When you dine out, knowing you should leave a tip, do you have to? Is it required by law?

Question

Let's face it, my parents don't tip. Their reason, "we aren't ever going to eat here again, we aren't ever going to see this woman again, so why leave a tip!" If they receive an hourly wage, they don't need a tip for the work they are required to do.

Answer 1

Your parents are extremely cheap, highly disrespectful, lack generosity and are incredibly selfish.

Waiters and waitresses get paid only minimum wage, or less! This covers the basic things they must do for the owner, like preparing the dining room for service, stocking up supplies and cleaning up at night.

Your tip covers the service they provide to you by taking your order, refilling your drinks and assuring you have a pleasant experience.

If you do not intend to pay for these services then you should not request them. Go to cafeterias and fast food places where you serve yourself.

In some situations, the government actually assumes what level of tips you would be making. Waiters are being taxed for the assumed cash tips that they should be receiving. Yet if you are cheating them on the tip then they must pay take on something they didn't even receive.

The best way to experience this is to take a part time job as a waitress and see how it feels to service someone only to discover they didn't compensate you for your efforts.

Answer 2

Tipping is not required by law. But, many waiters/waitresses are paid less than minimum wage. In some places they can legally be given an hourly wage as low as $2.17 an hour and they're expected to make up the difference with tips.
Unless the service is awful, leave the extra dollar, they can use it more than you.

Answer 3

Tipping is not required. However, if you receive even just fair service the wait staff really deserves it. It the service is horrible, I don't think a tip is warranted.
Having been a waiter, I don't think you can imagine how hard that work is if you've never done it before!!!!! OMG
Also, most wait staff work for very little money and rely on their tips to just pay their rent or whatever. Most also have to share with chef & bussers.
That said, the normal tip is 20 to 25% of the check.
Walk a mile in their shoes!

Answer 4

Minimum wage for a waiter or waitress is $3.13 an hour. They depend on their tips! If your server works on an average of 25 hours a week, that's $78.25 MINUS tax's!!!!! If they bring home $50.00. That's a good pay check! It is not a law to tip. It is common sense!!!! A proper tip is 15-20% of the total bill. Some people are ignorant!!!! And should stay home and prepare their own meals and clean their own messes! I bet not many people dine out with your parents often, do they?

Answer 5

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but your parents are cheap. Also, the waitress that was grumpy and gave me lousy service, probably served your parents just before I got there.

Most sit down restaurants like Appleby's and Chilli's pay about $2.01 an hour, not the minimum wage or higher wage earned at the fast food restaurants, because tips are considered part of the employee's taxable income. That's also how they get around paying minimum wage.

If everyone thought like your parents, a cheeseburger would cost $15 because the restaurant would have to pay the wait staff more (and be taxed on it) and service would suck because there would be no motivation to provide good service, since everyone would get paid the same.

Do your parents a favor and enlighten them.

Answer 6

I don't know of any country where tipping is required by law, but it certainly is required by most social codes of conduct. In some places (the province where I live, for example) servers are paid low wages and the government assumes they have received tips, so it adds a percentage of their wages to their income for taxing purposes. Not tipping forces them to pay income tax on money you didn't give them. Of course, if the service is unsatisfactory, you probably shouldn't tip, or tip very little, so that the server gets the message and treats the next customer better.

Answer 7

The following comes from the 7/11 "Modern Manners" column in The Times of London:

I wanted to comment on your June 12 article on tipping. I notice you say you tip 10 per cent. In the US, it is now the custom to tip 15 per cent if the service was OK or good even. If it wasn't very good service, 10 per cent would then be applied. Very poor service is tipped at around 5 pre cent. If a tip is given at 10 per cent here, a waiter or waitress will not understand what you felt she did wrong. Jesy Shepard, Venice, USA

Well, Americans are notoriously more generous than tight-fisted Brits. But I agree that 10 per cent is the bare minimum. I think that the quantity of the tip varies between recipients. London black cabbies have become so expensive that they are often surprised to receive a tip at all. We should be as generous as our purse allows in gratitude for good service. We should not be scared of withholding a tip for rotten service, explaining why we are doing so, in order to try to improve things. It will be a better world when everybody is paid a fair wage, and does not have to rely on tips to survive.

Answer 8

How rude!
From what I can tell,tipping started as a way to "thank" the waiter-person for their service. It has since become a
burden.
I don't mind tipping as long as the service is good.
If the service is bad ,I tip according to what a waiter-friend told me-minimum 10% plus 1 penny. Supposedly the penny is an insult.
If the food is bad,I just dont go back to that restaurant. The best policy though would be to complain to the manager if either the food or the service were bad.

Answer 9

Waiters and waitresses earn less than minimum wage they are supposed to be able to make up the difference with tips. Don't like it, well then next time you go out you will be willing to pay twice as much for a meal, right?

Answer 10

I hope you are not learning a rude behavior from your parents. If they go to a dinner party, and don't really like the entree, do they also leave without a thank-you to the host? A tip is just a thank-you to the waiter for service. 15% no matter what