Quote:
Originally Posted by driveway
Everyone who "tips based on service". Stop that crap. Every server you tip has to pay out between five and eight percent of their tips to the kitchen and managers regardless of how great their service was.
You food didn't taste right? Not a service issue. Your beer flat? Not a service issue. They didn't have Patron Silver when you wanted to look like a baller and impress the ugly girl you're dating? Not a service issue!
Anyone who tips less than 15% in Calgary looks like a cheapskate loser unless your server was outright rude to you. If so, you should be talking to the manager anyways.
Tipping exists in our culture because we've decided that serving food is as menial a job as selling shoes or re-stocking shelves. Yet we expect servers to anticipate individual needs, perfectly asses delicate social situations (or, your girlfriend is dumping your useless ass and I came around to offer you water too many times so you're stiffing me? EFF you) and have detailed, technical knowledge about food, wine, beer and spirits, not to mention the savagely disgusting patriarchal expectation that they be "hot" when we go to Hudson's or wherever the fata we decide to go.
Servers deserve their tips, regardless of what they look like and anyone who treats them otherwise deserves ... chronic edema. Not, like lupus or anything, but something inconvenient, uncomfortable and chronic.
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You do know that tips stands or 'to ensure prompt service' right? Of course I am going to tip based on service. What other measure should I use? If service is awful should I still give her/him 20% for being crappy? I can deal with the kitchen screwing up, the beer being flat, etc., but the tip will be based in part on the bill total and in part on the service. It's how the server handles problems when they arise and handles his/her section when things are going according to plan.
This is coming from a guy who paid his way through university by being a server and a bartender, after being a sous chef for a number of years. Tipping out 8% to the kitchen is unheard of. I spent nine years in the restaurant industry and I never saw kitchen tips that high. The highest tipout I saw was 6%, and that included bussers, bartenders, managers and the kitchen. Some places didn't have kitchen tips at all.
If the service is good I usually leave 15%. If the service is great I leave a minimum of 20%. If the service is awful, I have no problem leaving nothing. It is a very easy job to be a server, and one that can be quite lucrative, but it is also deameaning and can suck at times. If a server ruins my meal, I am not rewarding him/her for that.
When I was a server, I never expected a tip from a table. I worked very hard to try and get one, but sometimes people didn't tip. When I screwed up I admitted it to the tables and sometimes told them I would recommend not tipping me if it was bad enough. Things went wrong sometimes and I did not deserve to be rewarded for it. I feel the same when as a customer.