Restaurant Gratuity
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Cheap meal, or cheap skate?
So you want to impress this girl your seeing, and decide to take her to a nice restaurant where the food is good and the service excellent. Not the fanciest restaurant, but something upper class. The server is awesome, the food is tasty and in good timing, the booze is flowing and everything is going great. Then it's time to settle the bill. You pull out your credit card, sign the pre-auth >>> and don't tip. Your girl sees this. First sign, this one's a cheapskate. If he can be so cheap at a restaurant, how do I know he's not going to be cheap with me down the line. She isn't impressed and it ruins the mood for the rest of the night. Whether or not the guy realizes it.
Okay, I have worked in the restaurant industry for about 12 years, in 2 different countries. Not every place is the same, not all tourists know how to tip in foreign countries but do yourself a favour, AND LEARN!! If you can afford to go out to a full service restaurant, you can afford to tip. Tipping is not a city in China!
Tipping in Canada, is a minimum of 15%. Yes, 15%. That may sound high, but it's not. Consider how much your supposed to tip for a haircut ( 15-25% ) it's not a bad deal.
When you go eat a meal, a percentage of that meal has to be "tipped out" on. For example, if the tip-out is 5%, that means that 5% of what ever the total price of the bill is, the server has to pay back to the restaurant. Why? Simple. The cooks, bussers and other support staff get a portion of this money. It's called tip-out, like an incentive that pushes up the hourly wage they recieve. ( So if a busser earns $10 p/hour, with tipout, the total amount collected over a period divided by his hours, it pushes his average hourly wage to $14 etc). This is how restaurants keep employees >> making good money. It is NOT an option for servers to tip out, IT IS MANDATORY!! The reason being, is that servers make good tax free money, give good service to the customer, the customer keeps coming back and pushing up revenue sales for the business. In order to keep people happy they have to have a good wage, and to be competitive with wages in the market well still being in budget, tips help out everyone.
What happens if I don't tip? Well, it happens. Sometimes the service wasn't that good, and the customer ( not obliged to tip ) doesn't. That's the nature of the business, you win some you lose some, probably did something wrong and now you lose out. OR, the customer is just plain cheap and doesn't believe in it. If you don't know how to tip, GO EAT AT McDonalds!!!
When you don't tip, the server has to pay the 5% portion of the tip-out out of their own pocket. So, say you ring up a $300 bill, that's $15 they have to pay out of their own pocket to cover THEIR side of the expense to make sure the rest of the staff get paid their hourly wage incentive. That is not very fair. Well, why doesn't the restaurant suck it up?? Are you kidding me, with the sales the restauarnt makes, 5% of a weekly average sales of $130,000, calculated over a year is a fortune!!! Kiss your budget goodbye, you don't have money to hire staff, or give raises to current staff and your going to have to push up the prices of your food to cover costs. All this money has to be found, and come from somewhere! It's the server's table, they have to suck up the cost. And yes, it is legal... Occasionally the manager will help out the server and promo some things from the bill to help absorb the impact of the tipout they now have to pay because someone was a cheapskate, but it can't be done everytime.
So think about that the next time you go out, your actions towards the server, affect more than just the server. If there is a major error in service then get a manager and get it resolved. Sure, sometimes they don't deserve a tip but don't be cheap, and don't blow little things out of proportion. Just because you had a bad day doesn't mean you need to take it out on the people trying to give you a good dining experience >> don't EVER think we are there for you to do that ( take your tantrums out on us). If your going to be like that, rather stay at home, because your not doing us any favours, and we don't need your business so you can cost us our business. Don't complain about the price of food. Inflation is hitting all of us, not to mention covering costs for loss of profits for people not tipping, being overly fussy with food and sending back for guest preference errors, and DnD's ( Dine and dash).
Not to mention, no tipping when your on a date can send the signal you will possibly be selfish and cheap in a relationship. That's a nice firm impression you got going there, especially if they are in the industry. Don't expect any calls back from her, ha!
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Comments
Rebecca, I read your hub very carefully and I need to admit, that it is not written in a way to encourage the gust to tip at the end of the dinner. It is written in a quite rude and non polite manner towards the guest. You, as a waiter, cannot 'blackmail' for a tip.
Tip is not a mandatory, until exactly written in legislation - a law and taxed in accordance with. It is a reward for a good service. I am never going to tip somebody for a bad service, because in this way I am not motivating him/her for a better job next time.!
My personal the highest tip I'd ever received as a waiter from an individual person was $1200, and even more from the corporate account. Believe me, I know what the tipping means and how to get a high tips at the end of the evening, as well.
The guest is a king in the restaurant. The guest is bringing income for the restaurant to run. The purpose of the restaurant as a business is making profit for the owner. Paying employees is only one cost among many other costs of the restaurant owner.
Your following words are plain ridiculous: >> don't EVER think we are there for you to do that. If your going to be like that, rather stay at home, because your not doing us any favours,
You are there for whoever books a table in the restaurant you work for. If you don't think so, the owner or the manager is soon going to replace you with more suitable and more polite person.
Sorry, for my comment, but I think you Hub makes more bad than good in encouraging people to tip at the end of the dinner. You, as waiter are not there to judge what should guests do with their own money. You are there to make as good service as possible, and that's all. And you have more than enough to do, if you really want to perform an excellent service.
solarshingles>> I'm not a waiter, I'm a manager. When I have a customer come in, bitch out and verbally abuse my employees and throw food at me because he had a bad day, when he received top-notch service I ban him. When I say don't EVER expect to be able to do that, I mean it. I am not under any circumstances obligated to serve someone with such behaviour. My employees come first. Without them, there is no restaurant. The guest is not King of the restaurant, if they can't behave - get out. There are other guests trying to enjoy their meal that pay good money for their food and know how to behave, that are welcome anytime. They don't pay to be bothered by some sideshow of people who think their in a food court. I mentioned in the hub, tipping is not something a customer is obliged to, but this hub is aimed at the cheapskates out there, not the people that do tip. Some people don't tip out of ignorance, some people don't tip because they are cheap. I'm tired of having employees in tears and quitting because they have to pay $50 out of their own pocket to cover a tipout on a group of people who where fussy as hell, got excellent service and threw it back in their face, unappreciated. Good service in this province is hard to come by, especially since most employees here DON'T need a job, it's more of a convenience for them.
Don't talk to me about costs, I know all the costs, budgets, profits and losses. There are a ton more to mention but, as I mentioned above TIPOUT affects SERVERS MONEY, and it affects what we pay someone as an incentive ontop of hourly wage, which ultimately affects hiring. Nobody will work for us for $9 and hour when they can literally go across the street and get hired for $11. Not all restaurants can afford to pay 11, so they pay a base wage, then tipout according to how many hours are worked for the employee. As a manager, hiring and retaining staff is a main concern. Without staff, there is no restaurant.
Nowhere in this hub, have I "blackmailed" or assumed to blackmail a guest for a tip. Merely stating how tips work. Most people don't understand the math behind it. To get good service and not tip is rude. I've never eaten out and not tipped, because I know how it feels and I don't want someone else losing out because I can't afford the extra $2.
"don't EVER think we are there for you to do that. If your going to be like that, rather stay at home, because your not doing us any favours, " >> rude guests cost us money. We foot the bill, and we usually foot the bill for the other guests that they have disturbed around them, whether it's because they where rude to other guests ( people pushing inline during a wait, being rude to other customers, letting their kids run around like it's a Chuck E Cheese etc), verbally abusive and everyone hears it, or make their problems everyone elses. Where do you think that money comes from? Falls offa tree? No, we have to get it from somewhere. There is a budget for this, but it has a limit. Go over the limit then it comes out of other things and affects other areas. You, being a waiter, wouldn't understand this. Like most servers just see the money in your hand. That's where it ends for a server. If the restuarant isn't making profit, why are they there?
Rebecca, I am very sorry to hear that you're having so bad experiences with some of your guests. There is a really substantial difference in 'normal' restaurant work and almost 'emergency conditions' you had described.
It's okay, I was thinking about it. I've worked in many standalone restaurants, and the one I work in now is in a mall, the busiest one in Canada. I think the reason we have a harder time here is because a) It's the mall. We get every walk of life and b) That's the alberta market. So ya, people that don't get the mall experience might take this hub a different way than intended. The kind of customers we have had have been anything thing from a guy masterbating in the lounge under the table while talking to our lounge girl ( who ended up cleaning up the mess after security hauled him out) to the sunday morning church goers that get the same meal, same time every week routinely. Guests are important, for sure but when they cross the line they are not guests at all. As far as tipping, everyone gets the same service regaurdless if we think they are going to tip or not. For people that come to work and go through hell it doesn't feel very rewarding when at the end of a 12hr work day they walk away with nothing. Some servers deserve it because they lack the people skills, some servers don't because they work their butts off and really earn their money. I appreciate the feedback though, as it is 2 perspectives of the same thing and is quite interesting to see how other people think. :)
Hi, Rebecca!
I was a waitress for 16 years in the U.S. and I certainly agree with you on the rude customers costing money. I have had the worst days taken out on me and had to smile and roll with the flow. 99% of the time, I had the customer laughing before they left and received a tip in the end. But there are cases that you just can't do enough for a person who doesn't want to be satisfied. Those are the extreme ones!
Our pay is very different here, though. We could only dream of a starting salary of $9 per hour for a waitress! Here is what they do to the waitresses here. Our minimum wage is around $5.25 per hour here. The waitresses fall under a different catagory than other workers and our restaurants are not required to start the waitresses out at minimum wage. Most are started at half minimum wage plus tips. These tips have to be reported each week and is considered part of our salary. If, at the end of the week, we didn't make enough tips to equal minimum wage, only then did the restaurant have to make up the difference to insure that we made minimum wage for the hours we worked. We also paid taxes on the tips received out of the hourly wage we made.
This method was BIG motivation to be an exceptional waitress. Otherwise, your pay suffered tremendously. We never had to pay the cooks, bussers and other employees because they were on at least a minimum wage salary and could get raises, where the waitresses didn't.
While I certainly agree that tipping should be generous if the service is great, I don't think you should be forced to tip regardless of what kind of service you receive. Many restaurants are beginning to "force" tipping by adding a percentage for gratuity to your bill. I think that practice should be banned as tipping is a choice (or rather it should be). Why would I want to tip someone who gives me lousy service? I have also seen many waiters/waitresses who take their bad days out on the customers as well. That part can be a two-way street.
My past years in this field has a big enfluence on my decision to tip. I can be pretty critical as I know what is required of the servers. On the other hand I am also more understanding with certain things as well since I know what it is like being in those shoes. In the end, I tip 99.9% of the time. However, if I feel that the service doesn't deserve tipping, I don't. That should be my choice. But by all means, if the service is good, we should tip well because it is the tips that pretty much pay their bills because, at least here in the U.S., the waiters/waitresses' hourly rate stinks! I raised 2 kids on my own with this type of income and had to work 2 full time jobs at it to do it!
Bonnie
Hi Bonnie,
Wow! Is that legal to be paid below minimum wage like that? I know it is'nt here in Canada. We aren't even supposed to do uniform deductions unless the servers are buying extras. Servers here hardly declare tips. I think most only declare 25% of what they make incase they get audited. They make awesome money here, more than any salary manager that's for sure. Some of them still complain about it, but I guess after hearing how is it there in the States they have no room to complain.
The way that it is legal is the little catch of reporting the tips and if they don't equal minimum wage, the employer then makes it up in salary. I think it really stinks but not much we can do about it but complain. I also believe that a tip is a "gift" and not salary so therefore should not be taxed as such. The IRS here doesn't agree apparently LOL. Fortunately, I was one who made much more in tips than I ever did in salary at these jobs. Many aren't so lucky. This is one of the reasons that managers have a hard time finding and keeping good waiters/waitresses in this country. If they got paid a descent salary, the service in most places may see a big improvement!
Bonnie
One word. Delicious
Rebecca,
Great hub. I have been in the industry for over 20 years and I hate bad tippers. I will tip at least 15% and usually 20. After starting in the kitchens and working my way up to management I know the crap that goes on. It is very ignorant of people to think that it is ok to be stingy with tipping. I have am amazed at some of my own family that think it is ok to tip five dollars on a hundred dollar bill. The service industry is tough and when you add alcohol to the mix things get even uglier. Most guests don't even comprehend the pschological effects they put on the employees with their rudeness, abusiveness and just plain ingnorance. But our employees keep coming back to work and to put up with another day in hopes of earning a meager living. It is our duty as guests to ensure that we show our appreciation to the employees that serve us. I always say that if you can't afford to tip don't go out to a sit down restaurant, you always have fast food. It really is sad that some people will try hard to justify why they don't have to tip. When most service employees rely on 90% of their income to come in the form of a tip it is sad that some people won't help to support them. The employers generally only pay minimum wage and sometimes less if that particular state has a wage credit. When you are only being paid 6-8 dollars an hour the tip becomes ever more priceless for the employee. Respect those that serve you. It is your priviledge to give to them in a way that says thank you for your servitude.
Wow. I really want to move to Canada right now. I have been serving for two years, earning $2.35/hr as a base wage. My tips equal out to about $10-12/hr, $12-13 on a busy night. I am definitely going to look for a better place to work.
Bob Ewing says:
2 years ago
15% is reasonable, sometimes I tip more.