I’m so lost on how to tip anymore. I remember back when 12% pre-tax was considered a really good tip, but now the kiosks recommend 20-25% (which is usually ON TOP of tax).
I already don’t tip anywhere I’m not sitting down with service, but 20-25% is crazy when I’m just trying to get fed.
I don’t want to fiddle around through a machine menu, so if it has reasonable suggestions like 12% 15% and 18% I’ll usually choose one of those.
If their automatic suggestions are at something like 20% 25% 30% I usually just press no tip instead of custom and entering in another value.
I justify it by saying the next three people paying 25% are paying for my 15% tip, because obviously they can afford it more than I can.
That high tip suggestions piss me off and I’m more inclined to tip lower.
When I eat in at a restaurant (excluding places with no waiters or service), 15% is my standard tip. I choose the percentage on the payment machine, so I assume it’s on top of the tax. When I order take-out, I don’t tip at all.
I’m curious how much you guys tip (if at all) for things outside the restaurant industry. For example, taxis.
Good taxis get tips, mediocre taxis don’t. Luckily for my wallet, most taxi drivers suck.
I’m lucky and make a decent living. Not “buy a house in Vancouver” money but I’m basically not struggling. So, I figure anyone working minimum wage is doing something I probably wouldn’t like doing and I want to help out.
I also love restaurants and bars. My favourite spots, those servers are doing hard work that I couldn’t do and they put up with all sorts of horrible nonsense. And if they don’t make enough, they leave and the place suffers. So I generally tip 20 at a place I like, 15 if it’s meh or whatever.
It’s ridiculous. Servers in Canada get the same minimum wage as anyone else. It’s not like the states where they only get $2/hour.
So I’m supposed to tip $2 every time a bartender pours a pint? Like come on. Multiply that by 8 people in the bar and suddenly my bartender is making $40/hour to open and hand me beer while I make $20/hour to be responsible for the lives of children (I’m a school bus driver).
I do believe bartenders deserve more than minimum wage, but when you look at it that way it seems our priorities as a society are super skewed and that’s why I don’t go to the bar.
And before you tell me to get a better job, I already have two better jobs but I’m low on the list and don’t get enough work through them to quit the bus yet.
Doesn’t the US force employers to pad the employee’s wage up to normal minimum wage if tips don’t cover it?
No idea, but this is the first I’ve heard of that
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/state/minimum-wage/tipped
It varies by state, but goes like this:
Many states that we care about (Washington, Oregon, California) require employers to pay state minimum wage before tips.
In other states (New York, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Hawaii), employers are required to pay at least the state minimum wage after tips and are required to provide a tip credit if tips don’t meet the state minimum wage threshold.
In those states where minimum wage is equal to the federal minimum, employees are required to pay at least the federal minimum wage after tips.
Nowhere is anyone legally required to be paid less than minimum wage for doing work.
For sit-down or coffee, generally 20%, as I’ve done for years. Not going to go up to 25%, and it’ll take bad service for me to dip below 18%.
Slightly different for delivery - I’ll usually do a flat $5 if they’re nearby and I’m just ordering a meal for me and my partner. If we’re getting a lot of food, I’ll add to that.
If I order takeout food (not coffee), I don’t tip at all.
Zero. I do not tip anywhere, regardless of good service which is their job to do, and for bad service I do not go back again.
i only tip 20% or more if it’s a delivery, and the weather is shit. if its a sit down restaurant 12-15% is fine.
at fast food & coffee places I ask if they actually get the tips(they will usually say no, honestly) and then tip or not accordingly.
I’m stuck in the 12% mentally too for sit down. I recently stopped tipping for to-go orders at cafes. I stopped feeling bad about it too.
Delivery I tip a couple dollars. Sit down meal I tip 12-18%. Fast food or counter service I hit not tip.
Delivery: $5 Takeout: $0 Sit Down: 18%
So much for delivery?
It’s a standard I grew up with - if anything I wonder if I should be raising it for inflation.
Much like servers, delivery drivers aren’t paid properly if they aren’t tipped. But, in my mind, the quantity of food matters a lot less to the delivery driver’s work, unless it’s a large enough order to require multiple trips from the vehicle.
For the amount of time a driver has to work to drive to me and park and bring my order to the front door, yeah I think $5 is more than reasonable. They probably spend more time on me than a server in a restaurant does, in a lot of cases.
These days most tips have to be handed in to the company and divvied up/taxed. So tipping the driver/server doesn’t help them as much unless they’re skimming.
I’ll tip if I’m given any kind of service above and beyond “handing me stuff at the counter”. So if I walk up to a counter, order, pay, then receive order: no tip. Otherwise, 10-20% depending on service level.
If they ask for more than 20% they’re capped at 15% and I’m going to judge them silently.
I’m pretty much this too. But I feel like I’m tipping 15% because I’m being guilted into feeling this is the lowest I should. 15% used to be a decent tip now it feels like I’m being judged for it.
If you’re being judged for it, that’s because the employees are being massively underpaid. I tend to not return to places with that atmosphere.
If the wait staff is awesome and you have a great time, tip high to show your appreciation. Tipping because you feel pressured to or because you feel sorry for the employees is self-perpetuating. Everyone loses except the business owners.
only at places with sit-down service or delivery drivers, 15%, 18% for unusually good service,
but for delivery drivers on snow days? i will tip 50% or more. go forth into the breach with my blessing, pizza soldier
0%. Why is it my job to subsidize low wages. I’ll start tipping when I start receiving them myself working in trades
Why is it my job to subsidize low wages[?]
Never was.
Tipping should be a 0%+ thing: really good service is rewarded. I say this as a starving waiter from the college days. I made decent tips, but school was/is crazy-expensive.
Many regions are abolishing the lower minimum wage for servers. Your region could have already gone that route. Learn what the regs are and report or correct anyone saying otherwise: servers’ wages start at the same minimum as the cook in the back.
Tipping should be a 0%+ thing
Absolutely agree, I’ve been studying in Europe for the past few months and one of the best parts about going out to eat is having the price on the menu be exactly what you pay. No one expects you to tip. We should be including taxes in prices as well.
I grew up in Canada but now live in Asia. I dread, absolutely dread going to any country where ‘tipping’ is normal. Why do we have to pay someone to do their job? The price should be the price on the menu.
I would travel to any country in Asia that doesn’t have tipping rather than go back to Vancouver to pay $12 for a beer and be expected to tip for someone taking a bottle of beer from the fridge. I could never move back to Canada. /rant over.
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Not just Ontario – even in other provinces!
But seriously, it’s an educational thing, as employers seem to be ignorant about the new rules (which coincidentally will cost them more in payroll).
Traditionally, tipping is unrelated to low wages. It has to do with the transactional structure related to serving alcohol. There is good reason why the practice emerged in bars and why many of the laws established around tipping refer specifically to alcohol.
Unlike other liabilities which are shouldered entirely by the business, the liability related to alcohol falls on the server. Likewise, the server has free rein to reject your request for alcohol, even against the wishes of the business. This is so because there is, legally speaking, a direct business relationship between the server and the customer when alcohol is involved. Tipping exists because of that business dealing that exists outside of the establishment’s business dealings with you.
In the trades, when you do work directly for a customer – done so under your name with you bearing the responsibility and liability, you too will collect payment directly from the customer. This isn’t unusual or exclusive to serving.
So, yes, paying 0% makes sense. Without alcohol being purchased, there is no business relationship with the server. The transaction is clearly with the establishment and the establishment alone. With alcohol, things are less clear cut, but I have never met a server yet that outlines their fee structure. It is generally understood that they are going to do the work for free.
I don’t think that’s true. My understanding is that typing first started in the US because black workers were not getting paid, or paid less, and it was a way for them to subsidize their income.
Also, the general etiquette back in the day, when tipping at restaurants was 10%, was to not tip on the alcohol portion of your bill, only the food, and don’t tip the owner.
Tipping in the US isn’t thought to have began until well into the 1800s, which is centuries after the practice is thought to have began. The US didn’t exist when tipping is believed to have originated.
However, I think it is fair that you point out that black people not being paid paid by a business would be, for all practical purposes, self-employed, and as such the business relationship again would be directly with the customer.
I’m pretty random about it. I give what I feel I can afford. That could be 0, that could be 25+%.
My rule of thumb:
If there is no value added, no tip. If i buy beer, you are just checking me out, there is no value added. If i buy a coffee, and you just hand it to me at the counter, little to no tip.
If there is a small value add, 10%: If you bring my coffee to my seat, or throw my pizza in the oven to reheat it.
Service: 15% this is classic waitor territory. checking on me, refilling my water, carrying my food to my table, and cleaning up after i leave.
Outstanding service: 20% - rare, but this includes when a waiter brought my table half a dozen loaves of bread and butter (when they usually serve 1 or 2), mentioned that we could request icecream refills, and checked on us frequently.
