QotD: A Tip About Tipping

What's your method for calculating a tip?

This is a great question. For one, I never leave less than a five dollar tip; even if the meal was two. I know from being a waitress that we make virtually nothing per hour, so our tips equal our hourly rate. If a waitress only has two tables, and that's all she does for an hour, I want to make sure she's at least getting minimum wage (especially since we had to share tips with busboys and hostesses).

If I have a good server, I usually cut the bill in fourths, and leave one fourth-- 25%. I think the most I've left is 40%, and the least is 10%.

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Torch
Good question and a good answer. For me, it is a "do the math" in a simple way. I move the decimal for 10%, double it, and then take off "some." That way they always get between 10% and 20%, and the "some" is the level of service I think they gave...
dewitte

We tend to always leave 20% unless the service is really bad. I'm always actually surprised when I get bad service - and I'm not talking about "the waiter/waitress is so busy they can't wait on me" I'm talking about the "I'm the only one here and I'm getting bad service". I think one requirement for being a waiter/waitress is that they have to have been AT a restaurant at least once during their lives. Knowing that a glass needs filling up isn't rocket science, but knowing when to fill it up takes some skill.

One thing I always hated? One of my friends used to work at a little food place at the mall and whenever the register came up short, she had to pay out of her pocket - BUT - if the register were ever over, the owner kept it. That just sucks.

Amber
Gosh I swear I'm the world's biggest over-tipper. I tend to be a cheap date and eat small, inexpensive meals when I go out and my meals can usually come out to $3-$4 and I'll leave anything between a $3-$5 tip. But I have a lot of waitress friends and I hate hearing them complain about lousy tippers so I go out of my way to make sure I'm not one of them :)
Sarah
I do it the exact same way as your dad. Figuring out 10% is easy, doubling that is easy, and then subtracting dollars and cents based on quality of service. I was a waitress for well over a year in a fine-dining restaurant, where 18% is supposedly "standard". So I usually find myself wanting to do about 15% for average service.
Rosemarie
I don't know if this is because of where I live and such, but I don't know anyone around here who tips that generously. Average tip is $5, max tip is $10. with everyone I know. Lots of times we'll pool a tip - so I'll tip $2 and my dinner mate will tip $2 or something.

If we get poor service, we don't tip. If we get good service, we'll tip a bit more. But it's never a huge amount.

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