Why are 20% restaurant tips standard?
Following the logic from the food delivery thread (now that delivery drivers are required to make a minimum wage per hour), why is a 20% tip standard in restaurants?
I understand waiters are 1) underpaid and 2) performing a service, but I don't see why it should be based on the $ amount of my bill. If the waiter walks out a $100 entree or a $20 entree, they're performing the exact same labor. For the services they provide, which are filling up my water, taking and delivering my food & drinks, I just don't see why they should be making $100 in tips from my table in one hour. If they're serving multiple tables of 4+ per hour in a nice restaurant, that comes out to hundreds of dollars per hour. In other industries, tips are reserved for exceptional service, i.e., I tip my barber or moving company for performing a service well.
I get that restaurant managers use tips as a way to avoid paying the prevailing wage but if my table of 5 people, with a total bill of $600, were to hypothetically tip $30 it'd be considered very cheap (5%). But is being a waiter really worth more than $30/hr? Even in the absence of a wage, or a minimal one, from their boss I don't see how they should make $120 (20%) in this example. Especially if they're the sole provider (no other waiters filling up water and such).
"If the waiter walks out a $100 entree or a $20 entree, they're performing the exact same labor."
First of all, the restaurant industry is a hierarchy. You don't immediately just apply to a 3 Michelin Star place and get in. You have to slave away for years, learn about different cuisines and in some cases learn about different food and drink pairings. Think of a waiter in an expensive restaurant as a sort of food consultant / culinary expert. This person is usually dressed up very nice and well groomed and well spoken. You're paying for the whole experience. They aren't just brining you your food. They are a food consultant for your entire journey in the restaurant and you're tipping your guide. If you can't comprehend what a fine dining experience is supposed to bring and what it offers, don't go out to nice places.
This right here....It's the quality of service.....Also to note a 5 person table with a $600 bill most likely you are performing more work than if it was a 2 top.
Half the time I get a new waiter with none of the qualities you've mentioned. And this argument of yours doesn't translate to other fields. I pay my electrician a lot of money for a quick job because he brings experience, I don't tip him on top of that. Similarly, I pay much more for the food at these establishments because of the chef/quality of the food, while the waiter often does very little to add to that.
When you buy coffee at a coffee shop, do you tip 20% for the Barista's wealth of knowledge? No, you pay for the good and that's it.
You're right - at the coffee shop I don't tip 20%. I tip 30%.
some people go to restaurants for food you know. I don't care how my waiter is dressed or groomed or whether he/she is well-spoken. and I don't know what kinda consulting/guiding they're doing - I'm picking my own food off the menu.
The analyst works on a $1B deal or $200m, it’s the same job.
honestly really surprised this is getting any level of MS, this is 1,000% true. A professional, classically trained waiter is skilled in many things.
If you are paying $100 for an entree, you must make a lot of money and therefore can afford to pay 20% or $20 as a tip
It's not about affording, I'm asking what's justified. I can afford to pay someone $100 for filling up a cup of water a few times and walking over a plate, but that doesn't mean it's deserved.
It is kind of about affording it. It is probably not that easy to get a waiter job at a place where an entree costs $100. If the meals are that expensive, the demand for the position is probably high and the experience required for the position is also probably substantial. If you want to eat at fancy places, you should expect to pay more.
Of course it is about what you can afford. Eating at a restaurant isn't a right, and you pay less money for your food and beverages because the waiters don't get paid as much. The trade off is supposed to be that if you get good service, you tip more, so that the waiter makes more than they would have had they just gotten a larger salary from the restaurant (which they'd pass on to you).
If your waiter does a good job, you tip them well. If they don't, you tip them less well. It is hard to imagine a scenario where I wouldn't tip at all, because again, the tip is part of their compensation. As I said on the other thread, there is also nothing that forces you to wipe your ass after you take a dump, but you do it anyway because it's a social norm and you don't want to go out in public reeking of shit, even though you theoretically could and it would be "fine."
Imagine tipping the waiter the same as wiping your ass. It isn't necessary, it's just a custom that we as a society have demanded as one of those things that keeps the wheel turning.
where does it end though? if you can afford $120, then you're well-off enough to pay $150. if you can afford $150, then you're well-off enough to pay $200. so on.
there are probably plenty of people who can afford $100 for a dinner but still $20 is not nothing for them. I am one of them.
Service people get to know who who will tip well and who are cheapos. If you do not tip up to expectations, your level of service will likely decline with some services workers avoiding your table completely. This concept is not all that different in lots of industries. I usually know who will become a valuable client and who will be mostly wasting my time. I will dedicate a much higher level of service to the people who are valuable clients.
To reiterate, it's the quality of the service and food, at a more expensive place there is also support staff like expos/bartenders/bussers/wine somms and even dessert room employees you are tipping out that the waiter splits the tip with. Honestly lots of Micheline dinning experiences are moving to the model of a chef table come for the experience and tip is included because it makes more sense for the staff. We just went to Jont and it was all included in our tab.
Honestly if you are worried about 10 vs 25 bucks on a tip you probably shouldn't be eating at a place that costs that much in the first place. If they had to up the cost of the food to meet the min wage requirements of states, most entrees will become 10-35 dollars more expensive depending on the size of the staff and how much service they provide.
How did you like Jont?
Loved it, though when you are doing a Chefs table you know it's their selection. So if you aren't into what they are feeling for the night you are stuck with that, but here they at least make a very very strong attempt to be unique and fun but also understand if you have an allergy or something. Now do I ever go back to these type of places, rarely I usually only go once and then try another one.
I'd recommend it if you are a foodie and love presentation at the same time.
I always figured that if people didn't leave ~20% tips the food would ultimately be ~20% more. I enjoy tipping. I've been blessed financially so am happy to tip.
I stopped giving 20% tips, and started offering a different form of value to waiters. I've been writing down names of MD's at Deutsche Bank on a napkin as referrals, only issue is that I've never spoken to these individuals before in my life. I wonder if I've kickstarted any recruiting processes thus far...
I think that the problem is that people are forced to pay this tip, it's usually already included in the bill, while in the rest of the world it's voluntary and people still pay the tips. I don't have any problems with paying the tip, but I don't like that I am forced to do it and more over why won't the restaurant just raise the price of the food then and pay the waiter their minial wage, and beside that the waiter will still receive extra tips, yes it won't be a regular 20% one, but the waiter will earn more, the only one who are loosing in this case is the restaurant. It's a basic in the rest of the world, I don't know why americans don't get it.
A restaurant can't do this unilaterally. There would have to be a shift in the industry that would change the culture. A restaurant raising prices 20% and then still leaving a place for tips on their bill would be out of business very fast.
Completely agreed. Instead of tipping a monetary value, I usually leave a used toothpick and a chewed piece of gum under the table. Service workers have been complete assholes in my experience. They always chuckle at my hairline as if I have any control over my male pattern baldness. Little do they know, I cleared seven figures at my LMM fund last year with 50bps of carry. Who's laughing now?
I feel like a lot of people on here have never worked in the service industry in HS. It shows. There is a rampant amount of stingy entitled assholes out there who tip 5% because the kitchen got delayed and the server couldn't do anything about it. Don't be that guy.
The real life hack is tipping those who serve you regularly very generously. They are happy to see you every time you appear and the whole process is smooth. You want to have people on your side in life.
I agree Isiah I’m kinda confused about the anti-tipping sentiment and maybe it’s because I’m not in New York. Now if I get an ice cream or I have horrible (I mean horrible) service than I’ll not tip. But I worked at an Olive Garden in college and the wage was shitty, tips was where I made my money, same thing for my friends who were delivery drivers. If I’m going out to restaurant or getting delivery I’m gonna tip, I get how it feels to be on the other side.
But why is that something which deserves $50+ per hr of work? Even if your boss paid you literally nothing, how is this service such a high paid job effectively after tips?
Some restaurants pool the tips, so the tip you give to a waiter goes to everyone at the establishment, then it it is parsed out. It's very annoying because it makes the hard working waiters share the same tip as the lazy waiters.
no real hard working waiter would ever work at one of those
no real hard working waiter would ever work at one of those
Rich kids tend to tip pretty generously, they like feeling special for money. Complaints about tipping usually come from 1st and 2nd gen immigrants, where if you don't come from a tipping culture, the tip feels like a hidden fee (especially for things like coffee that don't usually require tip).
It cuts both ways. I had friends in college who took a good chunk of tuition out from jobs with tips, which boosted them to 3x-4x min wage. I have lots of friends now, financial professionals, who get take out 90% of the time just to avoid the tip, as NYC food is brutally expensive already. It's the same thing with food delivery; most of us just don't use it anymore unless it's corporate card as it adds 30% to the bill.
This is the reason for the anti-tipping sentiment on WSO. The thing is if you live in the United States, you probably should adapt to its norms or there may be negative consequences such as service people avoiding your table or not giving you a good level of service.
It could also be a cultural thing. A lot of people on this site have roots in other countries where tipping in not as common as it is in the US
5-10 years ago the standard tip was 10-15%. The plebs decided to bumb it to 20%. What's next? 50%? 100%? I still tip 10%. C'mon guys stand your ground. We're being played
I tip for good service, whether casual or fine dining. Fuck this mandatory tip culture bullshit, not here to subsidize someone else's margins.
Your are not subsidizing someone's margins. Tips are part of an employees compensation. If there were no tips, an employer could charge 20% more and the cost to you would be the same. The worker would be negatively impacted because some tip money is probably not reported
I tip well but I'd prefer if it was all just baked into the price.
Also...does anyone else find it weird they don't try to upsell you more? Their tip would go up a lot but I rarely see waiters try to upsell me on more appetizers or try to get me to drink more.
Isn't that cross selling?
No, cross selling would be if they sold you the restaurants cookbook or jarred salad dressing on the way out
They do not try to upsell more because it might agitate some customers and then the tip would decline.
It's considered standard to tip the usual percentage on the non-wine portion, and then only tip a couple bucks extra for the wine portion. With that adjustment, your tip at a nice restaurant starts to look more reasonable. Then add the fact that the waiter is better, the attention level is higher, and the waiter needs to spend more time with each table (i.e. serving fewer tables at once) and you pretty much complete the bridge.
The tiny little church of ~30 people I go to has a vision for a cafe in our downtown. That's still many years away, but I've suggested that we have signs up that say something like "we don't accept tips; a portion of sales goes to staff" and have our prices accordingly. Like I said above, I take pleasure in tipping, but I'm very blessed financially. For the regular man on the street, I'd imagine it being very off-putting to go into an ice cream shop, spend $4.50 for an ice cream cone only to have the cashier swing around the box with a pre-selected tip %. Do that with your spouse and 2 kids and it adds up. Or you get a coffee at Starbucks for $3.00 and you're socially pressured to add on 60 cents--every day, each time you go. And if you get to know the staff, maybe you feel pressured to put knock it up to 75 cents or a dollar. Dunkin does this well--as far as I can tell, they don't ask for tips in-person, in their kiosks, or on their app and I probably end up spending more and going there more frequently unconsciously. I have no idea how they pay their staff but I assume someone benefits from the non-tipping culture at the Dunkin franchises I go to.
Tip the same % that your fund is charging performance fees.
I’m gonna be honest, if you don’t consistently tip 15-20% at waiter-service restaurants (not talking about when you pick up your coffee), you are a greedy, cheap asshole that deserves to have spit in their food. Don’t cheap out on their service because you somehow think you are above them. It is a tipping culture for service restaurants because our system made it that way.
Has nothing to do with one being above the other and everything to do with the fact that service doesn't deserve $50/hr
Tip between 15 and 20%.
So you’re telling me that a table that orders two waters and two entrees is the same amount of work as one that orders cocktails with apps, salad, entrees, wine, sides, and desserts? Clearly you haven’t worked in the service industry because that’s bogus reasoning.
So you’re telling me that a table that orders two waters and two entrees is the same amount of work as one that orders cocktails with apps, salad, entrees, wine, sides, and desserts? Clearly you haven’t worked in the service industry because that’s bogus reasoning.
Not at all what I'm saying. I think the tip should be commensurate with the amount of service provided. In your example, if the first instance cost the exact same then the tips would be equal if using a set 20% tip, which is just stupid
That's precisely what I meant. How could you not think that the two are completely different prices?
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