I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said. Yes, there’s no reason to tip someone who simply hands you a bag.
On the delivery aspect, I guess I should have explained the full situation. There was nothing in the job description that said that that was what was required. It was added on. The walks were not insignificant: Za to the block where Garment District is, for example. A modest tip on such a service seems a reasonable expectation.
Does anybody know how much DoorDash, GrubHub, TryCaviar, etc., deliverers are paid? How much to tip them is another ballgame.
Here’s my take on the reality of shared tips from a jar at a takeout place at the end of the day…
Owner / Manager at his/her desk behind a closed door. He/she dumps the accumulated tips on his/her desk, separates the bills from the change, and starts a set of piles. “Two for me, one for you. Three for me, one for you. One for me, two quarters for you.” When done, he envelopes the rewards and hands them to his staff, in a magnanimous gesture. Heaven forbid that any of his/her children worked there. That would throw the whole shared equation into the toilet.
I could not agree more, wish I knew where to sign up. Until we achieve it though, I am with @bear that I do what I can to balance things out – and I know you do too, even while you hate it.
@Thimes I found your response depressing in the face of many years of us tipping for counter service. If I’ve been naive in many many years of eating out, then, yes, that is depressing to me.
I’ve been dreading looking at this thread since I last posted because I am an eternal optimist and lately, I need more optimism versus cynicism. I have never worked in a restaurant/cooked in a restaurant but yet, I review places so I am vastly under-qualified. I’m sure there are plenty of crooked owners who grab the tip jar but for every one of those jerks, there must be some who actually share the bounty. In our house, we tend to patronize places that (hopefully) do the latter. When a small operation automatically adds on tip and if I feel right about it, I’m ok with it.
In any case, I welcome constructive debate. That has disappeared from our everyday lately.
I generally don’t tip on takeout, but I absolutely tip on delivery, even if there is a delivery charge. I know the guy running my pizza up the stairs in the rain isn’t seeing a dime of the delivery charges.
If I were to get takeout from a place that mostly does table service, I would probably tip, but we generally only get takeout from places that are takeout-only. I have always assumed (perhaps wrongly) that since there are no “servers” at these places that everyone is already making minimum wage or more and therefore tipping is not required/expected.
I realize I’m taking us off course from the tipping on takeout issue. I usually follow what other posters have commented above. Yes for deliveries, no to throwing it in a bag, yes if someone went above an beyond, yes if it is around the holidays/I’m a regular/they smile at my toddler/I’m feeling extra flush.
2 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
28
I’m always fascinated by American tipping threads. They always provide such an insight into a foreign culture.
I live in a low/no tip country and, most often, visit other low/no tip European countries. The fascination comes not just from the level of tip - I understand “minimum wage doesnt mean minimum wage for you” - but from the occasions when Americans will tip. Such as here - it would never even cross my mind to tip for takeaway and I think staff in my local takeaways would be really surprised if anyone ever offered a tip. Not even of the “keep the change” variety.
But, in that, is the fun of internet discussion forums. As I have often said in real life, in spite of the language being broadly the same, America is the most “foreign” country I ever visit.
Thats so funny. I felt the same way when traveling through the British Isles. I think it is the “common” language (even though often times I couldn’t understand a word people were saying - I’m talking to you Ireland and Scotland) that makes you expect common behaviors, so when the expectations and behaviors are so different it really smacks you in the face.
That and since the US is so huge, we don’t have a single tipping culture. Ask someone who lives in NYC and you’ll get incredibly different tipping answers than someone in a smaller city. NYers tip EVERYONE, especially at the end of the year - people the rest of the country would never consider tipping (doormen, service guys, salon workers, anyone and everyone - tips left in hotel rooms for maids . . . . you have to be from very specific places for that to be an expectation in the US - again, not that these people don’t deserve more money, just the expectation and culture around it).
2 Likes
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
30
My friend, Paul, practices law in Kentucky. He knows two people in my metro area - me, middle class and from the south of the area and another guy, working class from the north. I can drive to the other guy’s town in 20 minutes or so. Paul says he can understand me perfectly (so long as I don’t speak too quickly and don’t use many colloquial terms) - but he really struggles to understand the other guy’s accent.
On the hand, I thought I was generally OK with American east coast regional accents until the last but one trip, where I also struggled to follow some of the accents from the “deep south” states like Alabama.
I tip 20% on take out food and for food delivery. I don’t tip more than spare change at Starbucks or other coffee places when I don’t order a custom drink…just the stuff that’s already sitting there, and a muffin that’s already sitting there. Because they do get the real minimum wage, not the very low minimum wage paid to restaurant servers who are expected to get their real money from tips.Yes, the system is horrible and should be changed. Increase the prices to reflect what it costs to pay people a living wage.
However, I do have a PhD, I don’t work as a researcher, and I did work in factory in North Carolina for summers, 7 days a week, graveyard shift, for then then minimum wage. Some “academics” did real work. My fellow doctoral students were amazed I’d never worked as a restaurant server. Answer: I worked in a textile mill that required the use of hearing protection for an 8 hour shift. There were no restaurants in my town that required tipping, because there alcohol sales were illegal.
One issue that no one contributing has mentioned, is that historically, minimum wage jobs in the U.S. were meant to be temporary for all. There was never an expectation that a 30-something would be trying to raise a family–let alone themselves, on a minimum wage check.
In past years, young people would graduate from high school and enter the military; or go on to college. Those failing to graduate high school could enter the military, or a relative could get them into a manufacturing plant, or they could sign up for an apprentice training program.
In the past, Minimum Wage jobs were like training wheels on a bike; they were shed when someone got their balance and sped forward.
Someone’s got to pack all that stuff up for you. Geez.
1 Like
meatn3
(equal opportunity eater in the NC Triangle)
34
1000 times yes! It takes much more time than you would imagine to double check, pack up, supply accouterments for a take out order. Often the whole thing must be unloaded when the customer wants to double check too.
Note: I’m not talking about places where take out is the business model. I’m referring to places that are primarily sit-down but accept take out orders. Restaurant owners/managers love it since this creates more sales/shift. But if there is not a dedicated staffed take-out window it is usually the servers who must handle this. It can really detract from being able to service the actual diners.
4 Likes
meatn3
(equal opportunity eater in the NC Triangle)
35
I worked briefly at one place that required tipping out to the cooks. It was a Japanese steak house - the sort of place where patrons are seated around the cooktop and the chef cooks and is the entertainment. All of the tips collected were required to go into a locked box. At the end of shift you checked out with the bookkeeper. 50% of your tips went to the chef. Of what remained 30% went to the bartender whether or not alcohol had been served (this was the slowest bartender I have ever worked with). So say you began with $300 tips, $150 to the chef, $50 to the bartender. Now you are left with $100. You are required to tip out the runner but can decide how much. The runner was of much greater help to me than the bar tender so I felt the runner should get at least as much so $50 to the runner. So I walk out with $50. Restaurant minimum wage at that time basically got used up for your payroll taxes.
Other places I have worked tipping out the bus staff and runners was expected but you could choose how much. I tipped well if they were good. That brought me consistently great service from them which let me give a better experience to my tables which theoretically brought in better tips.
One aspect that gets overlooked in tipping threads is that the back of the house gets paid. Period. If they come in they get full pay for every hour they work. A server really doesn’t get full pay (since most is supplied by the customer) if the night is a bust. A bust could be bad weather, could be prom night with kids who don’t know about tipping, could be campers keeping you from turning tables but not adjusting their tip to reflect that. Restaurants do require servers to do a bit of work before/after their shift - time in which tips don’t equalize the hourly wage. This can be cutting lemons, making ice tea, polishing eating implements, refilling condiments, refilling ingredients at the expo station, emptying trash, cleaning restrooms, washing windows, in addition to having their assigned tables clean and ready for the next shift.
I felt much more conspicuous in London, the several times I’ve been, because I look like them, don’t talk like them, don’t understand their customs all that well, etc., so there was much greater potential for misunderstanding. Whereas in Spain where I lived for 2 years and other European countries, it was obvious I wasn’t born there and was as foreigner trying hard to adapt and struggling to speak the language. I know London is very used to dealing with Americans, but I still felt out-of-the-water there in a way that was different than I felt in countries where I was not a native language speaker. I agree strongly: “that makes you expect common behaviors, so when the expectations and behaviors are so different it really smacks you in the face.”
I grew up in NC and I feel very foreign there and in other parts of the American south, though I could “pass” if I wanted to, and I will never be suspected as an illegal immigrant (and that’s not fair to others who are subjected to that frequently). There are so many subcultures in the US…
I tip Doordash, Caviar, anyone who delivers food to my house 20%. Just because for me, it is the right thing to do.
1 Like
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot eating & cooking in Northwest England)
39
You have to remember that London is a different place from the rest of the UK. Personally, I’d give them independence from us, as a city state (a bit like Singapore).
I do, too, and have it done automatically on my card. This has led to the occasional problem when someone has brought an order that’s been dropped or shaken around and I’ve wished that I could go back and lower the tip. But, it’s an infrequent occurrence.
