dollar per drink even coke and water, double the tax or 20% depending on mental math skills that day. Always tip well - get treated like a King at my regular establishments.

However be a jerk and get nothing..

Cantdrv55

I noticed that your at your 910 post, think carefully what you want to say on your "911th" post. Unless of course you drive a water pumper

We usually give about 15% tip in restaurants. My grandmother leaves a very small tip (5%, she still lives in Poland though), and my aunt gives a large tip, more like 40-50%. My mom would like to tip as much as my aunt. I keep my father's habbits and try to tip 15-20% at restaurat. I have no clue on gambling or paying for a bar drink since I am not at the legal age yet.

Matt

not really the case - worked plenty as a server in school, the girls were normally pretty hard workers and attracted to the job for the hours (days free - nighttime, granny watched the rug rats). Plus it is a cash biz - ave store they can pull $100 to $150 a night after cashout. Not bad for a non glam job. The hourly rate is a joke and they get it all deducted out anyway - also no bene's.

Can't judge it until you walked in their shoes. And mind you thos eshoes get plenty greasy.

I tip 30 to 35% (and have been known to tip a five spot even before they take a drink order - you would be amazed what that does for your service!

Oops, too late.

At the very least 20% for good service...........and more if exceptional.

10-15 % for mediocre. In a number of establishments the waitress/er must tip out % of her tips to the kitchen/bar/hostess etc........

If you can't afford to tip ........... there is always a drive-thru for you. :)

I'm a former chef, server, bartender, manager and maitre'd. I tip a lot! What LubeMaster said is true, bigger tips means better service 99% of the time. Once I took the wife out for our anniversary to a very nice restaurant. When the server came around I laid $100 in his hands and told him my needs. We did not want to be interupted, we wanted to take our time, keep our ashstray empty and our drinks full, I'll have the best steak in the house and make it rare, my wife will have whatever the chef recommends. We want appetizers, you choose, same with desert. I'd like an expresso and the wife a latte with desert. We don't want wine so don't even bother. The server who was already at the top of his game instructed his bus staff of our needs and we had a dinner that was absolutely fabulous, the maitre'd didn't seat any loud tables near us, the drinks where great even thought I wasn't having any alcohol, I could tell the bartender had just freshly cut the lime for my tonic, the salad freshly torn, everything to perfection. At the end of the night our bill was close to $200.00, I gave the waiter $300.00 and told him to keep the change, tipped the busboy $20, the bartender $40 and the maitre'd $40 and told him I'd be back. He smiled and told me he'd be happy to take care of me. I think I even sent money back to the kitchen!

I'm sure I have you all wondering why I would tip so ridiculously. The fact is I can make any meal they had on the menu, bake just about any over the deserts, and I might great drinks. I can do all of this at home but what I can't get is a nice romantic dinner with my wife with transparent service. That night we were treated like royalty and it made our anniversary very special. This year we were out of town and didn't get back to the restaurant but we definately plan to go next year. I wish we could afford to do it every week. ;)

My rule of thumb for tipping is simple, if you think you should tip, then tip. 20 percent is the minimum unless the service is very poor. I even tip at gas station drivethru's and a little extra if it's winter. I picked up a pack of smokes for a co-worker today at the drivethre while I was at lunch. When I gave him his change he asked me where the rest was and I told him it was a tip for the attendant. He told me that was crazy, I told him to walk to his car in the rain and get them himself next time. I go to a hairdresser rather than a barber, I don't tell her how to cut my hair, she cuts it in a way that she thinks will look good on me, she get's $15-20 everytime. Sometimes in life it's worth it to spend a little extra and be pampered, especially if your job/life is stressful. I might be crazy but I'm also happy and satisfied.

It's interesting that mostly only the bigger tippers have replied.

If everyone tipped like that there would be a lot more 19 year old waitresses' with no education, owning Rolexes, 997s and major coke habits. There are some that make serious money on tips but not the majority.

I do tip, not usually excessively.

I object to the practice of tipping someone for opening a door for me or hotels where some monkey will physically wrestle your briefcase out of your hand, drag it and you with it to your room and expect a tip. Typically they are never around when you arrive with a lot of bulky packages and you would welcome (and tip) their assistance.

Tipping for bad or mediocre service? No chance. After one awful meal where the highlight was the starter arriving after the dessert, with all the orders wrong etc etc we were followed into the street by the surly waiter wanting to know where the tip was: Asking three burly guys a question like that after the most abbysmal overpriced restaurant meal I can remember was not clever.

You are living under a rock, my friend. Sometimes those $2-per-hour jobs are all some people can get, and they need those tips to survive.

As for me, I am currently PUTTING MYSELF THROUGH GRAD SCHOOL by waiting on tables in the affluent Farmington Valley area of CT. Granted, I get a (comparatively) cushy $5 per hour, but it's the tips I need to survive. I have to pay all my bills (insurance, utilities, tuition, two student loans... plus the extras like credit card and phone) from what I earn in tips AND go to school full-time. Bad week = all payments get sent out late.

Luckily, I manage to make pretty decent money out of this... but it can get scary if you have a rash of bad tippers in a row.

Oh, and by the way... if you really don't ever leave tips, I would recommend that you NEVER go back to that restaurant again. They DO remember the non-tippers, and they will get revenge.

But DO they also remember what they did wrong and try to correct or improve going forward? Or is it always the customer's fault in the eye of the waiter?

I tip 15-20% in resturants - more if it is warranted or if it is a place I frequent and the staff treats me as a regular.

What gets me is when I walk into a lunch establisment or a coffee place and they have a "tip jar" for taking my order, making it and handing it to me. That isn't the service I tip for - sorry.

And as far as people saying "it's the only job I could get." Well - I'm calling shenanagins on that crap. I was a starving college student myself at one time and it was the only job I couldn't get. I worked at Denny's for some time and realized that I was a moron to stay there any longer than it took to find something else. I worked at plenty of other places that paid full wages and worked with my schedule for school happily as well as having SOME benefits at least. I worked at Blockbuster for a while and I worked - god help me- at jiffy lube for years. I also worked at a few hobby stores and music stores. The fact is - if you think that's your only game in time (what ever job it is) you're selling yourself short because ANYONE can do better than what they are doing right now. I have a very good job - but I know I can do better - this one is just good enough though.

Seriously - get a grip.

Another detail is that my sister - a cute little grad student herself has tried and tried to get a waitress job here in LA and failed miserably. The hours would be good for her schedule but they want people with experience and she just doesn't have it.

If the service I get is lame - I leave a lame tip.

Oh, well if something goes horribly wrong, and the waiter/manager make no attempt to rectify the situation, it's natural to expect a bad tip. Actually, I've noticed that people tend to tip BETTER if something goes wrong but we try our hardest to make them happy (free desert, guest comps, etc)... it's the jerks that get GOOD service, don't complain about anything, and then stiff you that should be wary about ever going back.

I don't buy into these high tipping arguments to get good service. My wife and I eat out often at moderate priced restaurants. We'll spend $80 to $100 between two of us per meal. We are always courteous (this carries a lot of weight) and we tip 20% for good service. We have always been greeted with a smile and receive great service when we return. If we are treated poorly we tip accordingly and we don't return. I only tip for service, not for show.

A tip is earned. A tip can also be lost.

In restraunts I tip 15-20% for very good service. If good service then just hte standard 15%. If the service gets worse the % goes down. if it is terrible I would not tip anything, which has only happened maybe once.

If the service was so bad I didn't leave a tip I simply wouldn't go back again. What gets me is when the place imposses a 20% tip on parties of 8 or more. I guess it is no longer a tip but a mandatory price increase.

The tip to the waitress never includes the price of the alcohol served with a meal.

I tip depending on what level of service I receive. I do tip well for good service with bartenders, wait-staff, etc. If I stay at a nice hotel I don't tip everyone even though I think all that come in contact expect something.

Could care less about who they are or why they have that service job. That's their business. I'm in that establishment to drink, eat, or sleep. If the service is bad I tip accordingly.

No I'm not. I thought (R) didn't believe in welfare. In Mexico everyone expects a tip. But here only waitresses expect one, so the restarant owners can get rich on slave labor. Tuff sh$t.

Why not tip your mechanic on your porsche, he actually did something more than walk a pepsi over to ya. Alot of people don't tip the pizza driver, and they drove the pizza to your house. But still expect a tip, when a delivery charge was already added in.

Ever tip the person at Subway, they actually made your food right in front of you? Alot more work then walking a pepsi 20 foot.

These people need to get a real job and quit expecting hungry people to put 150 bucks in there pocket every night. They are some of the biggest tax evaders around. They claim they only make 50 a night, when they make alot more. These people making close to stripper pay and not showing a booby. Alot of cash for 50 seconds worth of work.

People only tip because they are socialogically tricked into this. They don't want a guilt trip of not tipping and looking cheap so they do it. About the only one worth tipping is the guy at the drive up liquor store. If I tip them, they are suprised and I say "here take the cash, F the slutty waitresses you walked over a bottle of Jack, and deserve alot more than a stupid 20 year kids walking pepsis who flunked out of high school."

red UFO 928:
I agree to some extent, and it is a shame that the tip concept has evolved the way it has. Welfare is money for nothing - servers do work, albeit some don't seem to.

The next time you buy a bed, sofa, car, TV or dishwasher that sales man is making a tip off you, thing is, it's buried in the price of the product. With resterants, it is not. The commission or tip as it where is left up to the patron.

You tip your guitar dealer everytime you buy some strings, a pic, a new mic or a sound board. Maybe he/she deserves it, but then again, everyone deserves a $ for a # of effort. Sitting around collecting money should be left to the lottery winnings and smart investers of the world only.

Yeah, it would be better if the government would just tax everybody more, and redistribute that money equitably among waitresses regardless of their skill or service.

(R) don't believe in welfare, they believe in hard work and rewards commensurate with that hard work. (yeah, yeah, skip the corporate welfare comeback--we know) There's something incredibly pure about the economic relationship between a waiter and a customer. I think this country would be a better place if more workers had such immediate feedback on the quality of their work.

How great would it be if I called a tech support line and could dock the idiot $10 every time he knows less about my computer than I do?

What if the lazy cashier at the supermarket checkout had a meter that showed her wages increasing or decreasing based on the level of irritation of the line of people waiting for her "price check"?

What if the dealership mechanic had his pay reduced every time he misdiagnosed a simple problem?

I tip my mechanic...a couple of six packs of Moose Drool Ale.

Commission to a sales person is an entirely different thing. A sales person typically assists you in your choice of product. They present you your options and persuade you a particular way. Ideally to the best product available to them to sell you.

A waiter staff engineer presents you a menu - answers simple questions (does this or that have onions in it?), Takes your drink order and then walks away for a few minutes. They take your order and then someone - not necessarily them delivers it to you. Then at the moment when your mouth is full they ask you a question on the quality (which in my opinion is the rudest part of the whole thing - asking someone purposefully a question when it would be rude for that person to respond to you) of the delivery. I've done both - I don't think being a waiter is something I would ever want to depend on for a living. I saw this when I was one and worked myself into something better. That's what smart people do - they recognize the problems in their life and then change them.

I tip my mechanic with a token of appreiciation as well.