Poll of the Day > Have you ever not given a tip to a server at a restaurant?

(+) Yeah! (+)

For me, once on purpose and twice on accident.

The first time I was in high school and we had a half day. I went to Buffalo Wild Wings with some friends and there were a lot of people from our school there. At the end of the meal, my tab came to like $15 and so I gave the waitress my $20 and she came back and claimed that I didn't give her any money. I was confused, told her I did. She then went on this tirade about how my group and another group across from us were pulling a heist on her and were trying to screw them out of money and get free meals.

She stormed off, a minute later she found my $20 beside the register. I gave her a penny for her thoughts.

Next, I was a poor college student and eating at a local diner. I just got something basic for my basic wallet, burger and a shake. Had a really nice waitress, real good time. Bill comes for my burger and shake: some how this was exactly $19.99. Uhhh, okay? I literally had no other money other than a $20 bill.

Finally, the last time I was in a sushi restaurant and just straight up forgot to tip. I came back a week later, had the same waitress, and gave her an extra tip.

Now I always make sure I have more than enough to pay so I can tip at least 20%-25%.

Yes, I never tip. I am not responsible for society sucking.

they should be given better pay. Tipping is a practice rooted in misogyny and bigotry.

Once on accident, I felt so bad once I realized it

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https://www.eater.com/a/case-against-tipping

to everyone I recommend not tipping

FunkyFrisbee posted...

https://www.eater.com/a/case-against-tipping

to everyone I recommend not tipping

Stop being a Mr. Pink

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I pay 20% usually, not below, a little more if it's exceptional. People can have bad days so I try to keep that in mind.

Minimum wage should pay enough so we don't need to tip, but that's not the reality we live in in the states. Shitty to take it out on workers.

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Muscles posted...

Once on accident, I felt so bad once I realized it

This and it was too late to go back in.

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No. I have yet to have a waiter/waitress who genuinely deserved it. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially if its real busy and they seem distracted or harried.

Besides my grandma informed me that tipping a penny was a far worse insult for those rare cases.

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As a restaurant working lifer, if you dont tip youre not sticking it to the man and youre not standing up for whats right

youre literally taking money out of the pockets of people who are doing everything they can to get five dollars from you.

Yeah a few times. If service is very bad or if a server is rude then I wont tip.

As long as I get reasonably good service though I always tip at least a couple dollars.

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Only if they do a shitty job.

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Only a couple of times when the food has been literal garbage.

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ReturnOfFa posted...

Only a couple of times when the food has been literal garbage.

How is that your servers fault

MICHALECOLE posted...

How is that your servers fault

Every restaurant I've worked for (at least 7) has split tips between all staff. The servers get more, but if the whole operation is bad, nobody is getting extra money from me. It's hard to make truly awful food. The best I can do for a server that is really nice at a place like that is tell them the truth and slip them a tip under the table. But usually if the food is awful, the service is also lackluster. At least in my experience.

I like tipping because most restaurant workers are underpaid, servers, cooks and all. It's really rare I get a truly bad attitude from a server. Either way, I don't fully base my personal tipping protocol on how the server jerks me off. It's just part of it. It's hilarious when a place makes you wait for ordinary things (bringing water, ordering drinks etc) and sure, that will bring my tip down. My tip is going to reflect to 'overall' experience though.

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The only time I did it was a negative tip. Took my bestfriend at the time to eat sushi for his highschool graduation. This place was dead since we went at like 3pm midweek. We saw our server about 4 times. Other than that he was in the back. Our drinks stayed empty and the experience was horrible. 55ish dollar bill, left 50 in cash on the table and we left.

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hypnox posted...

The only time I did it was a negative tip. Took my bestfriend at the time to eat sushi for his highschool graduation. This place was dead since we went at like 3pm midweek. We saw our server about 4 times. Other than that he was in the back. Our drinks stayed empty and the experience was horrible. 55ish dollar bill, left 50 in cash on the table and we left.

This is pretty low. At least call the person out and pay for the food/drink you had.

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hypnox posted...

The only time I did it was a negative tip. Took my bestfriend at the time to eat sushi for his highschool graduation. This place was dead since we went at like 3pm midweek. We saw our server about 4 times. Other than that he was in the back. Our drinks stayed empty and the experience was horrible. 55ish dollar bill, left 50 in cash on the table and we left.

that isnt a negative tip, thats stealing

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When I was traveling the US I thought you could only tip with cash so if I didn't have any I simply didn't tip.

I didn't know that those servers literally needed those tips to live though, thought it was just a strongly advised nicety. RIP them they probably hated me.

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I was raised on tips, so it would take exceptionally bad service to make me not tip. So, it's only happened twice: once at King Noodle when they gave me soup that looked and tasted like straight up dishwater and I pointed it out and then the manager literally came, sat near our table, and stared at us until my friend finished her meal, never replacing my soup, just fucking glaring. I paid for the gross ass dirty dishwater. I'm almost certain it was not actual soup. The whole experience was weirdly hostile from beginning to end.

The other time was not technically me paying as I was a child, but one time my grandma, my sister, and I were at a pizza place and the waitress was just being rude for no reason. Which is weird, because my grandma is a bitch and almost anytime I would say whatever shitty service she's getting she deserved. A true Karen. But this time she was actually being cordial and polite (placated by a day of shopping in Half Moon Bay), and I could see no reason for the waitress's rudeness. My grandma kept giving the busboy money because he was taking care of our table more than the waitress. And then my grandma taught me one of her most Karen moves: if you want to insult your waiter you don't leave no tip. That happens semi-frequently and they might just assume you don't know any better or something. So to make sure they know their tip is the result of bad service, you still leave one. But only a penny.

You can always tell people who never worked in the service industry. I've seen people who are proud of their 20% tip like they're Lebron James or something. I don't work in a restaurant anymore but I remember how much it sucks and I tip 25% bare minimum unless my service is noticeably bad

Mead posted...

that isnt a negative tip, thats stealing

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I don't eat at up class restaurants and tipping isn't really a thing over here anyway. The only time I've given tips is when I went to Poland.

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MICHALECOLE posted...

youre literally taking money out of the pockets of people who are doing everything they can to get five dollars from you.

Why dont the restaurants pay them a decent enough wage where they dont have to rely on customers to tip them?

Tipping isnt overly common here but tipping as standard or seeing it as a necessity just seems a way to let restaurants get away with paying low wages.

If your workers are relying on tips from customers there is something seriously seriously seriously very wrong there no matter which way you look at it.

Having said that, Ive tipped 2 or 5 when I received exceptional service or when my waiter/waitress is clearly just a student on a part time job who could use all the money they can get. I never tip out of feeling obliged to though, thats nonsense in my book. Pay your workers more lol

edit: thats not true, Ive tipped out of obligation when I went to NYC and to Mexico because I was told its customary to tip so I was like ok fair enough. The one restaurant in Mexico I tipped cos our waitress was just lovely though so that wasnt an obligation tip

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FatalAccident posted...

Why dont the restaurants pay them a decent enough wage where they dont have to rely on customers to tip them?

Tipping isnt overly common here but tipping as standard or seeing it as a necessity just seems a way to let restaurants get away with paying low wages.

If your workers are relying on tips from customers there is something seriously seriously seriously very wrong there no matter which way you look at it.

Having said that, Ive tipped 2 or 5 when I received exceptional service or when my waiter/waitress is clearly just a student on a part time job who could use all the money they can get. I never tip out of feeling obliged to though, thats nonsense in my book. Pay your workers more lol

edit: thats not true, Ive tipped out of obligation when I went to NYC and to Mexico because I was told its customary to tip so I was like ok fair enough. The one restaurant in Mexico I tipped cos our waitress was just lovely though so that wasnt an obligation tip

There've been attempts at this, but people are flakes (very big generalization, but this applies to Canada, USA + Mexico) and don't support the restaurants without tipping because of their higher menu prices.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/no-tip-restaurants-fight-to-gain-traction-1.2640476

They've been trying for years. Like with other goods, people buy food cheaper. Everyone's living beyond their means. I just try to eat out less, but I generally tip just because I was on the other side of it for so long. People are waiting on me like fucking royalty/delivering my lazy ass some food.

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FatalAccident posted...

Why dont the restaurants pay them a decent enough wage where they dont have to rely on customers to tip them?

Tipping isnt overly common here but tipping as standard or seeing it as a necessity just seems a way to let restaurants get away with paying low wages.

If your workers are relying on tips from customers there is something seriously seriously seriously very wrong there no matter which way you look at it.

Having said that, Ive tipped 2 or 5 when I received exceptional service or when my waiter/waitress is clearly just a student on a part time job who could use all the money they can get. I never tip out of feeling obliged to though, thats nonsense in my book. Pay your workers more lol

edit: thats not true, Ive tipped out of obligation when I went to NYC and to Mexico because I was told its customary to tip so I was like ok fair enough. The one restaurant in Mexico I tipped cos our waitress was just lovely though so that wasnt an obligation tip

Tl;dr

if youre in a place that expects tipping: tip. If not, dont go out to eat.

in person Im more forgiving about this subject, but without borders, go fuck your self. Tip your server or get fucked.

i always tip, as im aware i live a charmed life, ok?

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MICHALECOLE posted...

Tl;dr

if youre in a place that expects tipping: tip. If not, dont go out to eat.

in person Im more forgiving about this subject, but without borders, go f*** your self. Tip your server or get f***ed.

lol I tip in North America cos its expected.

That still doesnt explain why restaurants just dont pay their workers more and choose to put the onus on their customers instead?

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FatalAccident posted...

That still doesnt explain why restaurants just dont pay their workers more and choose to put the onus on their customers instead?

its become socially acceptable for employers to shaft their staff in the states. just as its become a movement for the blue collar workers to fight against a better life with access to medical care, ok?

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No tip for bad service.....

once a waitress forgot my apple juice completely

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I do not tip if the service is bad.

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JigsawTDC posted...

I was raised on tips, so it would take exceptionally bad service to make me not tip. So, it's only happened twice: once at King Noodle when they gave me soup that looked and tasted like straight up dishwater and I pointed it out and then the manager literally came, sat near our table, and stared at us until my friend finished her meal, never replacing my soup, just fucking glaring. I paid for the gross ass dirty dishwater. I'm almost certain it was not actual soup. The whole experience was weirdly hostile from beginning to end.

The other time was not technically me paying as I was a child, but one time my grandma, my sister, and I were at a pizza place and the waitress was just being rude for no reason. Which is weird, because my grandma is a bitch and almost anytime I would say whatever shitty service she's getting she deserved. A true Karen. But this time she was actually being cordial and polite (placated by a day of shopping in Half Moon Bay), and I could see no reason for the waitress's rudeness. My grandma kept giving the busboy money because he was taking care of our table more than the waitress. And then my grandma taught me one of her most Karen moves: if you want to insult your waiter you don't leave no tip. That happens semi-frequently and they might just assume you don't know any better or something. So to make sure they know their tip is the result of bad service, you still leave one. But only a penny.

Eww, that sounds gross and very weird.

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The world would have better employees if more positions provided performance based compensation vs flat rate.
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It's possible that there is a correlation between tipping and hate crime; If you look at the list of the top 5 and bottom 5 for tip rate:

Top 5: Montana (16.3%), Wyoming, Colorado, Alabama, West Virginia

Bottom 5: Utah (10.6%), Delaware, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York

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ultra magnus13 posted...

The world would have better employees if more positions provided performance based compensation vs flat rate.

I feel like this has been tried in education but that it backfired in some unexpected ways

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Yes; by accident.

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Blaming the quality of food on the waiting/cook seem a bit odd. Here is what I would do if I went to a shitty restaurant I would tip like normal then never come back.

Though in my city it's very hard to find shitty restaurants even some of the shittiest looking bars in the city still have at least reasonably good food. Any restaurant or bar here that is serving bad food will soon find their business closed since there are way too many good options.

grimhilde00 posted...

Minimum wage should pay enough so we don't need to tip, but that's not the reality we live in in the states. Shitty to take it out on workers.

Truee

I used to not tip until I had the roles reversed on me.

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I live in WA where min wage is the same if you have a job that tips or not, but I STILL tip 15-20% (or basically $5 min). I do this not because I think the servers should get paid that much (basically more then I have made at most jobs in my life) but because it upsets them if they don't get a tip and it's not worth it to me to upset someone for $5 or so.

I do not feel it should be our responsibility though, and that they should instead be paid a flat decent wage and not rely on tips at all.

Serving is not a super hard job, nor a high skilled job. I think something a bit over min wage is what you should get for the job, and probably less then the cooks in the back.

Instead, because of tips, many times the servers make MANY times the wages as the cooks. At at resteraunt in downtown olympia where a previous roomate worked, he would make over $200 in tips for a 6 hour shift each day, and would be very angry if he made less than that. He didn't even COUNT the min wage ($13/hr) he made at all.

I applied for a job cooking there awhile ago and the cooks made a flat $15 an hour, no tips at all.

So for 6 hours a cook would make $90 total, while the serverse would make $300+ in the same time (and those were not even good nights for tips).

That isn't fair, and to be honest $300 for 6 hours is more than I made at pretty much every job I ever worked, including when I ran shipping and handling for a company, as Lead Tech for the communication center, office manager for a law firm etc.

Many of those jobs were also WAY more then just 40 hours a week, and certainly not 24 hours or so (4 6 hour shifts a week for him). In those 4 days, working only 6 hours the dude made more than most people make working 40 hours+ a week.

So yeah, tipping is freaking broken. In some areas if they don't get tips servers make just min wage which is really low and hard to live on ($7.50 an hour), they NEVER make less than that no matter what they say though. That is bad, and min wage should be higher than $7.50 anyway.

In other areas, and with other jobs (even in areas with $7.50 an hour min wage) they make many times the salary of people who went to school and got a Bachelors degree, or sometimes even a masters, work dangerous jobs, work 60+ hours for a salary etc.

Meanwhile if you don't want to upset them, your paying a good 20% more for your food (which is often calculated AFTER the taxes etc. With today's prices, it basically means I pretty much always spend $20 to eat anywhere myself.

Meal might be 12, but tax here is 11%, so that brings it just under 14, and I don't wait for the $1 in change and just pay with a 20. I'm sure many other people do that as well. 95% of the time I just end up paying with a 20 even for lunch because of that.

We need to stop the tip culture in the US, it's unfair, and not to the people being tipped, it's unfair to those of us actually tipping.

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Yea all you jackasses who don't tip to try to "change the system" just straight up suck. Tips are good, it encourages people to actually be good at their fucking job.

And I have only not tipped once, it was this lady who NEVER gave us refills, let all of our food sit out in the window and get cold, and just straight up didn't do her job, all with literally only 2 other tables in the restaurant who weren't getting served either. I literally watched her just stand around and bullshit with some other employees.

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I never give tips because I never go to restaurants.

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SirPikachu posted...

Yea all you jackasses who don't tip to try to "change the system" just straight up suck. Tips are good, it encourages people to actually be good at their fucking job.

And I have only not tipped once, it was this lady who NEVER gave us refills, let all of our food sit out in the window and get cold, and just straight up didn't do her job, all with literally only 2 other tables in the restaurant who weren't getting served either. I literally watched her just stand around and bullshit with some other employees.

Well in some countries tipping is actually frowned upon, in Japan they would consider it a bribe or some sort of pay off for service. I have always thought restaurants should just charge 10-15% more for each food item or drink then just give that to the wait staff.

I guess the only plus of the current system is you can choose how much their service was worth. If you are very impressed with the service you can tip more and vice versa.

Monopoman posted...

Well in some countries tipping is actually frowned upon, in Japan they would consider it a bribe or some sort of pay off for service. I have always thought restaurants should just charge 10-15% more for each food item or drink then just give that to the wait staff.

I guess the only plus of the current system is you can choose how much their service was worth. If you are very impressed with the service you can tip more and vice versa.

I typically look these things up before going somewhere. Iceland had no tipping, Japan no tipping...Cambodia, lol, bribes are encouraged so tips are. Everything is so cheap though, so it's nice if you can sneak a tip to a service worker.

Although in my experience living in a frequent cruise ship spot, Americans would hop off and couldn't believe their currency wasn't valid tender...in another country. So I'm not surprised people are surprised by minor differences by country. But people feigning ignorance is still dumb, since we all have cellphones.

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im surprised nobody is giving a good reason why restaurants just don't pay their workers more so that they don't have to rely on tips

classic case of accepting a system just cause it is what it is.

Pay your workers a decent wage then this doesn't even have to be a debate. I've waited tables before as my first job in a restaurant, it's not hard. Yep I got a few tips but i don't see how or why my basic ass skillset warrants more pay than the actual cook.

i don't understand how you lot can defend this lol

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FatalAccident posted...

im surprised nobody is giving a good reason why restaurants just don't pay their workers more so that they don't have to rely on tips

classic case of accepting a system just cause it is what it is.

Pay your workers a decent wage then this doesn't even have to be a debate. I've waited tables before as my first job in a restaurant, it's not hard. Yep I got a few tips but i don't see how or why my basic ass skillset warrants more pay than the actual cook.

i don't understand how you lot can defend this lol

They should! But customers (/the owners /everyone) always let it fail.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/no-tip-restaurants-fight-to-gain-traction-1.2640476

https://tinyurl.com/4hkv4a4w

https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/vancouver-island-restaurant-cancels-its-no-tipping-policy

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SirPikachu posted...

Yea all you jackasses who don't tip to try to "change the system" just straight up suck.

Good job I don't tip because our system(UK) isn't broken then isn't it?

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wwinterj25 posted...

Good job I don't tip because our system(UK) isn't broken then isn't it?

I've worked in restaurants and bars. I'll be the first to tell you that our system is broken and the industry shouldn't run on tips. People should just be paid a good wage... but bartenders would for sure make less money if tipping was done away with. No more going home Friday night with 600 bucks in your pocket

But also, the industry isn't changing so if you live in the US, tip your fucking servers and bartenders

OhhhJa posted...

so if you live in the US

Thankfully I don't.

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