Who changed it to 20%

[Kelor]

C'mon, 15% is easy math, and I'm no math whiz. Just figure 10%, double it for 20%, split the difference and add to the 10%..

To get to 15%, I prefer take the bill and divide it by 20. Square that number and divide by 5. Then multiply by 3. Works every time the bill is exactly $100.

I tip 20, but I hate it. Tipping used to be a thank you for excellent service. It was commonly 10% in the 80's, and a 15% tip was EXCITING for a waitress. I wish it would go back to tipping being based on service.

 

[MRG]

I always overtip. I always get great service from people who are really happy to see me.

+1

I'm a regular everywhere I go. People work hard for crap wages so I get a great meal.

 

[Mulligan]

Tip on pretax or post tax amount?

I tip 20%, but like hell if I am going to tip 20% off the sales tax though.

 

[Out_the_Door]

BTW, my tax is 8.25% and I usually double it and round up so it is at least 16.5% so I do not feel bad at all...

I do the same, although tax here is 9.5% and I round up or down accordingly. Although I never tip at eateries where I order at a counter and then pick up at the counter.

 

[coveredbridge]

Agree that "tip creep" has raised the standard from 15% to 18-22% in the past several years. I usually pay the check by credit card but I usually try to carry enough cash in small bills so I can tip in cash, usually around 20% unless there was a problem with service. I believe this is beneficial to the servers for tax purposes; at least they seem to appreciate it.

Also, I don't generally tip on sales tax. I also don't tip someone for handing me a box, of carry out pizza, for example. I do tip delivery people, though few places deliver to the hinterlands where I live.

 

[Jerry1]

I tip well but what really bothers me is that the tip is based off the cost of the meal. The lady at the diner where I spend under $20 for me and DW visits our table more and treats us better than the person at a dinner place where the bill will get closer to $40. Was does the later get twice as much?

I usually tip $5 at the diner and I round down from 20% at the dinner place to even out the bill. If I'm over 15%, I'm comfortable with that unless the service stood out.

 

[rk911]

we like and can afford to be generous. i usually drop $5 at breakfast, $10 at lunch and $20 for dinner. we avoid fancy, dress-up places (Olive Garden is about as fancy as it gets for us) and we don’t drink alcohol so dinner tabs are usually $30-$40.

 

[travelover]

Does it matter what the minimum tipped wage is? In Michigan for example, it is still $3.50, whereas here in Washington it is $13.50

 

[FlaGator]

Pre-tax at 20%, rounded to the nearest dollar. Except at Waffle House. When the fiance' and I stop it's $25 out the door, meaning a tip of $7-8 on breakfast-type meal.

 

[Perryinva]

15% of meal cost is standard here, AFAIK. 20% is for good service, and I’ll do more if the service is special. It bugs me a LOT to tip for crappy service and then get an attitude. I always round up to even dollar too, and cash if possible. (I usually have little cash on me though)

I worked in food service as a teen, and it never made much sense to me to get tipped on the cost of a meal alone. It takes ZERO additional effort to bring a $50 plate of food as it does for a $10 plate of food or a glass of water vs a $15 glass of wine. The number of people and trips and helpfulness mean more to me. I weigh that in.

 

[Amethyst]

What I want to know is,

If the math for 15% is So Darn Hard, how do the servers even know you left 15%? Evidently, unless you leave a percentage that is an exact multiple of 10%, nobody can tell what you left!

(That goes 200% for worrying about pre-tax vs post-tax).

To get to 15%, I prefer take the bill and divide it by 20. Square that number and divide by 5. Then multiply by 3. Works every time the bill is exactly $100.

I tip 20, but I hate it. Tipping used to be a thank you for excellent service. It was commonly 10% in the 80's, and a 15% tip was EXCITING for a waitress. I wish it would go back to tipping being based on service.

 

[Amethyst]

To slice the Gordian knot...

The Amethyst family solution is simply not to go out to eat.

If it's a chain restaurant, the food is neither great nor healthy. In nice restaurants, the good food is in small portions and overpriced, and then 7% tax and 20% tip on top of it? Our definition of paying for punishment!

We probably make up for it by taking "all-inclusive" trips where gratuities are already baked into the price, though!

 

[Andre1969]

I don't know when it went to 20%, but I was a waiter back in 1989-90, and in those days 15% was considered the norm. And, there were a lot of people who were still stuck on the old 10% thing, so it was in transition.

 

[target2019]

Used to be very exact about 15%. Now I divide by 5 or 4. Life's too short to be cheap. One kid was a waitress at a wide variety of local shops and restaurants. It's a difficult job.
The suggested tips printed on bills make for interesting discussion after the meal.
(^◇^)

 

[latexman]

Pre-tax subtotal x 20% then rounded to $XX.00.

Daughter #2's sub restaurant gives immediate family a big discount, so I throw a $20 into the tip jar.

 

[Montecfo]

When I was a kid (35-40 years ago), 10% was "typical" and 15-20% was "generous".

Yes, true. Or up to 20% was at high-service restaurants.

At one time 10% was "standard". I remember hearing later that 15% was becoming "standard" because of rising costs.

What? Don't the people who say or write things like this understand that a percentage of a rising cost is itself....ugh...nvm.

I think the declining math skills argument does come into play.

 

[Amethyst]

Easily countered, though, with the "universal presence of hand-held personal computers" argument.

I think the declining math skills argument does come into play.

 

[MichaelB]

I’m amazed so many remember how much was tipped so many years ago, especially for such a thrifty bunch that had a challenging upbringing.

When I was a child we never ate out - not once that I can recall. At university I could barely afford to eat in. Even when I worked for megacorp, those first years were tough. Restaurants only became a regular thing for us once we had satisfied many other life needs.

Eating at a restaurant has always been a luxury for me, and I try hard to make it a pleasurable experience. That includes not worrying about the price of the meal or the gratuity. Life is short, there are many things far more important to worry about.

 

[Dawg52]

I tip close to 20% in my hometown....depends on the rounding. More at places that I know the owners/employees.

 

[scrabbler1]

I'll tip 18-20% for decent but unspectacular service, 22-25% for unusually good service. Very rarely will I leave the tip on a credit card. Most of the time, I leave cash for tip and somewhat less often I pay cash for the entire meal (usually for 2 people). If it's a place I eat at often, and the service was good, I want to keep those wait service folks happy. If I pay the server cash directly, I just give him/her a whole dollar amount which included the tip.


I will leave whole dollars for tips and it's never based on a total which included sales tax. The places I have eaten at which show %s for tips on the check were always based on pretax amounts anyway. And if I received a discount on the meal, I make sure to tip on a pre-discounted amount. At one place, I used some gift-card equivalents to pay the check but they were applied as pre-total discounts, not as gift cards so the %s for tips were like $2. I wasn't going to leave a $1 tip for $30 worth of food with decent service even though the check total was $5.


With good service and subpar service, at chain restaurants I will make sure to go to the restaurant's website to voice my compliments or complaints. They are very good at passing along my comments to the restaurant's management who call me back to discuss them further. This is an extension of a phrase I heard early in my working days: "Don't tell me, tell my boss," when someone complimented me on my work. Those managers sometimes gave me the aforementioned discount cards on my next visit.

 

[Amethyst]

My Dad occasionally took the family out for dinner, always a big event even if it was just a local diner. He lectured us kids about the importance of tipping, and how your tip amount conveyed what you thought of your meal. He tipped 15% for good service.

I never ate out on my own when I was single. I went on dates, and the man always paid, even when I offered to split the bill. Some men actually got offended when I made that offer...Nowadays, though, the young folks see going Dutch as normal. I agree with them.

I’m amazed so many remember how much was tipped so many years ago, especially for such a thrifty bunch that had a challenging upbringing.

When I was a child we never ate out - not once that I can recall. At university I could barely afford to eat in. Even when I worked for megacorp, those first years were tough. Restaurants only became a regular thing for us once we had satisfied many other life needs.

.

 

[PJHawk]

We are typically 20%, but now that many cities/states are no longer, or are looking into, exempting tippable job roles from the minimum wage ($15+/hr) rules I think this rate may eventually go back down to 15% as costs for patrons increase. Or I'm going to need to start and work as a server....

 

[CRLLS]

Typically tip 20% (rounded to the nearest) on the total bill, including tax. It is not a blow that dough scenario. It is just too petty to deal with calculating to the penny on a 40-60 dollar dinner bill. Tipping on the tax only makes it 2% more here.

 

[LRDave]

I tip 20-25% or more. Mostly since I got older and more empathetic to workers in the service economy and I can afford the difference. I figure this is some of the most direct assistance I can provide the potentially working-poor in this country.

 

[karen1972]

I will pretty much do anything to not have to go to a place that tips. It is seriously not my job to decide how much someone else is "worth". Tipping a % of your meal is just the dumbest idea I've ever heard in my entire life. If I had gone out to a cheap breakfast place that has to come to my table 10 times to refill coffee, get hot sauce, etc and the meal is $6 why would I tip $1.20 and then go to some fancy place where they come to my table 4 and the meal is $60 and all of a sudden that person is worth $12.

That is why fast casual dining is so popular, I go I order, I pick up the order, I eat.

If for some reason I have to go to a service dining, I will tip according to the amount of time/effort spent and how nice they are, not anything to do with price of food...so sometimes its 10%, sometimes its 100%... ie the cheap breakfast place always gets way better tips because its just more work. Bringing me a $30 steak requires very little effort and if you are super pushy, rude or flirt with my BF I will give them 10%.