Tipping in Restaurants

Standingtall

I always simply leave 10% unless very dissatisfied. For instance, when I was charged for food I had neither ordered nor received, and knew this had happened to others, at a restaurant on holiday, then I sorted out the discrepancy and left nothing.

10% is easy to work out and seems to be acceptable all over the world. It is also generally affordable when dining out with my daughter.

claire16c

an9i77 wrote: »

I don't do this myself but a friend of mine will leave coppers as the tip if the service is awful, as if to make a real statement about how displeased she was. I'd just up and leave without leaving a tip myself, but no, she's scrabbling about in the bottom of her bag for pennies to leave. Must really p1ss off restaurant staff when that happens (or maybe its only my friend that does it?)

People in the US will often leave 1cent to show bad service. I myself here would just not leave a tip. Although seeing as Ive read on here some people dont leave tips, Im not sure how well that would actually work so perhaps leaving a 1p would work better!


I always tip 10% in a restaurant if the service was good, or 15% if excellent, Id feel embarrassed not to - and I wouldnt go to a restaurant if I didnt want to tip, I feel its part and parcel of the whole thing.

I find that in general, service is much better in the US, and they have a big tipping culture there. It used to annoy me, but not anymore because there you get much better service because the staff know they wont get tipped otherwise - whereas here people can give you bad service, because there is no come back (or at least not as much if people dont tip much).

erichamster

gunsandbanjos wrote: »

Going the extra mile?
I've gone to the shops down the road during service to buy items for a diabetic as we had run out.

I've gone to the pub over the road to get a pint of guinness for a guest who really wanted one and we dont sell it. Done this more than once.

One of colleagues went to the restaurant next door to get a Haggis so we could cook it for tourists who were on the final day of their trip and hadn't had it yet and wanted to try it. Again it's not something we serve.

Just a few examples of good service where we could Just have said - sorry we don't have it.

But all these examples would have depended on the policy of the place where you work not just you in particular.

You wouldn't have gone and got a haggis if the kitchen wouldn't have cooked it/paid for it, you wouldn't have got a pint of guiness if the management wouldn't let you serve it so it was really the ethos of the place that presumably expected you to do these things as part of your usual job that led you to do this.

So surely an establishment that does all these extra things for their customers should be paying its staff more for the extra responsibilities/tasks expected of them, not just expecting tips.

The way we have decided who to tip seems very arbitrary.

Torry_Quine

I only tip if the service was exceptionally good. Why someone should get extra for just doing their job, that really annoys me! It usually is a couple of pounds. Always in cash and I dislike service charges automatically added on and think they shouldn't be allowed. Can remember going out in a group and the service was appalling with wrong orders, undercooked veg and long delays yet the service charge was still added, needless to say we didn't pay it.

Mojisola

redpete wrote: »

I would rather I (the recipient of the service) had some say over whether that service was satisfactory rather than the employer deciding on my behalf.

Why would you want it to be that way in a restaurant but not in other kinds of business?

WolfSong2000

Acc72 wrote: »

Why ? - as a customer, surely good customer service should be expected ?

It is then up to the individual customer to decide if they want to leave a tip or not.

Because it's good manners? I'm not necessarily talking monetary rewards here - even just a few nice words so you know that your efforts have been appreciated. I'm not arguing that good customer service shouldn't be expected - of course it should - but on the flipside it's nice to know that your efforts are appreciated. It's sometimes the smallest gestures (a smile or kind word) that can make the biggest difference to someone's day. Is that too much to ask?

xoxo_2

I always tip unless the service is poor. If it's so bad I don't leave any tip at all then it's usually because the service has been so pants I'm planning to complain. Otherwise i'll always leave something. The staff get such poor pay for the amount of work they have to do, and they're not there to be my slave. They deserve a little extra.

lady1964

OH & I have just moved to Beijing and tipping isn't allowed!

There are some high class restaurants that add on a 10-15% service charge but the vast majority don't, nor are their staff allowed to accept tips.

Service everywhere we've eaten/drunk so far has been very, very good and it is annoying that we can't tip but if tipping means someone could lose their job, then that's terrible so we have to accept we can't tip.

What do is be very appreciative with words to bar staff. The 'local' we've found has really friendly staff with table service. We go in, sit down and they ask 'one tsingtao & one white wine?' we confirm and they bring it over. They are very good at replenishing drinks when there is a small amount left in the glass. The staff seem to really enjoy their jobs, not like some sour faced waitresses/bar staff you get in the UK who look at you as if you're an inconvenience!
Their attitude and the general atmosphere are two the reasons this bar has become our local.

Emmzi

Personally I think if you can't afford/are too mean to tip you shouldn't eat out. The wait staff get paid little enough for a very physical job and have to be happy and helpful too.

Give them a fair tip! I'm embarrassed to tip less than 10%. And that is 10% before applying your MSE discount coupon.

balletshoes

WolfSong2000 wrote: »

Because it's good manners? I'm not necessarily talking monetary rewards here - even just a few nice words so you know that your efforts have been appreciated. I'm not arguing that good customer service shouldn't be expected - of course it should - but on the flipside it's nice to know that your efforts are appreciated. It's sometimes the smallest gestures (a smile or kind word) that can make the biggest difference to someone's day. Is that too much to ask?

I agree - but thats not the same at all as tipping. If my service has been okay or good, I always smile and say thank you very much to my waitress/waiter at the end of our meal.