The business should pay well enough not to require it, and if they do their jobs very well then I may tip. I have argued with my girlfriend about tipping. They get nothing from me if its a half arsed job.
Why is it expected? They're just doing their job you shouldn't be a waiter if your not a people person and can smile etc. We don't tip other people that are nice and go out of their way to help us.
No tips... and I will shout at the manager if I find an 'optional' service charge has been added to my bill... Don't give money to beggars or charities [usually the same thing] either...
To tip or not to tip? This question always makes me uncomfortable. My tipping practice is fairly haphazrd, sometimes I do for satisfactory service, sometimes only for exceptional service, and sometimes not at all. But as we are having this conversation I think it is going to make me revise my policy and only ever tip for exceptional service. The problems I have with it are three: - I very regularly go out with no cash on me, card only. Sometimes the chip+pin device will prompt me to include a gratuity but sometimes it doesn't, and if it doesn't it feels too awkward to bother asking how to add something when in reality it's only ever likely to be £1-3 (I don't dine out fancy) - If using cash, what do I do with the tip? Hand it to the waiter? How crude. Leave it on the table as I leave? Feels too surreptitious. - The question of social expectation: Am I dining with someone else who would normally tip? Are they expecting me to leave something, and if so how much? I think if you grew up in a relatively wealthy family then you're likely to have expererienced your parents tipping waiters and become conditioned to it just being how things are done, but we very rarely ate out anywhere when I was a kid so it just feels awkward to me. A bit like hairdressers really - I always felt awkward trying to explain how I wanted my haircut, hence I now just do it myself.
Tipping annoys me a bit. i went somewhere with my house mate the other week - we called up to make sure they had what we wanted, we got down there and they didn't turned out the girl who answered the phone didn't have the "clearance" to say they did without speaking to the manager, he offered to take the service off our bill for what we did eat? This made my blood boil! As - that isn't a discount, and they shouldn't add in automatically anyway. And we had gone there under the premise we were going to eat what we wanted to eat.
I only tip if the service stands out, seems like they put a little extra effort in for you. If it was just ok or average, then no... they get a decent wage anyway.
Strangers are cooking you food and serving it to you. You expect them to cook really good food, to prepare it with care and dedication, bring it to you with a smile and make you feel looked after, special even. Isn't that worth some acknowledgement? At least a token effort of appreciation, some form of relating to them as more than just a servant? Because I can tell you, the work is hard and the pay is dismal and the customers demanding. In many cultures the restaurant chef is considered a friend. In Japan it is custom to regularly take him gifts. In the Mediterranean you may buy staff drinks; you chat with them and you build a relationship. If this all feels a bit creepy, consider that there is something in it for you: a good table, advice on what is the freshest catch of the day. You don't get to eat what he serves the customers; you get to eat what he would serve his friends. Any decent chef knows how to cook a meal. But it is only for their friends and family that they will cook a great meal. If you want the best out of a restaurant, you have to cultivate a relationship with it. Visit regularly, relate to the staff as human beings and tip well. Then you can start asking what they would recommend. You an ask what the chef's personal favorite dish is, and when he is next making it, or has a particularly good catch or ingredient that day, can they give you a call?... Tipping is simply the decent thing to do, and it repays you in many ways. If you don't tip, you're not serious about eating out IMO (and that's fine, but as always you get what you pay for). Tips should be about 10% of the cost of the meal, or at least £10,-- if you can afford it (come on, you'd spend more on a few drinks). Don't pay service charge on the bill as this may not necessarily go to the staff; some unscrupulous restaurants just use it as a fund from which to pay staff salaries. It should always go to the staff who served you or a joint tip pot which is equally divided amongst waiters and kitchen staff (so the latter don't miss out just because they aren't at front of house). Always tip in cash --it is the only way to be sure.
We rarely dine out as restaurant food is rarely as good as the food that we can produce at home. When we do eat out we make sure that it is somewhere nice which usually means expensive, if the staff have been very good then I will happily tip. Day to day restaurants get nothing.
I feel you, bro. We find it incredibly hard to find a retaurant that cooks at least as well as we do at home (of course it doesn't help that my wife used to be a chef herself). The few that we find, we cherish and nurture. We don't eat out often but we build relationships and we tip well, and it does pay off.
The cost of eating out well is just crazy compared to the cost of doing it well at home! I would definitely rather spend £200 on ingredients and wine for four than £4-600 to eat out!
I certainly can't argue with the essence of what you're saying, but I wonder if you might be romanticizing the food service industry a bit. It's understandable as I recall your wife used to be a chef, correct? If you take away the sentimental idea of fostering a relationship with the local chef, food service isn't entirely different than most other service industries. When the air conditioning needs repair, I invite the A/C technician into my home. The last guy we had loved our springer spaniel, and we chatted for a while about dogs. As with my meal, I expect him to do his best job repairing and maintaining my A/C system - that it what I'm paying him to do. While he was a nice guy, and he seemed to share an interest in dog breeds, it's not customary to tip home repair technicians. Maybe he liked my dog so he decided to work a bit harder at our house. Maybe not. I have nothing against befriending the local chef. As you said, there are benefits in the form of preferred treatment. I'm just not sure that it should be tied to an expected additional monetary compensation. I note that in some of your examples the tips aren't monetary (e.g. buying the wait staff drinks). Perhaps my opinion is formed by the the cultural aspect of tipping here in the US. We tip mostly out of obligation. I generally tip 15% because that's the expectation. As I understand it, food service salaries are based on that rule of thumb. If the service is exceptional I might offer a bit more, but I never tip less than 15% because I know that I'm essentially shorting the waiter's salary.
My usual rate is 20% for good service and 25% for excellent service. My family came over from Norway last weekend, so we took them out for dinner. The meal for 12 came to £420 and I left 20% tip as the service was pretty good. I was also impressed that they didn't automatically add the service on top. We were being served by three staff at all times, so no-one was ever without a drink and all meals were served at the same time.
My favourite places are considerably cheaper than some of you are mentioning.. Even after tips I don't break into triple digits with three people having three courses! Must be a Midlands/Southern difference or something.
I would normally tip something unless the service was bad. I don't like it when it's added automatically though.
Code: Price I pay: [<-- cost, all-in, to produce food -->|<-- +profit -->] profit = appreciation = acknowledgement
Tipping in the USA I get. They are underpaid and tips are an expected part of their income. But here in the UK? **** off. They are paid a fair wage and quite frankly they rarely deserve a tip. If they do deserve it, they get it. But if they add it on to the bill.... When a restaurant adds the tips onto the bill of their own accord I refuse to pay it. I pay the price of the things I ordered, and nothing else. I mean the cheek, the absolute gall of adding on the tip to the bill! Most times you get some grumpy sod who couldn't give two shits if ya meal was good. And then they expect to be tipped??! Tipped into the industrial bins outside more like. Unacceptable!
I'm a pretty big tipper, especially for good service but I generally like to joke around with my waiter or waitress and have a bit of a laugh sometimes pull them into conversation. But I especially always tip big with hookers though Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2
