I tip at the same rate because I no longer dine inside. If I was still dining inside 4 or 5 times a week, as I was before 2020, I wouldn’t be ordering much take-out.
I used to tip around 10 to 12 percent on take-out when I was dining at restos a lot. I was tipping 20-22 percent for good service inside a restaurant back then, when I was home in Canada. Tipping abroad, I did whatever was customary.
I’m with Harters on this. Absolutely nowt.
I walk/drive to the place, you hand over a bag of food, I pay for it and then you want me to give you more money for handing over a bag?
What sort of madness is this?
With regards to delivery, just put the price of the delivery items up instead of guilt tripping people into giving tips.
Just two of the many reasons I will never set foot on American soil.
As far as I recall, Just Eat just has a menu price. On the other hand, Deliveroo now adds a service charge, delivery charge (both compulsory) - and leaves space for an optional tip as well. That said, Deliveroo has a proper tracking system for its drivers, so you know exactly when dinner is going to arrive
If delivery drivers and other restaurant employees were making a proper wage in Canada and the United States, which they aren’t in most places, the tipping would be less.
I see food delivery fellas in line at the food bank frequently. It’s a bit of a scam, and many new immigrants are sucked into those crappy jobs.
When my streetcar was 30 minutes late because the streets couldn’t be plowed, because cars were parked and couldn’t get out of their spots next to the streetcar stops, and the streetcar driver had to try to get out at each stop where the tracks had iced over to clear them with a metal shovel ot sorts, the icy bike lanes and the sidewalks were busy. Not with pedestrians, and not with commuting cyclists, but with food delivery guys on bikes and ebikes School and university had been cancelled that day due to weather. The government told people to stay home. Many people who could, were working from home. This was on Feb 14, 2025.
The side streets looked like this. Food Delivery fellas would be trying to ride down streets like this with hot orders of curry or pizza to residents who decided to stay home.
I don’t like that people aren’t paid better but that’s how the system is barely functioning in Toronto right now.
99 percent of restaurants can’t pay their employees more because most customers can’t pay more their food.
Restaurants in Toronto that have been in business for beyond the tricky first 5 years when most close have been closing every week.
I can see why the idea of tipping significantly on delivery if off-putting if you live somewhere where it is not necessary and not part of the system.
I would feel horrible to not tip on a $18 meal, then see the same food delivery guy on line at the food bank the next day.
This is really part of the bigger problem.
North American people living in North America , who post on HO and formerly CH, do tip more in my experience, compared to people who dine out less or don’t focus as much on food. There are plenty of Canadians who don’t tip well.
I tip well. For me, it’s a type of thank you and it’s a type of charity. It’s also a privilege on my part that I can afford to tip well. No one should be tipping beyond their means.
Re: tipping inside restaurants, not about delivery or take-out
That said, in Ontario, at a full service restaurant, one should be ordering within their means so they can afford to leave at minimum a 13 percent tip that matches the 13 percent sales tax. Tipping is conditioned enough in most places, that a server will think they did something wrong if the tip is below 10 or 13 percent.
…
Here are some stories from Canada
From 2024
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The people running FOH are often doing many other things before they hand you your bag, like taking your order, relaying it (ideally correctly) to the BOH, while dealing with on-site traffic.
If employers paid their restaurant staff appropriately in the US, then tips wouldn’t be the customers’ responsibility.
But lucky for you, you’ll never encounter any of this if your last sentence is true, and presumably the places you frequent in your country of residence pay their staff a living wage 
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Apple is a fellow Briton (or, at least, I believe they live here). Our national minimum wage is now called the National Living Wage. Whilst there might be dissent from some quarters about whether it is an actual living wage, it is paid to everyone. Restaurant service is often not regarded as a minimum wage job and pay would be higher (although perhaps not by much). Tips, or a share of a service charge, is additional to the hourly minimum rate.
FWIW, the NLW is currently £11.44 per hour. That’s what my BiL earns working for a grounds maintenance company - 6.30am start, eight hours work, five days a week.
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Nearly every restaurant today has a POS system which includes their online ordering system. Most people order their take-out food online and it gets directly to the BOH. With online orders FOH often just hands you over your bag and nothing else
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The sushi restaurant from which we most frequently order takeout is a total zoo 24/7 (one reason we don’t dine in, another is the open kitchen & I don’t care for smelling like food).
Whether the orders are called in or done online (which is what we do), an actual person still has to check the orders, answer the phone for reservations, and deal with the line forming in the front.
I’m ok with adding 10% to my order for that 
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But these workflows have nothing to do with you take-out order but with other customers. Why should one pay tip for completely different workflows. And I am not sure checking what is in the take-out bag (which takes about 20 seconds) justified a 10% tip
You do you.
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While I agree with this in theory, I find that many Americans use “I can’t afford it” as an excuse to tip poorly or not at all, which is unacceptable in a country (with some regional exceptions) where tips make up the bulk of servers’ pay. If you can’t afford to tip 20% here, you can’t afford to eat out, period.
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Yes and no. As @linguafood mentions in another post, there are things delivery drivers deal with that in-house servers don’t, though they don’t necessarily deal with all those things all the time. And if I’m ordering from somewhere I frequent (whether for takeout or dine-in), I just think it’s good form to tip well.
I’d rather order one item less if it means the “right” tip for the server.
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What if before the person hands it to you, he makes you a sandwich, or a charcuterie plate to go ? That happened in Oakland this weekend, after I paid, and it took me by surprise.
ETA I do not have an “always” opinion, and don’t always tip the person at the register. I was expecting something pre-assembled and was really surprised by how much care you his guy took. I went back the next day, and plan to write a review. I wonder if sometimes that means more than a tip to the owner.
This neighborhood was a little tricky too. The Hilton something or other I was staying in next door required you to use your key card to get in the front door. Checking in to get the key card required a bit of negotiation, or perhaps the Hilton app for an electronic check in. No review for them. .Not sure if this is a “sandwich shop”, but another customer said they made the best sandwichs".
No
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Exactly. You don’t necessarily know how much work the person “just handing you the bag” did before you even showed up.
Having been to the place I mentioned upthread multiple times, I have a pretty solid insight into all the stuff the one person in the front is dealing with. 10% of a $70+ bill?
Yeah, not an issue.
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I agree with you.
What I mean, is that if I only have a $20 bill, and I want something to eat in Toronto, I choose something that is around $15 before tax and tip. The quick math for me is to multiply the before tax subtotal by 1.3, to allow 13 percent tax and 17 percent tip.
I know I have to pay 13 percent tax, and I know I want to leave a 15-20% percent tip.
The minimum wage has increased across Canada, so it’s not as dire as it might be in some states. That said, the Canadian minimum wage is not a living wage for most people in most cities.
The food delivery guys make less than minimum wage through their gig economy jobs.
I don’t know anyone personally who still makes excuses about tipping less here, but I don’t see that many people in real life. I think it’s been a good 15 years since I last had a discussion about tip in person.
With elderly friends and elderly relatives who have generously treated me to dinner, if I’ve noticed they haven’t tipped enough, which is at a minimum 15 percent in Canada where I live for good service , I sometimes have given the server more money on my way out.
I had a very generous elderly friend who liked to treat me to meals at a nice upscale restaurant. He was still tipping at 10 percent. I think that is what he learned a long time ago, when that was a standard tip in Canada.
I’m not going to be giving etiquette lessons to a friend in his 90s. I know the staff really appreciated the tip-up. They were gracious with him, regardless. As they should be, it’s the hospitality business.
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There’s no way I would tip in, say, a sandwich shop (or similar)
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Our beloved fishmonger has one of those card readers with the software to prompt a tip.
TBH I only ever tipped once or twice when the person working the counter went above and beyond… although you’d think that’s kinda their job.
Perhaps I’ve just become fully Americanized. Or “naturalized,” as they call it here 
I’ve seen those occasionally in restaurants (and only fairly recently) but never in a retail outlet. Tipping the fishmonger? FFS.
True. I take those factors into account when I’m tipping on delivery, which means my delivery tips vary a lot more than my restaurant tips (which are pretty much always 20-25%). If I’ve ordered from a place a mile away on a bright sunny day, I’m tipping less (up to a point) than I would if I ordered from a place across town when it’s raining, regardless of the dollar total on the order.
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Yup. Packaging orders was one of the worst parts of the job when I waitressed in my youth. It was time consuming, it took me away from tables (and tippers) I was serving, and nobody tipped on their takeout order. Workflows are going to differ from place to place, but I observe this happening still.
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