter I want my own bill for my wife, my son and I, I'm not with these people. My mother looked at me in shock like, how dare I not contribute? And you know what..I told her I did, I paid for my family's part.

I hate that BS...

 

[paflyer]

Yep, I was in the restaurant business for 7 years. I told everyone that if anyone messes with a customers food then its an immediate firing and maybe turned over to the police. It happened only twice in that 7 years.

Another restaurant close by, one of the cooks decided it would be funny to spit in the food being served to a policeman. He left the building wearing bracelets, and was expelled from college because of the conviction.

I will tip well for excellent service. I have been known to single out the wait unit and hand the tip in person, and even have the manager come out so I can tell him what a good waiter we had.

I will tip moderately for moderate service, and I will tip poorly for poor service. It used to be a poor tip was meant to be an insult to the wait unit.

I see no reason to tip when I have to place an order through the clowns head....

My most funniest restaurant experience... Coming home from a race, we decided to eat at the truck stop café. The waitress brought our food, plates lined up down her arm, and she set my plate down in front of me first. As she was setting to other plates down, I saw a roach come up from under the left side of my plate and start racing to the other side of my plate. I slammed my hand down in the middle of the plate sending chicken fried steak, green beans and mashed potatoes flying in the air. (no cole slaw)

Everyone stopped and looked at me. I mean the entire room got deathly quiet as everyone stopped and looked. I turned my hand over and saw the squished roach, then turned my hand around so everyone could see and announced, "I got the little SOB.." Which brought the house down.

The poor waitress was mortified. I mean she was a rough looking woman, even for a truck stop, but she had never had a situation such as this. I told her to put the rest of the plates down and try again for mine.

I complained to the manager, more accurately he came over to the table pretty quickly. After he learned of what took place, he comped our meal. But I did leave a 10 buck tip to the waitress..

Did you leave flower money for the roach's family?