How Much Would You Have Tipped?

Even for bad service I never tip less then 10% or in some places it could mean they end up paying to serve you, but in general unless the service is just really really bad I always tip 15-20%.

Tipping a server is not required. He was required to bring her what she ordered or serve her something else and comp her meal.

If he'd have done his job I'd have tipped him.

Lack of service bugs me quite a bit, so I would have probably only given 10%. Here 10% is an insult.

I can appreciate that he may not have deliberately brought the wrong food, however she cannot get up and go in the kitchen to refill her glass. It is their job to make sure you have what you need.

It probably would have been worth his while to leave the tacos and bring her out a salad. If the restaurant frowns on those mistakes, he could have very well put it on his own tab and then his very well deserved tip would compensate for his purchase.

My husband always overtips for bad service. In my opinion, you have to work for a 20% tip.

Why is it the waiter's fault that your Mom ate something she didn't order? She didn't want to send it back, what was he supposed to do wrench it from
her hands?

The rest of the stuff sounds like he was slacking a bit so I'd leave 15%. I tip 20% for good solid service and more for extraordinary.

Not tipping is akin to stealing. If you receive a service and don't pay for it, that's theft, plain and simple. How much you tip is up to you, but 20% is the industry standard, you should leave more or less than that depending on how well you were served. Your mother got adequate service. The server should have stopped at least twice see how you were and if you needed anything, and was at fault for not doing so. But this was not an egregious mistake, and the food mix up became a non issue when she kept the tacos. 15% would be acceptable. I own a restaurant. We remember bad tippers. I have had 6 and 8 tops walk out without tipping at all, and the service was very good. Non tippers are the most selfish of all kinds of people, in my opinion. It's an insult to the server and reflects badly on your character if you are habitually a poor tipper. Good tippers are also remembered, they receive great service and free stuff. Remember that if you frequent a certain restaurant, because we never forget who is who.

ps to those who hate tipping
I'm sorry you don't understand the "deal" that is made between a server and a restaurant owner. It's not the same as working for any other kind of employer. Servers are understood to be (culturally in this country) as independent contractors. They are not responsible for the temperature of your food, or how it is made, or the cleanliness of the establishment. That is the owner's job. The server takes the responsibility of taking care of the customer directly, so the rest of the staff can concentrate on the quality of the food. The owner pays them enough to cover their taxes (and in my case, a little more, meaning more than the state minimum for servers). We also pay out roughly 15% more above their wage as our own contribution to social security, etc... When you eat at a restaurant, you are paying me (the owner) for the food and the server for their service to you, two separate responsibilities put on YOU as the person who wants someone else to cook your food, serve it to you, and clean up after you. My servers make above $10/hr with tips. If you want me to pay them that wage, I will have to raise my prices 20-30%. Instead, I give you the choice. And if you don't like it, don't go out to eat. The system is what it is. My servers like making the money they make, they honestly do NOT have a problem with the culture of tipping in this country. In larger cities with a higher cost of living, a higher server wage is warranted. But not where I live. So before you jump on your high horse to declare all tipping unethical, remember that this is a contract entered into like any other employer/employee. You know that when you go out to eat you pay for two things. If you choose to ignore that pact, you are only hurting the server. Better servers work at places with higher check averages, which means more money. Don't fault your employer if you were once a server who didn't make decent money, that's on YOU. Many many people LIKE tipping (I do, and I tip well, always have), if you are bucking that cultural norm, you are punishing the wrong people by not tipping. THAT is unethical.

I'll usually tip 10% for poor service.

I suggest that you cannot blame him for not correcting her order. He offered and she said no. Also it may not even been his fault her order was wrong. The waiter does not make up the order. Kitchen staff or a different waiter may have done that. And...if you wanted refills or if having refills were important to you I suggest you could have remedied that by catching his eye. Your dinner was an exchange between you and the waiter.

I nearly always leave a 10% tip unless service is really bad. To me that means they don't take my order in a timely manner unless I can see the waiter is not doing anything and I KNOW that their conversation with other employees is not business. Then they either deliver the wrong food or leave me sitting for an extended period of time. I will give a 10% tip unless service is terribly bad In both those ways.

I tip 15-20% on good service. I have rarely not left a tip. Perhaps less than 10 times in my 50 years of leaving tips. Waiters are people and just as I often don't do the best job they also don't either. First I don't expect perfection. I am also aware that the exchange between us is affected by me.

Did you ask your mother why she tipped this amount or is this post written to prove you're right and your mother is wrong? How much someone tips is decided by them. Perhaps the waiter met your mother's expectations. You tip how much you want.

as a former waitress and bartender, i'm very very forgiving about mix-ups and overwhelmed servers.
i am not one bit okay with being treated in this cavalier fashion.
it's on your mom for not getting her food corrected. if you tell the server 'it's okay, i'll just eat this' they can't wrestle it away from you. you have to let them know how you want it handled, so no fault to him there.
but no refills, or table clearing as the meal progresses, and yakking when my glass is empty is not okay with me.
i'd have tipped 15% for this, and i'm a rock-steady 20%+-er. but since many people do only tip that for really good service, i'd also have conveyed my displeasure in a low-key but clear way. for example, when he asked if she wanted a refill i'd have looked him straight in the eye and said 'that would have been lovely had it been offered 20 minutes ago when i was still eating and could definitely have used it. but we're leaving now. thanks anyway.'
there's no point in being passive-aggressive with servers. let them know point blank if you're happy, and if not why not.
this incident wasn't heinous enough to complain to the manager. but he certainly didn't warrant a 'thanks, this was great!' sort of tip.
khairete
S.

Probably somewhere between 18-20%. Which is normal for me. I tend to round to the nearest dollar. And if the bill is small (under $50) I don't bother to only use the pre-tax sub-total, I just use the full total.

Your mom was offered what she ordered when the error was brought to the server's attention. She declined. That was her choice.

10%. I usually leave 15%, or 20% for great service.

I wouldn't blame him for not fixing the order because he offered to and your mother told him no. He can't argue with her or insist. Maybe she looked at the tacos and thought they looked better than a salad? Anyway, I understand that mistakes happen and he offered to fix the mistake.

Out of curiosity though...did the tacos cost more or less than the salad? I probably would have asked to pay for the less expensive item. If the salad was $5 and the tacos were $6 I might have said "I'll take the tacos since they are already made, and I don't want to wait for the salad, but I expect to be charged for the salad."

As for the refills I find I always need to flag down wait staff to get refills. I often wonder if management tells them to avoid giving refills to cut costs. Its very annoying because they charge so much for the soft drinks in the first place. This would be my reason for not giving 15%.

ETA: Industry standard must be different in Canada. Wait staff here earn at least minimum wage, so nobody is making less than $10/hour. The options given for tipping on the machine are 10, 15 and 20%.

I have to say that I am in SHOCK at all of you who think that tipping is a "right" and that if you go to a restaurant you OWE the server extra money on top of the meal price. I am going to a restaurant owned by a business person who should be doing his job by providing food, service, clean plates, etc. and this includes the wait staff!

I also can't believe that so many of you have not made laws change in the incredible areas that you live in. Servers making $2.13 an hour is highway robbery and should be abolished. Even the Federal Govt had declared that a slave wage and thus illegal. The fact that the state allows crooked profit driven businesses to force the servers to make up the difference in tips is stealing from the servers AND stealing from the customer. (I know how this works and it is ridiculous! I worked as a server at a Denny's in Wisconsin in grad school). As a server I rarely made any tips, had customers not tip me, had huge groups not tip me, and so Denny's had to make up the difference in my pay. Did I feel bad? NOPE. It was their job to do it and too bad for them.

Part of my problem with all of this is that I live in Oregon where everyone makes over $9 an hour to START. Servers do not get paid $2.13 and have to make up their tips to minimum wage. If a server makes tips it is because she or he deserved it. It is not a right, it is a earned thing that means the server worked for it. Across the river, Washington is trying to vote theirs to over $11 an hour.

This waiter did not do a good job, he showed proficiency, but no where did he make you feel as if he was there to be you tour guide of dinner. I probably wouldn't have tipped him anything honestly. He did not earn it. Let the restaurant pay for his lost wages, it is their responsibility as a business! If the gov't doesn't force them to do the right thing, then that reflects badly on more than just the restaurant!

I normally tip 20-25%. We are fairly demanding (in the fashion that we rarely order things as is, we drink a lot, and just the fact that it's 5 of us and not 2), so I feel like our servers end up spending a decent amount of time at our table. We are also fun and servers seem to enjoy hanging out with us for a few minutes and appreciate a laugh in the middle of crazy nights.

HOWEVER, it's a job they are doing and if they do it well, we tip well. If they don't we tip less. If I had that, I likely would have left 15% and not my usual 20-25%. I also wouldn't have let it go that long about drinks and would have taken the server up on the offer to fix my order. So this is 50-50, but still, I would have done a little less I think. You and your mom should have spoken up about the refill. And the food was her choice.

It's hard to know if the waiter really encouraged your Mom to give back the order. I say this because I've had waiters offer to take something back earnestly and other waiters offer to take something back as if it's the last thing in the world they wanted to do! So I have no opinion on this part of your question.

But I do think that tipping in general should be in relation to service. I waited tables throughout college and I noticed that most people tipped the same no matter what. So great services givers ended up with the same tips at the end of the day as those waiters and waitresses that grunted and grimaced at the patrons. I worked so hard for my tips and this made a big impression on me. To this day I tip well, especially well for inexpensive restaurants where 20% of a small bill really wouldn't be enough for good service. But I leave a smaller tip for rude service, not to send a message, but rather as a way of paying for what I received.

I agree with Talkstotrees. Servers are paid nothing because owners can't afford to pay them more or they would be shortstaffed and then you wouldn't get the service you deserve. Their tip is how they live. They also have to share their tip with the food runner, the bus staff and the bartender if there are drinks involved. (Tipping 10% in this case is them breaking even.) I know some servers can go home owning money...that is completely unacceptable. If you choose to eat out, you have chosen to tip. Short of pouring a drink on you (on purpose) servers should be tipped...and sometimes a server just has a bad night. Next time you're in, ask for a different server. Owners have NO problem when you request a certain server or asked to be moved to another table...

My two cents :)

I know your mom wanted to be nice, so she ate the food that was brought to her. But did it occur to her that someone else in the restaurant didn't get their tacos, and was serve your mother's salad instead? It's possible the waiter put in the wrong order, but it's also possible that 2 correct meals got switched to the wrong customer. It's also possible that the kitchen made the mistake and it wasn't the waiters - but the waiter should have been more vigilant (and yes, should have written things down).

I also think there's some obligation on the part of the customers to flag down a waiter when they want a refill - it's better if the waiter offers it, of course, but to go without seems silly and a little too passive. If my waiter doesn't show up, I have no problem asking another server to send mine over (I don't ask another server to get me what I need, but to send over my waiter). If that doesn't work, I would go to a manager as a last resort - it's better to fix it while it's happening rather than complain at the end of the night.

I agree with what Suz said about addressing the "refill" remark but saying "That would have been lovely during my meal" and so on. That's how waiters learn.

The problem with tipping, as Cheysma says, is that wait staff are paid so very little per hour. So it's a screwed up system. The food should be priced in a way that allows the restaurant to pay workers a living wage, and to catch the mistakes directly rather than have the customer be in charge of employee supervision and compensation.

So I would have tipped the "minimum" of 15% based on the waiter's service alone, but I also think more could have been done by your mother to have better service and entitle the waiter to a higher tip - it may not be her temperament, but if this is a new waiter with poor training (perhaps trying to display his non-existent skills by not writing things down?), your other could have helped him improve. In a way, she didn't do her part (even though most of the responsibility is on him).

It's a tough call, frankly.

I wonder if your mom is the type of person who hates wasted food, so she chose to keep the wrong order rather than have them dump the plate and waste it all. Regardless, I agree with everyone who said she chose to keep the food, so there wasn't much he could do about that. I do like the suggestion of him bringing her a salad anyway. He definately should have charged her only the cost of the salad.

Not refilling drinks is a big peeve of mine. I often order a glass of water along with my pop if I notice the restaurant is busy so that I'm not without a drink. Since he was chit-chatting with a coworker as a reason for being inattentive instead of being slammed with a lot of work, I would have given him 10%. Refilling drinks is such an easy and simple task. Not acceptable to me.

I usually tip 20%, occasionally a little more if the service is extra good. I will tip less if it's bad. But I do expect service (polite, refill drinks, make an effort to provide good service. I am understanding of mistakes but do expect an apology. Rude behavior or laziness will very much affect my tip). I'm not paying well for bad service. Sorry.

I often write a note on my receipt now. Something like, "Thanks for the great service!" or "Inattentive service." I believe the managers see these receipts and I hope the waiter sees it as well.

Tipping is not "required" as someone pointed out and it is reasonable and customary! She kept the tacos that were probably for someone else. And then the idea that the meal should be comped in addition?? Pftt!

Some people always want something for so little...go to Taco Bell for that.

My daughter is a server and a college student and averages about 25% and she is awesome and has a lot of regulars who's drinks are on the table the moment they sit down. As far as claiming tips it is based on their total food sales for the day, everyday. Maybe California is more compliant but this is how it worked for me back in 1984.

This is a perfect example of why tipping should be abolished. How would you like it if your salary depended on whether or not another person, who has no idea how to do your job, decides that you performed said job to their satisfaction? Standard salary for waitstaff is $2.13 an hour. They depend on tips, and the standard tip rate is now 17-20%. Anything less than that, regardless of mistakes is nothing short of theft. If you choose to eat out, that tip is part of the price of your meal. So, unless your mother left a tip of more than 20% than she did not over tip him. She paid an appropriate amount for the meal. As far as her deciding on keeping the tacos, he offered to fix it, she declined, he respected her choice because gets the final choice, and she should have been charged for the less expensive of the two items. His only mistake was not refilling her drink and that IMO does constitute a crappy tip.

Years ago, I was a server in a restaurant and if a mistake was made with the order (wrong food prepared) we were supposed to catch it before taking it to the table - but if he was new then he might still be in his first week or so of training.

I'm often in restaurants and they bring incorrect food - it is hard to keep track of it, especially side orders and what not. Think about serving your family and then times it by however many tables - it's a juggling act. I know you say it was only 50% full, but if you're new it's a bit overwhelming.

I think that he did the right thing by offering to take the food back. I would never keep the wrong item - so I don't relate to that at all. It would have likely been someone else's order. If he wrote all this down carefully on his pad as you say, then I'm sure someone else got your mom's. He just sounds very inexperienced.

I agree, I still would have left a tip (probably 10%). 15% is standard, so for anything above we leave 20% - I rarely leave 15. Someone can make a bunch of mistakes but if they're pleasant and it's a nice meal otherwise, I still tip well. People are human right?

I am the type that if we didn't get refills and we were supposed to be offered them, I will say when the bill comes - "we didn't get any refills offered" and probably expect something to be taken off the bill. I would rather tell the person what was wrong and why I wasn't happy, and sort it out rather than send a message by a tip.

I always tip 20% so probably 18%. Mom should not have said she would eat it. Should have let them correct the oops. Are you always perfect in your job? Waitstaff are human and make mistakes.