TippingFollow

It seems kind of wrong to have mandatory tipping. Having to pay for some supposed quality of service whether you get it or not is just silly. Good servers should get tips, crappy ones should go without. It is an incentive for them to deliver better service.

That being said I usually tip when I go out to eat, though usually around 2-3 dollars average regardless of the place, more if the service was better than average, none if the service was crappy. That 40$ plate of food is no harder to carry than that 10$ meal from some pizza place.

Not really, which is why tipping is a pointless system for the majority of restaurants. Situational factors out of the control of the server tend to affect your quality of service far more. If it's a busy night, the service is going to be terrible. If an employee called in sick that day so the team is understaffed, the service is going to be terrible. If another customer is complaining about how she ordered "catsup" and not "ketchup" so that your waiter is held up, the service is going to be terrible. If one of their machines breaks down, the service is going to be terrible.

If you're eating at a restaurant on par with Chili's or La Madeleine, then tipping only serves to punish the staff for situations beyond their control.

A lot of restaurants automatically add the tip to the bill if you bring in a party larger than a certain size. Apparently, in this place, 6 people is sufficient. It is legally questionable IMO, and unlikely to stand up in court. Of course, the entire reason restaurants do that is because large groups tend to stiff the staff on tips. Usually because they're following the same kind of tipping "rules" Alexander outlined above. What may be a good rule of thumb for an individual out for a reasonably inexpensive lunch generally doesn't work for a larger group, but I have seen people think that tossing a 5 dollar tip on a table where 8 people just had dinner is just peachy...


Having said that, the point is to make it apparent to the table how much they *should* tip. I absolutely think that if a customer believes their service was sub par, they should be able to do exactly what they did in this case: Talk to the manager, explain the service was poor, and deduct the tip from the bill. It's not like they just shorted the bill and walked out. They took the time to work out the details with the management, who called the cops on them. I also don't buy the claim that they offered to comp a meal. Why would you do that? It's a 16 dollar tip. He acknowledge that the service was bad. I can't believe he was willing to give away a free meal, but not the $16 tip.


I smell a dismissed case followed by a lawsuit.

Typically places with mandatory gratuities have it marked on the menu. I don't know or really care how legally enforcable it is but it seems as though it should be. It's not a "tip" at that point, it's a surcharge for large parties. As long as it's clearly marked, I don't see the problem.

a thousand times this.

I can't count how many times the kitchen would mess up an order that resulted in tables blaming me.

My personal favorite are people who don't tip because their card gets declined, so they take it out on the waiter.

Also where I worked there was (as joph pointed out) a caveat on the menu that stated parties greater than 8 people would be required to pay a certain gratuity.

It doesn't matter if you end up splitting the bill after the fact, it'd still be a party of 8 for them.

It was usually allergy related stuff. I'd ring in an order 86 tomato.

20 minutes later I'd get a plate with tomatoes on it.

It's hard to make up that time, and people like to assume the miscommunication is always the waiters fault.

Correct. But it's not that the price of each meal or whatever is increased, but that they automatically add the tip into the bill. They're not notifying you so that you are legally "stuck" paying that gratuity, but because if they do that they're required to notify you so that you don't accidentally double tip.

You should *always* have the power to change the amount of your tip regardless of whether it's calculated for you and put on the bill or not. I've always seen that as a suggestion, not a requirement and I'm not sure that it can stand up legally. If a dish costs 10 bucks, it costs 10 bucks whether you are with 7 other people or by yourself. It's still a gratuity and you are never required to pay one (or at least you shouldn't be).

Oh I agree completely. But if the restaurant sticks by its policy that you tip, you are required as it's part of the price of eating there. It's bad practice and almost always leads to the restaurant going broke eventually, but it's still their right to stupidly do so. At least, that's how I see it. Restaurants live and die by word of mouth reputation and they'll suffer in the long run for it.

I always tip large. Working as a waiter for half a year, those people are absolutely SHAT upon. As Al said, tons of other factors influence the tip. When I worked as a waiter, we would make $2 an hour during the afternoon, and $1 an hour at night. Tips WERE our entire paycheck (frequently I would OWE money on my paycheck. That's so depressing).

The entire system is fucked up beyond belief. Work it and you'll see what a shitstorm it really is.

Now it's easy; I just don't go out to eat, and hardly ever need to worry about it.

Half right.

It's put in place so that waiters (who are usually paid around $2.13/hr) don't get the shaft by large parties. The restaurant is more than within its right to require you to pay a certain percentage tip for parties greater than a certain size, as long as it is clearly labeled somewhere. It's a risk that any patron takes when they bring a big party to a restaurant.

The gratuity is the minimum tipping percentage for large parties. It isn't a suggestion, though you are more than welcome to tip on top of that if you feel the inclination.

You only have to split the tips that you report