Tipping

[GoodWishes]

I'd rather pay attention to the person I'm with. I just give them 20% and move ahead with my day. Life's too short.

Also I think that 20% means a lot more to them than to us.

Even though we generously tip everyone everywhere in the US, we still like it much better when we were in Japan in September where there is a no tipping culture. Life seems so much simpler that way.

 

[marko]

And that's why tipping will never leave. People have been trained to think that it's normal and expected to give someone $30 - $40 for bringing a couple plates of food to the table.

We're going to pay for it one way or the other. Either an expensive restaurant pays a good waiter $100K a year or he makes it in tips, it comes out of the same pocket: yours! That $40 steak suddenly goes to $75, but no tipping required. (FWIW, a good, professional waiter at a high end big city restaurant can make upwards of $300K in tips)

Also I think that 20% means a lot more to them than to us.

Even though we generously tip everyone everywhere in the US, we still like it much better when we were in Japan in September where there is a no tipping culture. Life seems so much simpler that way.

+1
Lived in Japan and lived in Europe. Agree it's a better system but it's what we do here... 'when in Rome'.

 

[Aerides]

I'm assuming she was getting a paid wage and so I don't quite get giving a tip for a 4 step movement on her part. (we did leave something!)

In Florida, she was most likely getting $8.98 per hour before tips. I don't tip based on movement though, it's based on service. I get the griping about tipping for non-traditional things, in a bar/restaurant with a server, I have no issue, no matter the square footage.

 

[Chuckanut]

Even though we generously tip everyone everywhere in the US, we still like it much better when we were in Japan in September where there is a no tipping culture. Life seems so much simpler that way.

Same in Portugal. They bring the device to the table, you tap your card, a receipt pops out and payment is done. On the advice of a native I occasionally left a few euros at a restaurant we frequented multiple times. But, while it is appreciated it is not expected.


And nobody puts a screen in front of you [-]demanding[/-] suggesting tips at various rates. That screen is just so very offensive.

 

[marko]

Same in Portugal. They bring the device to the table, you tap your card, a receipt pops out and payment is done. On the advice of a native I occasionally left a few euros at a restaurant we frequented multiple times. But, while it is appreciated it is not expected.


e.

Just got back from Bermuda last week. What they do is just tack on an automatic 20% tip. For the math challenged like me I loved it!

 

[MichaelB]

This DoorDash announcement is newsworthy. Tipping in a full service restaurant makes sense because that’s how the compensation is set up for the workers there.

In the case of DoorDash, the delivery company is responsible for paying their drivers a fair salary but then telling users they must tip in advance or they may get poor service. They are trying to coerce users into paying more instead of paying fair compensation.

We don’t use food delivery services, but if we were to consider doing so, we’d not consider DoorDash.

I saw a news story that DoorDash was warning customers that their orders could be delayed if they don't tip. Looks like more people are resisting tipping for things. I never used DoorDash personally.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We only tip based on what WE think is appropriate. NOT on expectations, coercion or being shamed into, that is simply shallow and shows weakness. The fact that a lot of people are weak and impressionable does not justify it, and until people smarten up and stop being/acting like sheep, it will never change.

And if we are coerced in any way, we do not tip at all, and never go back there again! Don't blame us, blame the establishment, it is unfortunate for the servers I agree, but again blame the establishment, not us.

We will NEVER use Doordash because of this announcement.

 

[Badger]

We only tip based on what WE think is appropriate. NOT on expectations, coercion or being shamed into, that is simply shallow and shows weakness. The fact that a lot of people are weak and impressionable does not justify it, and until people smarten up and stop being/acting like sheep, it will never change.

And if we are coerced in any way, we do not tip at all, and never go back there again! Don't blame us, blame the establishment, it is unfortunate for the servers I agree, but again blame the establishment, not us.

We will NEVER use Doordash because of this announcement.

+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1

Cheers!

 

[marko]

We only tip based on what WE think is appropriate. NOT on expectations, coercion or being shamed into, that is simply shallow and shows weakness. The fact that a lot of people are weak and impressionable does not justify it, and until people smarten up and stop being/acting like sheep, it will never change.

And if we are coerced in any way, we do not tip at all, and never go back there again! Don't blame us, blame the establishment, it is unfortunate for the servers I agree, but again blame the establishment, not us.

We will NEVER use Doordash because of this announcement.

Until this thread, I never gave tipping a second thought; I just paid it and went about the rest of my day.

Never imagined it was such a passionate subject! (least of all, never saw it as a sign of weakness or that I needed "to smarten up"!!)

 

[Car-Guy]

It is true that I have tipped a few of the casino cocktail waitresses $100 for a beer a few times. Under special circumstances of course.

Don't let your mind wander, it was innocent. Dang it.

 

[Chuckanut]

In the case of DoorDash, the delivery company is responsible for paying their drivers a fair salary but then telling users they must tip in advance or they may get poor service. They are trying to coerce users into paying more instead of paying fair compensation.

What next? Will they send Rocko “the fist” Bombocini to our houses and demand we pay insurance to make sure nothing bad is added to our food before it gets to us.? I would never do business with an outfit that tries this nonsense.

 

[Poopycat]

I tip $2 or $3 a day. I had read online a while back that a few dollars per day was enough. Now I’m thinking that maybe I should be upping it to $5.

I don’t tip breakfast staff at hotels, never even thought about doing that.

 

[Go-NoGo]

I would gladly pay 18-20% if I could split that up by Front of the House (FOH) and back of the House (BOH). IMO the people who deserve the money are the line cooks, prep cooks, and all the other staff working at the back who made my meal possible.

Carrying a few plates and some drinks is considerably less effort and skill. Reward the people who made the food.

 

[marko]

I would gladly pay 18-20% if I could split that up by Front of the House (FOH) and back of the House (BOH). IMO the people who deserve the money are the line cooks, prep cooks, and all the other staff working at the back who made my meal possible.

Carrying a few plates and some drinks is considerably less effort and skill. Reward the people who made the food.

A lot of restaurants locally add 3% to 6% " kitchen fee" to your bill nowadays. Hard to avoid around here. Seems the whole tipping thing is going in the other direction.

But to be fair, unless we're talking about Olive Garden level, there's a heck of a lot more to being a professional waiter than "carrying plates". You're not making $100k or $200k just for carrying plates. You need to know food, wine pairing, tableside preparation, among many other culinary skills. Most professional waiters are also almost as good as most chefs in food preparation and menu development.

When we lived in Paris we ran into 3 waiters who were sent over by their restaurant to better learn wine pairing. Not an expense the restaurant would bear for plate carriers!

 

[GenXguy]

I would gladly pay 18-20% if I could split that up by Front of the House (FOH) and back of the House (BOH). IMO the people who deserve the money are the line cooks, prep cooks, and all the other staff working at the back who made my meal possible.

Carrying a few plates and some drinks is considerably less effort and skill. Reward the people who made the food.

Especially if the base wage isn't lower. Back when I was a waiter in the late 80's, I earned about $2/hr while the cooks and prep workers earned a higher minimum wage. They pay a lot higher base minimum wage now, and in many places, the minimum wage for servers is the same was those other workers, so they aren't relying on tips to make up the difference in pay.

Just 65% of Americans always tip at restaurants:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/14/where-americans-should-tip-vs-where-they-actually-do.html

 

[aaronc879]

For those complaining about DoorDash, what they announced is not a new thing. It is just being mentioned by the company. Drivers who deliver for DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grub Hub and others are all self employed and they can take or not take any order they choose. If an order pops up on my phone to go 5 miles for $3 I will ignore it and the food will sit. That order gets sent to other drivers in the area. If no driver accepts it then DoorDash ups the payout until someone accepts it all while the food gets closer to room temp. If the order includes a $5 tip for a total of $8 while still not a lot it is much more likely to get someone to accept it. This happens at all of those companies and is nothing new, it's just being announced as a warning due to customers complaining of slow service and cold food. If you want the food faster you will have to pay more for it. Don't want to pay more then go get it yourself. Why would a driver drive to the restaurant, wait for the order, drive to the customer possibly in heavy traffic or bad weather just for $3. Then wait unpaid for another order to come up. Take gas, wear and tear, taxes off of that $3 and they are basically working for free if you don't give a decent tip. If you don't think they are worth it then go get it yourself.

 

[audreyh1]

For those complaining about DoorDash, what they announced is not a new thing. It is just being mentioned by the company. Drivers who deliver for DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grub Hub and others are all self employed and they can take or not take any order they choose. If an order pops up on my phone to go 5 miles for $3 I will ignore it and the food will sit. That order gets sent to other drivers in the area. If no driver accepts it then DoorDash ups the payout until someone accepts it all while the food gets closer to room temp. If the order includes a $5 tip for a total of $8 while still not a lot it is much more likely to get someone to accept it. This happens at all of those companies and is nothing new, it's just being announced as a warning due to customers complaining of slow service and cold food. If you want the food faster you will have to pay more for it. Don't want to pay more then go get it yourself. Why would a driver drive to the restaurant, wait for the order, drive to the customer possibly in heavy traffic or bad weather just for $3. Then wait unpaid for another order to come up. Take gas, wear and tear, taxes off of that $3 and they are basically working for free if you don't give a decent tip. If you don't think they are worth it then go get it yourself.

What a mess!

 

[GenXguy]

For those complaining about DoorDash, what they announced is not a new thing. It is just being mentioned by the company. Drivers who deliver for DoorDash, Uber Eats, Grub Hub and others are all self employed and they can take or not take any order they choose. If an order pops up on my phone to go 5 miles for $3 I will ignore it and the food will sit. That order gets sent to other drivers in the area. If no driver accepts it then DoorDash ups the payout until someone accepts it all while the food gets closer to room temp. If the order includes a $5 tip for a total of $8 while still not a lot it is much more likely to get someone to accept it. This happens at all of those companies and is nothing new, it's just being announced as a warning due to customers complaining of slow service and cold food. If you want the food faster you will have to pay more for it. Don't want to pay more then go get it yourself. Why would a driver drive to the restaurant, wait for the order, drive to the customer possibly in heavy traffic or bad weather just for $3. Then wait unpaid for another order to come up. Take gas, wear and tear, taxes off of that $3 and they are basically working for free if you don't give a decent tip. If you don't think they are worth it then go get it yourself.

I mentioned seeing the news story because it was indicative of people not tipping. So, are you experiencing a lot of non-tippers for the orders coming up that you are not taking?

It does seem to me that a tip should only be determined by the customer AFTER the delivery has been made.

 

[Gumby]

It's not actually a tip, it's a delivery charge. There's a price to be paid for someone coming to your door. I have to agree with Aaron - if you don't like that, then go get it yourself.

 

[Midpack]

I would gladly pay 18-20% if I could split that up by Front of the House (FOH) and back of the House (BOH). IMO the people who deserve the money are the line cooks, prep cooks, and all the other staff working at the back who made my meal possible.

Carrying a few plates and some drinks is considerably less effort and skill. Reward the people who made the food.

I assume you realize there’s a substantial difference between the base pay of servers versus cooks and staff - they are rewarded compared to servers. And having worked as a server many years ago, you have no clue what it takes to be a good served in a sit down restaurant. And at least the BOH folks don’t have to put up with the abuse from all too many entitled customers, much worse now than it used to be - probably because of attitudes like yours…

 

[ShokWaveRider]

When we lived in Paris we ran into 3 waiters who were sent over by their restaurant to better learn wine pairing. Not an expense the restaurant would bear for plate carriers!

Europe is NOT the USA! They typically pay their employees and value them better.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

It does seem to me that a tip should only be determined by the customer AFTER the delivery has been made.

Just like most things with reference to solicited appreciation (Whether it be likes or Tips). YouTube posters ask for likes, subscriptions, etc. BEFORE one has viewed their content, not after when it really should be. How can you like something before you have seen it. Seems the way we are doing things here lately.

 

[sengsational]

I don't use food delivery, but the description of how it works was enlightening.

It must be true that the driver can ascertain the distance from the restaurant to the destination before accepting the "fare"? Presuming driving miles get compensated reasonably, it seems the short trips have more non-driving time, and would need the "queue jumping incentive payment" to make up for it.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Personally, I think that Restaurants and the service industry in general missed an opportunity to fix the archaic tipping model. During this recent inflation cycle they could have paid their employees better, so they did not have to rely on Tips to get by and rolled it into their general operating costs. But Noooo, they put their prices up and added "coerced" tipping to their regimen. Greed trumped decency as usual.

We (The public consumer) would really not have noticed. Now all we notice is higher prices and obscene tipping practices. When will service employers learn to look after their employees and pay them a living wage.

I personally think that more folks would eat out and use other services if tipping was not so much out of control, especially for lower income folks. I would not mind paying more for my meal knowing all concerned were being adequately compensated. Now we just avoid it and only patronize business' that we know do not use such "extra fee" coercion practices. If they do, we simply do not go back.

Eating out for us is not such a big deal. Having to put up with noisy patrons, uncontrolled children and poor food preparation is NOT our idea of a good evening out. Having been forced to eat out a lot during my w@rking years, I cannot say I miss it one iota.

 

[MichaelB]

Take gas, wear and tear, taxes off of that $3 and they are basically working for free if you don't give a decent tip. If you don't think they are worth it then go get it yourself.

It's not actually a tip, it's a delivery charge. There's a price to be paid for someone coming to your door. I have to agree with Aaron - if you don't like that, then go get it yourself.

I totally agree. Food delivery has a cost and people need to be willing to pay for it. It’s unfortunate that delivery services and restaurants don’t make that more clear. Everyone wants the additional business but no one wants to pay for it.