I always tip a very high percentage of the check when my family eats out because we donât order apps or alcohol, and we have six kids, one with a food allergy. The waitstaff typically needs to do a lot of work for my family in terms of refills and napkins and food safety. A static formula isnât going to work.
Mind you, if they are rude about our child-heavy dinner party, they will get the standard 15%. I donât have it in me to tip less⌠but I wonât tip more.
I wouldnât feel obligated to tip heavily if I was getting dessert and a cup of coffee. I will require very little attention.
I tip based on my quick mental calculus weighing time + effort + cost. So I agree it is nice, though not mandatory, to tip a little extra if you are using a table for a long time but not ordering a lot of food. Same if my kids leave a mess or if the server goes above and beyond. I never punish a server for bad service, though they may not be getting as much as they would if they had been nice.
I also agree living wages would be great. I always try to tip generously because people who serve you are putting up with a lot more than people do other types of jobs, mine included. Even if they were getting a living wage I would personally still tip. (Not saying everyone has to feel the same way.)
The only people who have it worse are probably call center employees, and in that case I try to be just really cheerful and polite, and leave a good rating if thereâs a survey, since thereâs no mechanism to tip.
My grandmother-in-law used to tell us about how she once left a nickel for a tip. (This was long ago, but even back then a nickel wasnât much.) I guess the service was atrocious, and she didnât want the server to think that sheâd just forgotten to tip. She wanted him to know that she had a very low opinion of his work.
I my experience she was generally a good tipper, so the service must have been really terrible! I never did get the details, though.
As to the OPs question, I can understand the argument for a larger tip, but realistically I probably would do what I always do. Like @bswan26, I tip based on how good the service was and the total amount of the check, excluding alcohol. Oh, and if my kids made a particular mess Iâll generally bump the tip up. (Like that time that DS knocked over a glass and it shattered on the floor⌠I felt awful! The restaurant was super nice about it, but Iâm sure it was annoying to deal with.)
My favorite tip story is when I got tipped $0.01 on a $69.67 bill, for a total of $69.68. It was a credit card tip, so they took the time to write out the tip and total and sign their name to it. I worked at a tourist destination (Mackinac Island) where we got a lot of guests from different countries with all different topping practices so I was as used to get no tip as I was to getting exorbitant tips, but to get .01 was a first and only for me. I wasnât mad- I laughed about it and I still laugh about it. If itâs funny later, itâs funny now, right?
I waited tables all through college and beyond. It is very rare that I tip below 20%. For horrible service it may go down to 15%, but not below. If we linger at the table for a while after eating I will generally throw down another $10 or $20 to compensate for the time. If all I get is a dessert and a coffee, Iâll probably leave a $5.
It has been over a decade since Iâve worked in a restaurant. I worked in 4 different restaurants, all some type of pizza/Italian food. When working a dinner shift I donât think I ever made less than $15/hour (and that would have been a slow day during the week). At one of the restaurants I made $40 - $50/hour.
My best tip ever was $100 on a $30 check. It was my birthday and my parents came in to see me
I totally get DFBâs point and yours. For me, the deciding factor is likely one we wonât ever really know. So popular ADR locations actually get walk ups? In theory if I only eat for 30 minutes, I will be vacating the table and making room for someone else - but at the most popular restaurants will there be someone else? Do they really actually tell walkups to hang around in case something opens, and would there be enough time to seat and flip before the next time slot?
On my next trip, I plan on booking late dessert and cocktail reservations as a way to stay in the park later. I plan to tip a bit more to compensate for the fact that I will likely be their last table and wonât be order a full meal.
My mom was a waitress. It was common practice in her day to leave a $.01 tip with or without an actual tip to indicate you were dissatisfied with something. So a $15 tip means they were happy or fine. A $15.01 tip meant they were unhappy, but also donât want to leave no tip.
I helped to finance college as a server, so I generally tip 20%, more for great service. But I am also very tough on a bad server.
But the point that I want to make here is that in a horrible economy for service workers I significantly overtip. A couple of dollars extra per check isnât going to prevent me from paying my mortgage. Generous tips at Disney for a server overall for all other table and guest interactions in the course of a month may make that difference.
Also, when I was there in Sept 2020, Dec 2020, and just this month I tipped the MDE guys, bell desk staff every time I used baggage service at resorts, and housekeeping $20. Every interaction. My choice, not saying anyone has to agree with me. But service workers are living on the edge, and have been at risk of this disease disproportionately in the last year.
Iâll go back to regular tipping at some point. But these people deserve a living compensation, especially since we couldnât be happy at Disney without them.
When my in laws were living, they would pay for dinner but leave very little tip, $1/person or so. Tipping wasnât part of the culture in their homeland. I was so embarrassed by them. After the first time it happened, I had tip money in my pocket every time we went out with them to eat and they paid. I would be the last one to leave the table and after they left, I would slip the tip under my plate as I left.
We ourselves donât normally tip on take out. But during the pandemic, we have tipped very generously on take out. They are not making as much as pre pandemic and they are risking their lives to be at work. I hope to stop doing take out so often in the very near future.
DH and I have eaten out more in the last year than we normally do in a decade. Weâve opted for small businesses every time for similar reasons. And, since they have far fewer tables, weâve tipped generously. It is such a sad situation.
We have have decided to go to HBD just to eat cake. All the cake though, 1 of each kind and maybe 2 of the grapefruit cake. And will have to try the grapefruit cake martini and a Cobb salad so itâs actually going to be a ârealâ meal. It very well may be our first time eating in a restaurant since March 7th 2020 so they will get a great tip.
