The price should be the price and service should be included, not an expectation added as an extra and certainly not as much as 20%.
A New York City waitress slammed European diners for only tipping her 10 percent on a $700 bill.
In the US, it is custom to tip service workers anywhere between 15 to 25 percent, but not all European tourists know the rules, leaving waitress Madison Tayt boiling after a group left her only $70 on a nearly $700 bill.
Only $70. Frankly, that’s generous. She was doing her job, for which her employer pays her. The issue here isn’t that the customer should be expected to top up her wages, it’s that the employer should do it as part of her overall salary and it is included in the bill.
Debates surrounding tipping etiquette erupted this month as new ‘guidelines’ caused uproar, suggesting everyone should be tipping at least 20 percent no matter what – unless they want to be considered ‘rude.’
Fuck off. Seriously, fuck off. Adding 20% to a bill is outrageous. I don’t tip. Never have and never will. If people want to because they are exceptionally happy with the service, that’s fine. That’s what it should be, not an expectation. I object to that expectation as a matter of principle, so don’t play the game. The backlash this woman received suggests that I’m not alone.
I’d guess that a huge restaurant bill often includes some seriously high-end wine. If so, it seems unreasonable for the server to demand the same percentage they would have got on a bottle of the house red, unless serving it involved a proportionate amount of extra time or effort; meanwhile, what of the waiting staff who get a table of non-drinkers?
(I’ve been hostile to the inflexibility of the North American system since, having rounded up with about 7.5% in a Quebec creperie with somewhat mediocre service, I was chased down a busy street by an angry waitress in a Breton headdress loudly demanding that I double her tip).
The same doesn’t apply in Canada.
‘Gratuities are seldom included in Canadian restaurants. It is customary to tip approximately 15-20% on the total bill before tax, less for poor service, more for truly exceptional service.’
(Tripadvisor)
(It’s gone up since Covid; back then, the equivalent norm would have been 10-15%)
As it wasn’t a large bill and all Quebec restaurant tips must be declared (to employers as well as the taxman), I suspect it wasn’t the money the waitress was after so much as avoiding questions from her boss about why I chose to tip low.
Many years ago a restaurant worker (a.k.a “server”) in Colorado said that the difference between an Englishman and a kayak is that an Englishman never tips. That said, I agree completely with the concept of a worker being paid in full by the employer rather than having some poor diner make a tax-free top-up.
Does anyone, even in the USA, leave a tip at McD when buying a hoof-burger?
The correct response here is to take the $70 tip and put it back in your wallet then walk. As long as the bill is paid there is no legal requirement to pay more.
If the server needs higher wages then that is a matter for his/her employer, not the customer.
I wonder if the fact that this happened in New York City is anything to do with it. New York City and state are both lefty areas, aren’t they? So the entitlement will be strong there. “Give me my 20% tip, you tightwads. I’m entitled to it.”
Eh. I sometimes tip if the service is particularly good. But I’ve always considered 10-15% to be normal. 20% is outrageous.
(Mind you, I’d never rack up a $700 bill in the first place; I’m talking about leaving 50p in the saucer after a cuppa and a doughnut…)
Same here. I better not go to North America, I guess.
Which is when 15-20% is just change and therefore fair enough.
When they’re effectively demanding $140 in tips with a straight face, that’s serious money.
Servers are paid sod all in the US, last time I was there it was just over $2 an hour, they survive on tips. They also get taxed on tips, the government assumes they received about 15% of the bill and tax them accordingly, so no tip means a tax bill when they didn’t get anything. (or so it was explained to me) I would always tip more than 15% and in cash so they got the extra. (I was on expenses so not my money)