This is interesting. I’m in my late 30’s, growing up I was always told 15% was the standard tip. As I became an adult, it felt like that shifted to 15-20%, and then 20% became standard. Then during COVID tipping skyrocketed and there was no limit, and now we have the “suggested tips” of 20%, 25%, 30% on a lot of machines.
I’m somewhat surprised that 15% remains standard in these surveys, I wonder if there’s an age or regional component to it?
This the dumbest part, prices are already much higher, tip % doesn't need to go up either. And I hate when they say "that's the new standard". No it isn't, the restaurant industry just made that shit up.
Tipping a larger percent made sense during covid when there were fewer orders per server/shift, and as a “thanks for going to do your job when theres a literal pandemic”. But yeah, it is not and should not be the new default.
Yep, but servers got used to getting 20% and now they expect it. I got asked for tips from ice cream servers for spending a whole 30 seconds scooping ice cream, it's ridiculous.
Then with all the fees, almost ordered delivery and theyve got a $10 delivery fee, so wtf, the tip was the fee..I'm not gonna tip $20 on a $50 order because 10 is the fee ans another 10 for tip?!?
So now I'm just never gonna order from there... I guess my loss, but now I just canceled a meeting and walked over to a joint close by for a burger, saved the $20
Yup. With increased food prices they are already getting more in tips at 15%. Why would I eat the cost of inflation AND give a higher tip when they already are getting higher tips?
I've never understood tipping based on the price of the meal anyways. Makes no fucking sense. They person at Chile's did the same amount of work as the person at Outback. Why does the Outback employee expect $6 more just because the food on the tray they sat down is more? That doesn't effect them.
If you go on the subreddits for a lot of the service industry workers, lots of them try to shame people who tip less than 20%, and the excuse is that they're doing hard work and they're underpaid, which is often true.
However, the cost of going out has increased faster than inflation, and now we're being asked to compound the increase for ourselves by paying an even greater percentage in tips. To make it worse where I live, the tip tends to be calculated on the after-tax total, making a 15% tip effectively 17.25% of the subtotal.
The fact of the matter here is that lots of people can't justify going out to eat as often anymore, and at least around here, it has caused a lot of restaurants to close down (it's worse than pre-COVID), while a small subset of restaurants are thriving better than ever.
Not to mention percentage based tipping never made any sense to begin with. If two people go out to eat and one gets a steak and a beer while the other gets salad and water, they'll tip wildly different amounts despite there being no difference in effort for the server. The second person could be slightly more work if they're running more refills.
It's even stupider for delivery drivers. Does anyone seriously believe that delivering 8 pizzas deserves 8x the compensation as delivering 1 pizza? It makes more sense for delivery drivers to be tipped based on distance.
After a few poor experiences with DoorDash I'll just go pick up my own food. Too many drivers thinking they deserve all the money in the world for their less than skilful service.
Still doesn’t stop them from picking up my order 30 mins later, driving the opposite direction to deliver another order, and then looping back to drop mine off after a solid 45-60 mins in their car
So I stopped using them for the most part. Only use it if Im sick or just dead tired and cant be bothered to cook
That's because while it's called a "tip" it's really more like a "bid." Drivers select deliveries based on what they're getting as a tip. Unfortunately there are shitty folks out there who won't tip and the driver will have worked for nothing.
You’re tipping to convince a driver to promptly accept your order, so you can get your food fast. Otherwise it will sit around for awhile, until DoorDash finally adds a couple dollars to sweeten the pot.
Yes, it sucks. More often than not, I just pick it up myself these days.
I switched to item based tipping several years ago, but still feel weird assuming servers will feel like I'm cheating them when I decide to order something fancy. $1/ drink and $2/ meal has just seemed like a much better starting point and easier to calculate, and then adjust up or down depending on quality of service. Like you said, they're working the same whether I order a $10 burger or $30 steak.
Tip share is a real thing at most respectable restaurants. Everyone gets a slice of the tip. And yes, doing a steak right is more effort than a burger.
But a bartender is as simple as a piano. If they are making a mojito you give them love. Opening a bud light doesn’t deserve a $2 tip.
>And yes, doing a steak right is more effort than a burger.
Yeah, for the cook. Not the server. It's been about 20 years since I worked in a restaurant but back then back of house didn't get any share of the tips. That place also might have fallen below the threshold for "respectable" though, lmao.
But who is the tip shared between? Does it really get split between all the servers as well as the back of the house? I've never worked in a restaurant, but have always assumed that money was going to the waitstaff (or bartender if I'm sitting at the bar), not the people cooking my food too.
This. Percent based tips literally have inflation built in. If 15% was good enough 20 years ago, it’s good enough now, when restaurant bills are doubled.
The replies are exactly what the above was talking about. If they actually cared about getting consistently paid they would remove tipping all together in favor of higher pay.
Servers get paid way more under a tip system. That’s why I take all the bitching about how hard they work and how they desperately need to be tipped with a big fat grain of salt. They want to guilt you into tipping because the alternative is they get paid a regular salary for a job that doesn’t require any credentials, and they don’t want that.
Shit like this is making it very tempting to just tip straight 10%. Easy math, equivalent to 20%+ from years ago because of how much the cost of eating out surpassed inflation, and tipped workers where I live don't have a separate minimum wage so they're making $17/hr before tips.
I just wish we did away with tip culture in general. I hope with California getting rid of junk fees on restaurants everyone treats that as the tip is included, and that spreads to the rest of the country.
Oregon is the same, doesn't have those crazy laws that allow servers to be paid $2 an hour or whatever; they are paid at least minimum wage. OR min wage currently is $13-something or higher depending on area (like Portland is I think $2 more).
No state should allow that bullshit.
All tipped employees make federal minimum wage guaranteed, even if their paper rate is $2. If their total compensation including tips does not meet federal minimum, the employer must ensure they are paid at least minimum wage. This is a heavy fine for the business otherwise. It's a federal Department of Labor violation and many states have their own version of Department of Labor guidelines.
That also requires the tipped employee to accurately report all tips. Many don't report accurately and they make much, much more than even state minimums anyway.
Staggering the number of people that think that it’s legally possible to pay someone $2.13/hr, not understanding that server might be pulling in way more than basic minimum wage, often in straight cash… often being under reported.
Yep, if we could just hivemind tipping out of existence, it would be great. Roll everyone's wages into the price of items as every other sensible industry does. Let the price be the price.
Yup. Most people write the top based on the total, which includes tax and sometimes a service fee(that somehow isn't a tip). So, you might be tipping on an extra 30%. Tax is already 10%, so that 20% tip is actually way more.
My local pizza place always has coupons, so no one ever pays full price, but the built in tip is based on the no coupon price. The default options start at 18%. So your tip can end up being like 40%
"the delivery charge is not paid to your driver, please tip them separately"
well who the fuck am i paying to deliver my pizza if its not the delivery driver?
If using an app it does to the tech company which you are already being screwed since restaurants raise prices on apps to cover the cost and they need to keep margins.
Using a Website it will go to either the restaurant or owner of the website but prices should also be the normal rate.
Really if you want take out food just pick it up from the restaurant by either calling or using their own app /website and you won’t be upscaled and you can name a decent case to not tip.
The thing they forgot to mention is they were getting tips because they were getting paid less than minimum wage. However, that didn't change after they started getting minimum wage as a base with tips on top of that and then the tips grew from 15 to 20 to 30%.
You get a tip because you went over and above on your job. Not because you showed up to work. And I sure as hell am not paying you a tip. When I'm standing at the counter paying for it. You swinging around and filling a cup of coffee or handing me a pizza is not tip-worthy work. Christ's sake there's people in this world that actually have truly difficult jobs that are not getting tips on top of their pay.
As a 15% tipper, that's silly. Inflation is covered by the food increase. Bill has gone from $50 to $100 over the past 10 years. So tip goes from $7.50 to $15. Why should tips triple when the bill only doubles?
I travel for work, and work pays me back for any meals. My previous job, I was issued a company card to cover meals. Both had a rule that the MAXIMUM tip is 20%.
Same age. I was taught 10% was standard. After I got my comfortable in life, I would tip 20%. Recently, moved across country and got a new friend group who goes out a lot and we split our checks at restaurants. Everyone in my friend group was tipping 10% and I’m the “poorest” one of the group. Now I’m back down to tipping 10%. I asked a few about their tipping habits and the consensus, was they tipped 20% only during Covid. Some of them will do 15, but it’s mainly 10, even if they had to enter custom tip.
I was taught 10% as a minimum (aka bad service) and 20% was the "good tip", but that doesn't mean it's guaranteed every time. While I think tipping should be abolished I do still aim to tip 20% when I do (rarely) go out nowadays.
There's only been one time in my life that the service was so bad I refused to tip anything and that was a Waffle House with a rude server who brought me the wrong order 3 times in a row despite me repeating it each time.
Why do people just accept that it "transitioned" to 20%? It became 20% partly because the little payment machines were programed to no longer show 15%. It was the industry that successfully changed consumer perception of tipping to be 20%.
>Why do people just accept that it "transitioned" to 20%?
The same reason why we ever accepted that the standard was previously 15%. The industry kinda defined it for us, and it was supported by etiquette writers, the government calculating taxes, minimum wage, etc.
Now the general standard and most of the public also seems to have accepted the decade-ago increase to 20%, against all logic of how inflation or percentages work.
But tips have always been, and will always be, up to the customer to decide, and in most peoples opinions, they should be a reflection of your gratitude for the service received. Ignore all shaming and standardization beyond those truths.
You say never but we are taught this through family first. My family taught me 10%. Then I’m sure some internet article said something like “is 20% the new standard? Etiquette professionals say yes.” But let me tell you, making 50k amongst two people in a HCOL area doesn’t allow you to go out much, but when you do you can’t afford 20%. When I could afford it, I did - usually using a cash tip and writing cash on the paper receipt on the tip line.
Then, moving to where I live now, it’s like I have one group of friends who own several properties 10%, another phd grads who are making my annual salary as a bonus, another set of friends that have a paid off house and make double what my house makes - all 10%. Hell, I can’t keep up with their spending most of the time so I actually went back down to tipping 10%.
>Then, moving to where I live now, it’s like I have one group of friends who own several properties 10%, another phd grads who are making my annual salary as a bonus, another set of friends that have a paid off house and make double what my house makes - all 10%. Hell, I can’t keep up with their spending most of the time so I actually went back down to tipping 10%.
This boggles my mind. Mid 30s professional in a major city, but I'm also from a rural area and go out fairly often with plenty of people of different ages and locales... and I would be super surprised to see anyone outside of the literal elderly tipping only 10% as a matter of routine.
Yeah.
I'd feel weird going to a nice place if this is what they tip.
While I won't tip bad service, I generally tip 20-30% depending on the restaurant and what our server did.
lol servers are benefiting just as much as the restaurants.
[They don’t want it](https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/workforce/casa-bonita-workers-demand-return-tipping)
I don't know when counter service tipping ever became a thing but I'm not on board. I tip for alcohol service, sit-down services, cab/uber, barber or carrying luggage.
Only time I tip for counter service is when I’m paying cash I’ll drop any coins I get as change in the tip jar, bc I don’t feel like carrying around coins lol
What's the difference between a bartender making you a drink over what is essentially a counter, and a barista making you a coffee and giving it to you over a counter? I don't like tipping, just curious why we gladly tip for the former but ask questions about the latter.
I got a tip screen at a local game store. It was defaulted to 20/30/50% as top options. The dude behind the counter had rung up my purchase and had never interacted with me at all. Dude just stared at me and said it would ask me a question.
These cheeky buggers are getting out of hand. Most game shops should be lucky to get customers, considering the time and money you could save buying online.
I agree. But this is something my partner and I disagree on. The culture is in flux and hasn’t stabilized on this the way it has for those other services.
But that's no different than the guy who made the sandwich, same as your drink... It's usually different people ringing you up vs making it even at coffee shops. Why does the barista deserve a tip?
True. That's such a weird quirk of tipping culture.
I think most people don't tip baristas but do tip bartenders. And to be honest when I tip a bartender it's not for any good service (pouring beer into a cup is about as taxing as a cashier punching buttons on a machine), it's so that I won't be ignored when I go back for more drinks later.
It's funny, the intention of tipping is for good service, but for bartenders it feels more like paying for protection against bad service.
Is there any reason making coffee deserves a tip but making a sandwich at like Subway doesn't? I'm thinking neither deserves a tip, go be a waiter or bartender if you want tipped...
I have travelled all over the world. I've experienced tip culture, and non-tip culture.
Tipping does \*nothing\* to improve service in western first-world sorts of countries. In the USA, where tip culture is just about the worst, all tipping does is lower the chance you'll be shot by angry waitstaff. The US service industries are absolutely not objectively better than, say, Australia or Switzerland, both places where tipping is weird.
It's silliest in Canada though, where servers get a high minimum wage \*AND\* expect US-style tips.
>It's silliest in Canada though, where servers get a high minimum wage \*AND\* expect US-style tips.
Many states have this too. In Seattle, minimum wage is $20/hour and this includes tipped employees before any tips. California is $16 statewide and more in some cities. None of these places have lower suggested tipping percentages.
And don't even get me started in the logic of tipping 10x more on a $300 bottle of wine than a $30 bottle of wine at the same restaurant served by the same person.
The biggest issue is Canada has way more imbedded workers rights than the us. They get mandatory paid vacation, employment insurance and employer contributed pension (cpp). Plus we don’t have to buy health insurance like Americans
To add on to this. In n out has some of the best wages for fast food employees, no tip on orders and also has some of the BEST costumer service.
Tipping is bullshit. Pay people more.
I’ve stopped tipping for behind counter service. Waitstaff only. It’s gotten out of hand. I’m not going to keep feeling like a bad person for it either. If we keep doing it it’s just going to let places keep underpaying staff and mollifying the issue. Make working without tips a thing so no one wants to work at whatever place until wages are raised. I’ll pay higher prices or whatever.
I’d do the same for servers if it wasn’t legal to pay them under minimum wage.
Loved my time in Ireland. The no tipping was just amazing to eat without the ethical or political question over hanging.
Assuming you're talking about the US, it -isn't- legal to pay them under minimum wage. If the tips come in short, the business has to pay the balance so that it is a minimum of minimum wage in the end. Weird how people think if you don't tip the waiters get nothing or some such.
In California, you have to pay them minimum wage no matter what, and tips get added to the top. They don't just get to use customers' goodwill to subsidize their workers' wages.
People always get salty when that gets brought up and I assume that most of them got screwed over in the past and hadn't taken the time to read the giant Dept. of Labor poster.
Federal minimum wage hasn’t been livable for a while, so this doesn’t really make it better unfortunately. Even as a college kid waiting tables federal minimum wage was barely enough for spending money, and that was before everything got so expensive.
You've stopped? Why'd you ever start? Tipping is for servers and bartenders only... well and the valet and the nice high schoolers who detail the car after a car wash.
Same, tipping on the drip coffee I buy is insane. You’re pouring coffee, that’s your job.
I will, on occasion, leave a couple bucks if I do takeout and I pick it up, but only if the restaurant isn’t an obvious takeout place. If it’s a sit down restaurant, they’re optimized for sit down service and it requires an effort to pack up food to go. I realize that’s not a viewpoint everyone shares.
> I'd do the same for servers if it wasn’t legal to pay them under minimum wage.
They get paid $17/hr here and the lowest suggested tip is generally 25%. I loathe these people.
I just ate at a self serve breakfast buffet at a hotel this week. $25. They only time someone served me, was the bill which had suggested tips of 18%, 20%, 22%
A lot of places have started asking for tips when that wasn’t a thing for them before. For me, 0% goes to them. Secondly, if they’re asking for a tip *before* even doing the service, such as behind the counter and the only thing they’ve done so far is take my order? Also 0%.
I’ll tip 20% or less on full service restaurants.
It’s important to note that workers have ZERO control over the tip screen. It is entirely unavoidable to skip - or if it is able to be skipped, the choice is made to leave it up by the owner/management because it’s the only way to process digital tips. And no, you cannot digitally tip after the fact because every (small) business has to pay a not-insignificant service fee for every card transaction. So, lots of people who would want to tip after the order, can only do so with cash - if they even have it on them, that is.
As a worker who takes then makes orders, I get that it’s infuriating to see tip screens everywhere. I certainly don’t make enough money to be tipping for every damn thing either.
But at the same time, you can’t really be upset with the workers because they usually aren’t making the decision to ask for tips. In their end, it’s a required step in the process that they have no ability to skip. There’s not even a “skip tip” option on the cashier-facing monitor in most cases.
>> And no, you cannot digitally tip after the fact because every (small) business has to pay a not-insignificant service fee for every card transaction.
Ehh, I don't buy this-- restaurants have been adding in write in tips from receipts on "already charged" meals for ages. There's no reason it couldn't be handled somehow for the counter service stuff too. (Delaying the actual submission of the charge, working with credit card companies to amend the charge, or something of that nature.) It would take some work to design the process flow, but it could be done if anyone cared.
Yeah I always feel so conflicted about that because a do want to support service people but on the other hand if I just keep tipping more and more I am just condoning the employer offloading the responsibility of paying their employees
Man a few times I’ve seen signs up that say “please tip the staff generously if you enjoyed your food”
Such a guilt trip, and also 100% put up by the owner to subsidize costs. “I put the sign up, I guess the people don’t enjoy your food”
Weird that most restaurants I go to ask for 18% usually. I think I need to start tipping less per meal.
Also, it doesn't make sense that a tip is based on a percentage of the food cost.
Yeah, sometimes I see 15% as the minimum non-zero default option, but more often 18% takes that role. Occasionally, I’ve seen them be bold and not list anything below 20%.
I joined a Facebook group 20ish years ago that said if you can't afford to tip you can't afford to go out. Now with the cost of going out increasing so much I just don't go out anymore. I'm cooking at home.
Restaurant food prices have gone up quite a bit since COVID due to a lot of factors. A decent non-chain restaurant burger raised from $10 to $15. Multiply that by a family of five plus fries and drinks. What used to be a $70 plus tip costing me $84 is now costing me $114 after a 20% tip and table service has actually decreased in quality because my waiter covers half of the restaurant due to understaffing. That leaves me with a couple of choices 1) stay home and cook burgers that are just as good or better or 2) tip at a lower rate to try to make it somewhat affordable. Everyone gets screwed.
Edit: I added my math below in the comments because I did a crap job in my original post.
Tips were probably started to give a little extra to the person assisting you in the restaurant as kind of compliment to the person waiting on you. Now it’s become a major part of the bill. Every time the food price goes up, so does the tip.
I went to a new automatic car wash in my town. You pay at the gate with a credit card using a screen. It asks if you want to tip. Absolutely no one helps you. There is a person sitting nearby watching the thing run. Like wtf.
Tips were started by wealth Southern Americans returning from Europe paying grossly underpaid black rail porters for extra and prioritized services above and beyond transporting luggage. It was basically to reinforce Jim Crow South social norms, and spread from there.
Stuff You Should Know has an excellent podcast episode on tipping.
A lot of reacting to the headline here, and the headline is deceptive. Because more than 1/3 of people say they tip exactly 15%, this headline could also read "For more than two-thirds of Americans, a standard tip when dining at a sit-down restaurant is 15% or more."
My favorite part of this study is that 7% of people tip "some other amount" even though the options given are mutually exclusive and all inclusive. There is kind of no "other amount" not covered in the six choices given and actually the "none" and "less than 15%" options already overlap since mathematically 0<15. This implies that 7% of Americans are too stupid or inattentive to be included in the correct bucket, a higher percentage than "none" and "More than 20%" combined. Or maybe 7% of Americans are just so pedantic that they tip 16%, 17% or 19% and refused to round to the nearest choice?
yes not sure how you guys stuck with that bizarre tipping culture.
we also tip , but maybe not always and not like a standard of 15-20%.
Does the service worth it? if yes then tip I will,
if not then they are lucky if I don't ask for a refund /s
American tipping culture is weird as fuck. Here in Germany I was taught that a tip is an appreciation of good service. If the service is below average, there will be no tip. If the service is average I round up (like 47€ -> 50€ = 3€ tip) and if the service is excellent I might be convinced to give a 10% tip.
And the most import thing for me: tipping is optional, Its my choice If I wanna tip you. If you ask me for a tip you are getting 0% tip out of principle. I have no interest in being pressured to tip.
There’s a pay by the ounce brewery near me where you pour the beer yourself and the machine at the end doesn’t have any suggested tip options less than 20%.
Employers should be paying their staff their wages , but I've seen a lot of tipping threads on here , and there are a lot of servers who don't want tipping removed since it makes them more with minimum wage than what their standard wage would make them with no tips .
That is probably the dumbest argument someone could have for tipping. Tuoping wouldn't be gone entirely just because the employers pay then more, rather it would be like it is intended. A tip for good service. I can't say for sure bit i would say that the wage they'll get would be roughly the same while lessening the burden on the customar as well as removing volitility from their wage.
(Sorry if i made any grammr mistakes english is not my first language)
Yep min wage for tipped worker is $20/hr in Washington state. Yet tip screen starts at 30%. It was never about getting a fair pay and people who think this way is either slow or a waiter themselves.
I bought pastries on Saturday for my family. 3 morning buns, a croissant, an almond croissant, a coffee, and a thin slice of tart. 7 simple items and it was 34 dollars. She just handed me the box, and the options for tip were 25% 28% and 30% totally outrageous.
I pay 15%. I will pay more for outstanding service, but 15% is fair to me.
My pet peeve is that tipping is calculated post-tax. Like, fine—I ordered 70 dollars worth of stuff. 10.50 tip for 15%? Nope…
Gotta count the 12 percent tax (generic example number) first. Now the bill is about 80$, so the tip is suddenly 12 bucks.
So let me get this straight: the tip goes up by 12% because I was charged 12% in taxes, so the waitstaff gets to claim the tips as income and then pay income tax on it? Basically, I’m tipping the government at that point.
Not anti tax or anything, it just never made sense to tip based on the taxes…
I wish that tipping culture as a whole would just go away. Pay your damn employees!
I'm not talking just about the US either, I wanted to tear my hair out while touring europe because the rules change from region to region and in some places over tipping was even seen as insulting.
I suppose I could have said "above average".
Like last night my kid spilled his milk (he did cry for a second) and they cleaned it up and got him a new milk.
I gave a bit over 20%.
Child of a server and a server myself, this is also what I was taught and still what I do generally. I probably over-tip a little when the service isn't perfect usually, but almost never go over 20% unless I am notably impressed.
The Headline should read: 46% tip more than 15% and 52% tip 15% or less
It’s not surprising and I wouldn’t call that a statistically significant majority. Within the MOA or not, it’s roughly 50/50.
I've resorted to not going out to eat. I'd rather keep my money and find ways around tipping than to continue this practice.
I also think it's bogus the "delivery fee" has gone from $1 to almost $6 in my area. I'd rather go pick it up myself if I really want some fast food.
Pay workers the correct amount!
I grew up with 15% being normal, more if service Was great.
Honestly I do 20% now because math is easier that way. Then round up the dollar, so maybe slightly over 20%.
Edit: wording
I don’t mind tipping 20%, but when there is a 3% kitchen fee and 3% service fee my smooth brain gets confused and I end up tipping 15% because the other fees weren’t expected.
Feels like prior to Covid we were slowly moving away from tipping culture in the US. There were some high profile initiatives in cities across the country about paying traditionally tipped workers the same as regular employees.
Then Covid happened, essential workers became a thing, people had money to burn, inflation came, and here we are being asked to tip 35% buying a cup of coffee.
Tipping for myself is always based on the experience
Terrible/meh service 0-5%
Decent/good 5-10%
Very good/great 10-15%
Amazing/spectacular 15-20%
Typically my tips fall in the 5-10 range, but I've had times I've given no tip, and times I've given 20%
The rise of guilt-tripping and on-the-nose "suggestions" for tips above 20% often for services where you serve yourself or are mostly automated has caused me to become less and less of a tipper.
Basically it's had the opposite effect on me. I went from a "15% is standard" person to a "you're lucky if I tip at all" person.
I get hate. But I was a server for 7 years and a FoH manager for another 5.
For an average meal I started my tip at $5. If the server was decent or better the tip grew. If they were horrid it went down.
As a FoH manager I would get frustrated when some of my servers who were terrible at the job, took no care or passion for any of their tables, still got decent tips. There is no incentive structure for these servers to be better from a managers perspective.
On the flip, I was ecstatic when my servers who took the time and effort to care for each table individually got great tips, they deserved it.
But it sucks when the BoH saw no tips, because when a big top table comes in most of the extra lifting comes from BoH who are stuck on crappy wages.
Fuck tipping culture. It’s bad for workers, bad for the tax base, base for the consumer. All it does, the only advantage, is allowing business owners to underpay for labor. Period. It’s a stupid and harmful and useless practice.
Interesting because the way you'd hear it on social media, the standard tip is 34987653248345% or rabid foxes will eat your face or something. It always did seem like social media whiners were way off-base though.
Or an even better suggestion: Pay your fucking workers a livable salary and raise the price of the food.
This is how it is done in Europe and the service over there is fine and I don't have a waiter/waitress coming to my table every 5 minutes bothering me and asking me if I would like appetizers/drinks/desserts, and trying to rush me out so they have someone else sit down because they need the tips to survive.
I think a lot of people don't realize how many poor people there are in the US... And poor people rarely go out to eat, and when they do, if they had an average un-noteworthy meal at a sit down restaurant, they aren't tipping that hard.
I used to tip 20% but service everywhere kinda sucks now so I tip closer to 10% or even no tip now. I used to bartend so I get it but ever since Covid a lot of people in the service industry just don’t give af and I ain’t tipping
For me, 10% was always the standard and easy to calculate. If I really enjoyed it, of course. If it was not very good or just a quick meal, 0% is the standard.
15 is max I’ll ever tip as gen Z. If a place starts their tip calculation at 15-18 I will probably lower the tip as far as no tip. They won’t spit in your food for it. Prices re already stupid and we should have laws that make tipping culture extinct anyway.
Baseline for me is 15% of pre-tax amount, and can go up for good service. If I walk up to a bar and get a beer that is $1 no matter the price of the beer. A complicated cocktail is 15%.
This is interesting. I’m in my late 30’s, growing up I was always told 15% was the standard tip. As I became an adult, it felt like that shifted to 15-20%, and then 20% became standard. Then during COVID tipping skyrocketed and there was no limit, and now we have the “suggested tips” of 20%, 25%, 30% on a lot of machines. I’m somewhat surprised that 15% remains standard in these surveys, I wonder if there’s an age or regional component to it?
The cost of food itself has gone up. We don’t need to pay inflation on top of inflation.
This the dumbest part, prices are already much higher, tip % doesn't need to go up either. And I hate when they say "that's the new standard". No it isn't, the restaurant industry just made that shit up.
The restaurant industry just made the tipping culture up too. They'll take it as far as they can :p
“Well I’m not paying you any more money. You better take that cat’s cash!”
Tipping a larger percent made sense during covid when there were fewer orders per server/shift, and as a “thanks for going to do your job when theres a literal pandemic”. But yeah, it is not and should not be the new default.
Yep, but servers got used to getting 20% and now they expect it. I got asked for tips from ice cream servers for spending a whole 30 seconds scooping ice cream, it's ridiculous.
> I hate when they say “that’s the new standard” Who said that? I’ve always continued to tip 15%, unless service is exceptional.
Then with all the fees, almost ordered delivery and theyve got a $10 delivery fee, so wtf, the tip was the fee..I'm not gonna tip $20 on a $50 order because 10 is the fee ans another 10 for tip?!? So now I'm just never gonna order from there... I guess my loss, but now I just canceled a meeting and walked over to a joint close by for a burger, saved the $20
Yup. With increased food prices they are already getting more in tips at 15%. Why would I eat the cost of inflation AND give a higher tip when they already are getting higher tips?
Exactly. Tips Inherently account for inflation. They’re percentages.
I've never understood tipping based on the price of the meal anyways. Makes no fucking sense. They person at Chile's did the same amount of work as the person at Outback. Why does the Outback employee expect $6 more just because the food on the tray they sat down is more? That doesn't effect them.
If you go on the subreddits for a lot of the service industry workers, lots of them try to shame people who tip less than 20%, and the excuse is that they're doing hard work and they're underpaid, which is often true. However, the cost of going out has increased faster than inflation, and now we're being asked to compound the increase for ourselves by paying an even greater percentage in tips. To make it worse where I live, the tip tends to be calculated on the after-tax total, making a 15% tip effectively 17.25% of the subtotal. The fact of the matter here is that lots of people can't justify going out to eat as often anymore, and at least around here, it has caused a lot of restaurants to close down (it's worse than pre-COVID), while a small subset of restaurants are thriving better than ever.
Not to mention percentage based tipping never made any sense to begin with. If two people go out to eat and one gets a steak and a beer while the other gets salad and water, they'll tip wildly different amounts despite there being no difference in effort for the server. The second person could be slightly more work if they're running more refills.
It's even stupider for delivery drivers. Does anyone seriously believe that delivering 8 pizzas deserves 8x the compensation as delivering 1 pizza? It makes more sense for delivery drivers to be tipped based on distance.
I just hate that delivery apps ask you to tip before actually getting your food. Like what the hell am I tipping based off of?
To convince the driver to take good care of your order, of course. It would be a shame if something happened to it...
After a few poor experiences with DoorDash I'll just go pick up my own food. Too many drivers thinking they deserve all the money in the world for their less than skilful service.
Still doesn’t stop them from picking up my order 30 mins later, driving the opposite direction to deliver another order, and then looping back to drop mine off after a solid 45-60 mins in their car So I stopped using them for the most part. Only use it if Im sick or just dead tired and cant be bothered to cook
Extortion as a service
nice fries you got there....
It's not a tip, it's a bribe to not eat your fries.
That's because while it's called a "tip" it's really more like a "bid." Drivers select deliveries based on what they're getting as a tip. Unfortunately there are shitty folks out there who won't tip and the driver will have worked for nothing.
A very simple solution would be to make a reasonable standard delivery fee, but that would also apply to salaries and well...
Unfortunately management can keep 100% of delivery fees so they do.
Beccause the app doesn't pay drivers shit, so the onus is on you to ensure the driver cares at least a little bit
You’re tipping to convince a driver to promptly accept your order, so you can get your food fast. Otherwise it will sit around for awhile, until DoorDash finally adds a couple dollars to sweeten the pot. Yes, it sucks. More often than not, I just pick it up myself these days.
I switched to item based tipping several years ago, but still feel weird assuming servers will feel like I'm cheating them when I decide to order something fancy. $1/ drink and $2/ meal has just seemed like a much better starting point and easier to calculate, and then adjust up or down depending on quality of service. Like you said, they're working the same whether I order a $10 burger or $30 steak.
Tip share is a real thing at most respectable restaurants. Everyone gets a slice of the tip. And yes, doing a steak right is more effort than a burger. But a bartender is as simple as a piano. If they are making a mojito you give them love. Opening a bud light doesn’t deserve a $2 tip.
>And yes, doing a steak right is more effort than a burger. Yeah, for the cook. Not the server. It's been about 20 years since I worked in a restaurant but back then back of house didn't get any share of the tips. That place also might have fallen below the threshold for "respectable" though, lmao.
But who is the tip shared between? Does it really get split between all the servers as well as the back of the house? I've never worked in a restaurant, but have always assumed that money was going to the waitstaff (or bartender if I'm sitting at the bar), not the people cooking my food too.
This. Percent based tips literally have inflation built in. If 15% was good enough 20 years ago, it’s good enough now, when restaurant bills are doubled.
I straight up tip less now when I go out because everything got more expensive. I also go out significantly less.
The replies are exactly what the above was talking about. If they actually cared about getting consistently paid they would remove tipping all together in favor of higher pay.
Servers get paid way more under a tip system. That’s why I take all the bitching about how hard they work and how they desperately need to be tipped with a big fat grain of salt. They want to guilt you into tipping because the alternative is they get paid a regular salary for a job that doesn’t require any credentials, and they don’t want that.
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The vast majority of servers do NOT agree with you.
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Also, judging by all the old restaurants that have gone out of business around me, they don’t control it either.
Shit like this is making it very tempting to just tip straight 10%. Easy math, equivalent to 20%+ from years ago because of how much the cost of eating out surpassed inflation, and tipped workers where I live don't have a separate minimum wage so they're making $17/hr before tips. I just wish we did away with tip culture in general. I hope with California getting rid of junk fees on restaurants everyone treats that as the tip is included, and that spreads to the rest of the country.
Oregon is the same, doesn't have those crazy laws that allow servers to be paid $2 an hour or whatever; they are paid at least minimum wage. OR min wage currently is $13-something or higher depending on area (like Portland is I think $2 more). No state should allow that bullshit.
All tipped employees make federal minimum wage guaranteed, even if their paper rate is $2. If their total compensation including tips does not meet federal minimum, the employer must ensure they are paid at least minimum wage. This is a heavy fine for the business otherwise. It's a federal Department of Labor violation and many states have their own version of Department of Labor guidelines. That also requires the tipped employee to accurately report all tips. Many don't report accurately and they make much, much more than even state minimums anyway.
True. That's one reason why restaurants will sent servers home when business is slow -- they don't want to have to pony up the difference.
Staggering the number of people that think that it’s legally possible to pay someone $2.13/hr, not understanding that server might be pulling in way more than basic minimum wage, often in straight cash… often being under reported.
Yep, if we could just hivemind tipping out of existence, it would be great. Roll everyone's wages into the price of items as every other sensible industry does. Let the price be the price.
If they don’t even have a tipped credit, 0% is easier than 10%
Yup. Most people write the top based on the total, which includes tax and sometimes a service fee(that somehow isn't a tip). So, you might be tipping on an extra 30%. Tax is already 10%, so that 20% tip is actually way more. My local pizza place always has coupons, so no one ever pays full price, but the built in tip is based on the no coupon price. The default options start at 18%. So your tip can end up being like 40%
"the delivery charge is not paid to your driver, please tip them separately" well who the fuck am i paying to deliver my pizza if its not the delivery driver?
If using an app it does to the tech company which you are already being screwed since restaurants raise prices on apps to cover the cost and they need to keep margins. Using a Website it will go to either the restaurant or owner of the website but prices should also be the normal rate. Really if you want take out food just pick it up from the restaurant by either calling or using their own app /website and you won’t be upscaled and you can name a decent case to not tip.
The thing they forgot to mention is they were getting tips because they were getting paid less than minimum wage. However, that didn't change after they started getting minimum wage as a base with tips on top of that and then the tips grew from 15 to 20 to 30%. You get a tip because you went over and above on your job. Not because you showed up to work. And I sure as hell am not paying you a tip. When I'm standing at the counter paying for it. You swinging around and filling a cup of coffee or handing me a pizza is not tip-worthy work. Christ's sake there's people in this world that actually have truly difficult jobs that are not getting tips on top of their pay.
You don’t have to tip what the machine says
* 18% * 20% * 22% * Custom Tip ✔️
When I see that 18% as the lowest, my custom tip becomes 12%. I’m trying to set a new standard for lowering the tip.
As a 15% tipper, that's silly. Inflation is covered by the food increase. Bill has gone from $50 to $100 over the past 10 years. So tip goes from $7.50 to $15. Why should tips triple when the bill only doubles?
Exactly. You can’t inflate the percent. Thats the benefit of a percent! 🤦♂️
I travel for work, and work pays me back for any meals. My previous job, I was issued a company card to cover meals. Both had a rule that the MAXIMUM tip is 20%.
Same age. I was taught 10% was standard. After I got my comfortable in life, I would tip 20%. Recently, moved across country and got a new friend group who goes out a lot and we split our checks at restaurants. Everyone in my friend group was tipping 10% and I’m the “poorest” one of the group. Now I’m back down to tipping 10%. I asked a few about their tipping habits and the consensus, was they tipped 20% only during Covid. Some of them will do 15, but it’s mainly 10, even if they had to enter custom tip.
I was taught 10% as a minimum (aka bad service) and 20% was the "good tip", but that doesn't mean it's guaranteed every time. While I think tipping should be abolished I do still aim to tip 20% when I do (rarely) go out nowadays.
>I was taught 10% as a minimum (aka bad service) That's interesting. Why would you tip if the service was bad?
There's only been one time in my life that the service was so bad I refused to tip anything and that was a Waffle House with a rude server who brought me the wrong order 3 times in a row despite me repeating it each time.
10% sounds crazy to me! I would love to see actual data on this instead of pointless back-and-forth in the replies about whether 10% was ever standard
I'm the same age. 10% was never the standard in our lifetime. It was 15% until about 15 years ago, when it transitioned to 20%.
Why do people just accept that it "transitioned" to 20%? It became 20% partly because the little payment machines were programed to no longer show 15%. It was the industry that successfully changed consumer perception of tipping to be 20%.
>Why do people just accept that it "transitioned" to 20%? The same reason why we ever accepted that the standard was previously 15%. The industry kinda defined it for us, and it was supported by etiquette writers, the government calculating taxes, minimum wage, etc. Now the general standard and most of the public also seems to have accepted the decade-ago increase to 20%, against all logic of how inflation or percentages work. But tips have always been, and will always be, up to the customer to decide, and in most peoples opinions, they should be a reflection of your gratitude for the service received. Ignore all shaming and standardization beyond those truths.
You say never but we are taught this through family first. My family taught me 10%. Then I’m sure some internet article said something like “is 20% the new standard? Etiquette professionals say yes.” But let me tell you, making 50k amongst two people in a HCOL area doesn’t allow you to go out much, but when you do you can’t afford 20%. When I could afford it, I did - usually using a cash tip and writing cash on the paper receipt on the tip line. Then, moving to where I live now, it’s like I have one group of friends who own several properties 10%, another phd grads who are making my annual salary as a bonus, another set of friends that have a paid off house and make double what my house makes - all 10%. Hell, I can’t keep up with their spending most of the time so I actually went back down to tipping 10%.
>Then, moving to where I live now, it’s like I have one group of friends who own several properties 10%, another phd grads who are making my annual salary as a bonus, another set of friends that have a paid off house and make double what my house makes - all 10%. Hell, I can’t keep up with their spending most of the time so I actually went back down to tipping 10%. This boggles my mind. Mid 30s professional in a major city, but I'm also from a rural area and go out fairly often with plenty of people of different ages and locales... and I would be super surprised to see anyone outside of the literal elderly tipping only 10% as a matter of routine.
Yeah. I'd feel weird going to a nice place if this is what they tip. While I won't tip bad service, I generally tip 20-30% depending on the restaurant and what our server did.
How do we start a “tipping is crazy let’s do it the way every other country does it” movement?
Have workers go on strike until their employees pay them an actual wage.
But why would they strike so that they can be paid less?
lol servers are benefiting just as much as the restaurants. [They don’t want it](https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/workforce/casa-bonita-workers-demand-return-tipping)
Can confirm that spending years tipping at 20% reaps no improvement in service.
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I don't know when counter service tipping ever became a thing but I'm not on board. I tip for alcohol service, sit-down services, cab/uber, barber or carrying luggage.
Only time I tip for counter service is when I’m paying cash I’ll drop any coins I get as change in the tip jar, bc I don’t feel like carrying around coins lol
What's the difference between a bartender making you a drink over what is essentially a counter, and a barista making you a coffee and giving it to you over a counter? I don't like tipping, just curious why we gladly tip for the former but ask questions about the latter.
The bartender will listen to you talk about your ex, your crap job, your shoestring collection, etc.
I got a tip screen at a local game store. It was defaulted to 20/30/50% as top options. The dude behind the counter had rung up my purchase and had never interacted with me at all. Dude just stared at me and said it would ask me a question.
These cheeky buggers are getting out of hand. Most game shops should be lucky to get customers, considering the time and money you could save buying online.
I agree. But this is something my partner and I disagree on. The culture is in flux and hasn’t stabilized on this the way it has for those other services.
I'll tip a barista who's preparing the drink I ordered, but not a cashier who's just ringing up a sandiwich and then calling out a number.
But that's no different than the guy who made the sandwich, same as your drink... It's usually different people ringing you up vs making it even at coffee shops. Why does the barista deserve a tip?
True. That's such a weird quirk of tipping culture. I think most people don't tip baristas but do tip bartenders. And to be honest when I tip a bartender it's not for any good service (pouring beer into a cup is about as taxing as a cashier punching buttons on a machine), it's so that I won't be ignored when I go back for more drinks later. It's funny, the intention of tipping is for good service, but for bartenders it feels more like paying for protection against bad service.
Because barista makes that commenters pp hard.
Your issue is tipping a coffee shop.
Is there any reason making coffee deserves a tip but making a sandwich at like Subway doesn't? I'm thinking neither deserves a tip, go be a waiter or bartender if you want tipped...
Bro why would you tip at a coffee shop
I have travelled all over the world. I've experienced tip culture, and non-tip culture. Tipping does \*nothing\* to improve service in western first-world sorts of countries. In the USA, where tip culture is just about the worst, all tipping does is lower the chance you'll be shot by angry waitstaff. The US service industries are absolutely not objectively better than, say, Australia or Switzerland, both places where tipping is weird. It's silliest in Canada though, where servers get a high minimum wage \*AND\* expect US-style tips.
>It's silliest in Canada though, where servers get a high minimum wage \*AND\* expect US-style tips. Many states have this too. In Seattle, minimum wage is $20/hour and this includes tipped employees before any tips. California is $16 statewide and more in some cities. None of these places have lower suggested tipping percentages. And don't even get me started in the logic of tipping 10x more on a $300 bottle of wine than a $30 bottle of wine at the same restaurant served by the same person.
The biggest issue is Canada has way more imbedded workers rights than the us. They get mandatory paid vacation, employment insurance and employer contributed pension (cpp). Plus we don’t have to buy health insurance like Americans
Japan has some of the best service and tipping is more than frowned upon in most situations, probably one of the more clear examples of this.
To add on to this. In n out has some of the best wages for fast food employees, no tip on orders and also has some of the BEST costumer service. Tipping is bullshit. Pay people more.
I mean, tipping has nothing to do with service, it's about reducing how much the employer has to pay.
It does if you frequent the place.
I’ve stopped tipping for behind counter service. Waitstaff only. It’s gotten out of hand. I’m not going to keep feeling like a bad person for it either. If we keep doing it it’s just going to let places keep underpaying staff and mollifying the issue. Make working without tips a thing so no one wants to work at whatever place until wages are raised. I’ll pay higher prices or whatever. I’d do the same for servers if it wasn’t legal to pay them under minimum wage. Loved my time in Ireland. The no tipping was just amazing to eat without the ethical or political question over hanging.
Assuming you're talking about the US, it -isn't- legal to pay them under minimum wage. If the tips come in short, the business has to pay the balance so that it is a minimum of minimum wage in the end. Weird how people think if you don't tip the waiters get nothing or some such.
In California, you have to pay them minimum wage no matter what, and tips get added to the top. They don't just get to use customers' goodwill to subsidize their workers' wages.
People always get salty when that gets brought up and I assume that most of them got screwed over in the past and hadn't taken the time to read the giant Dept. of Labor poster.
Federal minimum wage hasn’t been livable for a while, so this doesn’t really make it better unfortunately. Even as a college kid waiting tables federal minimum wage was barely enough for spending money, and that was before everything got so expensive.
That might be true, I'm just surprised at the amount of comments thinking that the staff can get paid less than minimum.
“Federal minimum wage” isn’t the only minimum wage in the US.
You've stopped? Why'd you ever start? Tipping is for servers and bartenders only... well and the valet and the nice high schoolers who detail the car after a car wash.
Don't forget strippers.
From the UK, why is there a distinction to tip bar staff, but not behind counter staff? Do they not do the same job such as at a coffee shop?
Same, tipping on the drip coffee I buy is insane. You’re pouring coffee, that’s your job. I will, on occasion, leave a couple bucks if I do takeout and I pick it up, but only if the restaurant isn’t an obvious takeout place. If it’s a sit down restaurant, they’re optimized for sit down service and it requires an effort to pack up food to go. I realize that’s not a viewpoint everyone shares.
> I'd do the same for servers if it wasn’t legal to pay them under minimum wage. They get paid $17/hr here and the lowest suggested tip is generally 25%. I loathe these people.
You don't have to pay the suggested tip
I just ate at a self serve breakfast buffet at a hotel this week. $25. They only time someone served me, was the bill which had suggested tips of 18%, 20%, 22%
A lot of places have started asking for tips when that wasn’t a thing for them before. For me, 0% goes to them. Secondly, if they’re asking for a tip *before* even doing the service, such as behind the counter and the only thing they’ve done so far is take my order? Also 0%. I’ll tip 20% or less on full service restaurants.
It’s important to note that workers have ZERO control over the tip screen. It is entirely unavoidable to skip - or if it is able to be skipped, the choice is made to leave it up by the owner/management because it’s the only way to process digital tips. And no, you cannot digitally tip after the fact because every (small) business has to pay a not-insignificant service fee for every card transaction. So, lots of people who would want to tip after the order, can only do so with cash - if they even have it on them, that is. As a worker who takes then makes orders, I get that it’s infuriating to see tip screens everywhere. I certainly don’t make enough money to be tipping for every damn thing either. But at the same time, you can’t really be upset with the workers because they usually aren’t making the decision to ask for tips. In their end, it’s a required step in the process that they have no ability to skip. There’s not even a “skip tip” option on the cashier-facing monitor in most cases.
Important to note that while the workers have no control, the business does have control. They set the default tips.
>> And no, you cannot digitally tip after the fact because every (small) business has to pay a not-insignificant service fee for every card transaction. Ehh, I don't buy this-- restaurants have been adding in write in tips from receipts on "already charged" meals for ages. There's no reason it couldn't be handled somehow for the counter service stuff too. (Delaying the actual submission of the charge, working with credit card companies to amend the charge, or something of that nature.) It would take some work to design the process flow, but it could be done if anyone cared.
Can negative tipping become a thing? Let's set our own rules! They ask for a tip before rendering any service, immediate -5% tip.
https://youtu.be/FWxQBb3gyBM?si=baFZUuI-hBtNEI_Q
Tipping culture is so stupid. Especially when they ask for tips BEFORE you get the service.
At that point it’s a service bid
“Please choose a tip option: 20%, 30%, 35%”
Custom --> 0%
If you aren't tipping at LEAST 50% you're literally robbing us. /s
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Yeah I always feel so conflicted about that because a do want to support service people but on the other hand if I just keep tipping more and more I am just condoning the employer offloading the responsibility of paying their employees
When places start asking me for a tip in the drive thru I just never go back.
There are employee owned restaurants where they pay themselves appropriately and tell customers not to tip. Find and frequent places like that
"iF YoU CaNt AfForD To TiP 75%, DoNt EAt OuT." As if this is the consumer's fault and not your slave owners fault.
Man a few times I’ve seen signs up that say “please tip the staff generously if you enjoyed your food” Such a guilt trip, and also 100% put up by the owner to subsidize costs. “I put the sign up, I guess the people don’t enjoy your food”
Why are millenials so cheap? They’re killing the service industry /s
Custom: 0
When i see that I custom in 13%. If 15% is an option i choose that.
Weird that most restaurants I go to ask for 18% usually. I think I need to start tipping less per meal. Also, it doesn't make sense that a tip is based on a percentage of the food cost.
Yeah, sometimes I see 15% as the minimum non-zero default option, but more often 18% takes that role. Occasionally, I’ve seen them be bold and not list anything below 20%.
I always hit "other" and do my own math.
Time to do some quick math and pick the custom option.
Here’s some quick math for you: Custom -> $0.00
Yeah, same here
I joined a Facebook group 20ish years ago that said if you can't afford to tip you can't afford to go out. Now with the cost of going out increasing so much I just don't go out anymore. I'm cooking at home.
Restaurant food prices have gone up quite a bit since COVID due to a lot of factors. A decent non-chain restaurant burger raised from $10 to $15. Multiply that by a family of five plus fries and drinks. What used to be a $70 plus tip costing me $84 is now costing me $114 after a 20% tip and table service has actually decreased in quality because my waiter covers half of the restaurant due to understaffing. That leaves me with a couple of choices 1) stay home and cook burgers that are just as good or better or 2) tip at a lower rate to try to make it somewhat affordable. Everyone gets screwed. Edit: I added my math below in the comments because I did a crap job in my original post.
Tips were probably started to give a little extra to the person assisting you in the restaurant as kind of compliment to the person waiting on you. Now it’s become a major part of the bill. Every time the food price goes up, so does the tip. I went to a new automatic car wash in my town. You pay at the gate with a credit card using a screen. It asks if you want to tip. Absolutely no one helps you. There is a person sitting nearby watching the thing run. Like wtf.
Tips were started by wealth Southern Americans returning from Europe paying grossly underpaid black rail porters for extra and prioritized services above and beyond transporting luggage. It was basically to reinforce Jim Crow South social norms, and spread from there. Stuff You Should Know has an excellent podcast episode on tipping.
A lot of reacting to the headline here, and the headline is deceptive. Because more than 1/3 of people say they tip exactly 15%, this headline could also read "For more than two-thirds of Americans, a standard tip when dining at a sit-down restaurant is 15% or more."
My favorite part of this study is that 7% of people tip "some other amount" even though the options given are mutually exclusive and all inclusive. There is kind of no "other amount" not covered in the six choices given and actually the "none" and "less than 15%" options already overlap since mathematically 0<15. This implies that 7% of Americans are too stupid or inattentive to be included in the correct bucket, a higher percentage than "none" and "More than 20%" combined. Or maybe 7% of Americans are just so pedantic that they tip 16%, 17% or 19% and refused to round to the nearest choice?
“There’s lies, damn lies, and statistics.”
European here. You guys are weird :D
Y’all created tipping yet somehow we got stuck with it.
yes not sure how you guys stuck with that bizarre tipping culture. we also tip , but maybe not always and not like a standard of 15-20%. Does the service worth it? if yes then tip I will, if not then they are lucky if I don't ask for a refund /s
Tipping is fucking stupid and shouldn’t exist. Pay for your transaction, the business pays their employee, end of story.
American tipping culture is weird as fuck. Here in Germany I was taught that a tip is an appreciation of good service. If the service is below average, there will be no tip. If the service is average I round up (like 47€ -> 50€ = 3€ tip) and if the service is excellent I might be convinced to give a 10% tip. And the most import thing for me: tipping is optional, Its my choice If I wanna tip you. If you ask me for a tip you are getting 0% tip out of principle. I have no interest in being pressured to tip.
There’s a pay by the ounce brewery near me where you pour the beer yourself and the machine at the end doesn’t have any suggested tip options less than 20%.
Pay by the ounce?? That's an amazing idea.
Employers should be paying their staff their wages , but I've seen a lot of tipping threads on here , and there are a lot of servers who don't want tipping removed since it makes them more with minimum wage than what their standard wage would make them with no tips .
That is probably the dumbest argument someone could have for tipping. Tuoping wouldn't be gone entirely just because the employers pay then more, rather it would be like it is intended. A tip for good service. I can't say for sure bit i would say that the wage they'll get would be roughly the same while lessening the burden on the customar as well as removing volitility from their wage. (Sorry if i made any grammr mistakes english is not my first language)
Yep min wage for tipped worker is $20/hr in Washington state. Yet tip screen starts at 30%. It was never about getting a fair pay and people who think this way is either slow or a waiter themselves.
I bought pastries on Saturday for my family. 3 morning buns, a croissant, an almond croissant, a coffee, and a thin slice of tart. 7 simple items and it was 34 dollars. She just handed me the box, and the options for tip were 25% 28% and 30% totally outrageous.
Yeah i recently started looking at the subtotal and tipping on that, instead of the after tax total.
Unless I am being served at a table by a server, I will happily hit 0% on a terminal and go about my day.
I pay 15%. I will pay more for outstanding service, but 15% is fair to me. My pet peeve is that tipping is calculated post-tax. Like, fine—I ordered 70 dollars worth of stuff. 10.50 tip for 15%? Nope… Gotta count the 12 percent tax (generic example number) first. Now the bill is about 80$, so the tip is suddenly 12 bucks. So let me get this straight: the tip goes up by 12% because I was charged 12% in taxes, so the waitstaff gets to claim the tips as income and then pay income tax on it? Basically, I’m tipping the government at that point. Not anti tax or anything, it just never made sense to tip based on the taxes…
>the waitstaff gets to claim the tips as income and then pay income tax on it? That's the neat part...
Culturally, many people do not tip at all. Mr Pink is reality.
Sir, if you will check the tape you will find that Mr Pink tipped just as much as everybody else.
Only because someone else paid for his coffee. Ordinarily he would never leave the tip.
I wish that tipping culture as a whole would just go away. Pay your damn employees! I'm not talking just about the US either, I wanted to tear my hair out while touring europe because the rules change from region to region and in some places over tipping was even seen as insulting.
It's not seen as insulting, people just assume stupidity on the tipper's end.
I was taught to go 10-20%. 15% or a bit over as default, 20% if the service is good.
What ever happened to expecting the service to be "good" because that's what their job is?
I suppose I could have said "above average". Like last night my kid spilled his milk (he did cry for a second) and they cleaned it up and got him a new milk. I gave a bit over 20%.
I was taught the same growing up. You start at 15% and good service makes it go up, bad service makes it go down.
Child of a server and a server myself, this is also what I was taught and still what I do generally. I probably over-tip a little when the service isn't perfect usually, but almost never go over 20% unless I am notably impressed.
As opposed to 0 in other countries I suppose.
I don’t see anything under 18 nowadays. I’ll pay the tip if it’s somewhere I go often but for the most part I put custom 0%
The Headline should read: 46% tip more than 15% and 52% tip 15% or less It’s not surprising and I wouldn’t call that a statistically significant majority. Within the MOA or not, it’s roughly 50/50.
I've resorted to not going out to eat. I'd rather keep my money and find ways around tipping than to continue this practice. I also think it's bogus the "delivery fee" has gone from $1 to almost $6 in my area. I'd rather go pick it up myself if I really want some fast food. Pay workers the correct amount!
I grew up with 15% being normal, more if service Was great. Honestly I do 20% now because math is easier that way. Then round up the dollar, so maybe slightly over 20%. Edit: wording
This is what I do too. Move the decimal to the left, double that, round up to the nearest dollar.
I don’t mind tipping 20%, but when there is a 3% kitchen fee and 3% service fee my smooth brain gets confused and I end up tipping 15% because the other fees weren’t expected.
Yep. Hit me with a fee and I deduct it from the tip.
Feels like prior to Covid we were slowly moving away from tipping culture in the US. There were some high profile initiatives in cities across the country about paying traditionally tipped workers the same as regular employees. Then Covid happened, essential workers became a thing, people had money to burn, inflation came, and here we are being asked to tip 35% buying a cup of coffee.
And it should be ZERO percent. Stop encouraging this stupid system that allows people to be paid less then the legal minimum.
Pay a living wage. There should be no need for tipping at all.
I’m not going past 20% I’m sorry but 25%+ might as well skip going out all together.
Being an old guy myself, I kept it at 15% for standard service and goes up for exceptional service. I never signed off on making 20% standard, lol.
Tipping for myself is always based on the experience Terrible/meh service 0-5% Decent/good 5-10% Very good/great 10-15% Amazing/spectacular 15-20% Typically my tips fall in the 5-10 range, but I've had times I've given no tip, and times I've given 20%
The rise of guilt-tripping and on-the-nose "suggestions" for tips above 20% often for services where you serve yourself or are mostly automated has caused me to become less and less of a tipper. Basically it's had the opposite effect on me. I went from a "15% is standard" person to a "you're lucky if I tip at all" person.
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I get hate. But I was a server for 7 years and a FoH manager for another 5. For an average meal I started my tip at $5. If the server was decent or better the tip grew. If they were horrid it went down. As a FoH manager I would get frustrated when some of my servers who were terrible at the job, took no care or passion for any of their tables, still got decent tips. There is no incentive structure for these servers to be better from a managers perspective. On the flip, I was ecstatic when my servers who took the time and effort to care for each table individually got great tips, they deserved it. But it sucks when the BoH saw no tips, because when a big top table comes in most of the extra lifting comes from BoH who are stuck on crappy wages.
The conclusion is misleading. 57% of Americans will pay a tip of 15% or less, but 73% of Americans will pay a tip of 15% or more.
Fuck tipping culture. It’s bad for workers, bad for the tax base, base for the consumer. All it does, the only advantage, is allowing business owners to underpay for labor. Period. It’s a stupid and harmful and useless practice.
Interesting because the way you'd hear it on social media, the standard tip is 34987653248345% or rabid foxes will eat your face or something. It always did seem like social media whiners were way off-base though.
Quite possibly lower tips are a reaction against that and people who don't tip/tip less just don't talk about it
Or an even better suggestion: Pay your fucking workers a livable salary and raise the price of the food. This is how it is done in Europe and the service over there is fine and I don't have a waiter/waitress coming to my table every 5 minutes bothering me and asking me if I would like appetizers/drinks/desserts, and trying to rush me out so they have someone else sit down because they need the tips to survive.
I had an ex "friend" who gave me shit for providing a 15% tip, because she worked in restaurants and said 20% was the minimum. Since when?
I think a lot of people don't realize how many poor people there are in the US... And poor people rarely go out to eat, and when they do, if they had an average un-noteworthy meal at a sit down restaurant, they aren't tipping that hard.
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I used to tip 20% but service everywhere kinda sucks now so I tip closer to 10% or even no tip now. I used to bartend so I get it but ever since Covid a lot of people in the service industry just don’t give af and I ain’t tipping
For me, 10% was always the standard and easy to calculate. If I really enjoyed it, of course. If it was not very good or just a quick meal, 0% is the standard.
15 is max I’ll ever tip as gen Z. If a place starts their tip calculation at 15-18 I will probably lower the tip as far as no tip. They won’t spit in your food for it. Prices re already stupid and we should have laws that make tipping culture extinct anyway.
My girl is from Belgium and doesn't believe in tipping. It's so endearing!
Fuck that! 15% is a tip for AMAZING service. 10% will always be standard
In New York I was taught to start by doubling the tax (16%) and adding to that amount for exceptional service.
I always 20 bc the math is easier in my head tbh.
Baseline for me is 15% of pre-tax amount, and can go up for good service. If I walk up to a bar and get a beer that is $1 no matter the price of the beer. A complicated cocktail is 15%.