Comments on: How Much Should You Tip? Divide by Six

By: Morgan

Morgan — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 22:50:44 +0000

I have worked in a restaurant for 5 years now on and off to pay for my college tuition. In Georgia, we get paid $2.13/hour. EVERYTHING we make is tips. Our paychecks say VOID and the $2.13/hr all goes to taxes. Not only do we make only what people leave for us but we have to share it with the rest of the staff. SERVERS tip the host, bartenders, and food runners at the places I have worked at. We give the host and bar 2.66% of our TOTAL SALES and the food runner 1% for a total of 3.66%. Also, some places claim 16% of a servers sales for taxes so if you are only tipped 10% and then you tip out to the rest of the staff 3.66%…you are only making 6.44% but the restaurant is telling the IRS you make more so you end up paying a lot of taxes at the end of the year. You also have to remember that if you are in a large group of people and you have more than 1 server…they are SPLITTING the tip! If you sit at a table for a couple hours and leave $5.00, you are saying it’s okay to work for $5.00 an hour. If you would have gotten up after you ate, the server could have had another table and would have gotten another tip. If you are going to hang out with friends or coworkers and talk and take up that servers table…tip extra considering you are costing them money! If you don’t tip at all…you just made that server pay to wait on you because of the money they had to tip out from your total bill.

Here are some examples:
If your bill is $100…a 20% tip would be $20. The server gives $2.66 to the bar and host and $1.00 to the food runner which means the server actually only made $16.44 from you.

Let’s say your bill is $25 and you give a $4.00 tip. Take out a dollar for what the server has to tip out and now it’s down to $3.00 but if you sit in that servers table for 2 hours and don’t leave extra, you just paid that server $3.00/hour.

If your bill is $30 and you don’t leave anything, that server just PAID $1.10 to wait on you.

Servers only have 3-5 tables in their section for the night so when someone takes up that table (we call them campers) for a long period of time, they are taking the money you could be making from having another guest sit there.

Also…keep in mind that your server does not quote the wait time or cook your food or make your bar drinks so if you had to wait a while or if things didn’t come out the way you wanted them…it might not necessarily be your servers fault. To help a server provide you with the best service they can give…ask for everything you might need for your meal at once, not every time they come by the table you need something else (we call this running the server). Servers want to make money, they don’t want to give bad service (well…most of them) but you are not the only people they are waiting on. Another table might be a pain in the rear and the server is trying hard to make all the tables happy but one might be taking up more time than the others so when you go out…look around…see what other tables your server might have and how they are interacting with your server. Technically 18% is the standard in Georgia. My restaurant adds on 18% gratuity for parties of 8 or more.

By: VINCE

VINCE — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:16:30 +0000

DOUBLE THE TOTAL AND MOVE THE DECIMAL TO THE LEFT FOR 20%

27 x2=54 TIP $5.40

DROP A LITTLE FOR LESS THAN 20%

By: Muriel

Muriel — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:24:20 +0000

The best tip I have heard and now use and makes it easy to figure in your head is…take three times the tax and that will give you 18% so you can go up or down whatever suits you. And tip only on the food not with the tax included ((total bill).

By: A

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:31:56 +0000

…and there lies the problem.
There are places that pay min. wage and tips are a bonus
There are places that pay half min. wage and tips but get topped up to min wage
There are places that pay half min. wage and tips but no top up
There are places that are tips only.

So if you’re trying to tip so the server gets a decent wage what’s the right amount?

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:16:58 +0000

Thanks for the insight, Wendy. I think many people weren’t aware that there were comments from Canada and the US, which causes confusion on standard practices, and what is is isn’t acceptable.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:58:21 +0000

I think we need to remember that some comments here are Canadian based, and some are American based.
My husband and I owned a restaurant for several years in Canada and this is how it is….
- tipping is on the total BEFORE TAXES- when taxes were 15% it made it easy- simply pay the tax for good service.
- servers DO NOT pay tax on their tips (unless they claim it) which most do not
- Most servers do need to contribute a % of their sales (not a % of their tips) to a tip pool which gets divided between cooks, hostesses, bus boys etc… that means if you do not tip at all the server has had to put money out of their own pocket- basically it cost them to serve you, which even for poor service is unfair. if you do a bad job do you get wages deducted????????
- 15% is a standard tip, we leave more for exceptional service and less for poor service. By poor service I mean something within the severs control- examples: rudeness, walking past our table 15 times without askingi if we want a refill on coffee etc, waiting for a long period of time when first being sat without even a acknowledgment, waiting to pay (very irritating)etc…
- NOT LIKING YOUR MEAL- or waiting too long for your meal is not the servers fault- that has NOTHING to do with service- it is the kitchen.
- and finally: servers live on tips and get paid minimally for a reason- your pasta dish which is $14.99 would easily be $30.00 if the owner had to pay the entire wait staff higher than minimum wage. So would you rather pay an additional $2.50 tip on that entree or $15.00????????

By: jab

jab — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:03:27 +0000

The salaries of resturant workers are calculated in the cost. then the costs are the base of the bills. so when you pay your resturant bill you covered even the gas for the truck bringing the meat to to resturant. then one day the owners of the resurant added %15 of the bill to thier profits, meaning to cover any new costs but simply double thier profit. How did they do that is by asking customers to pay some of the workers. they wish they can make you double pay for all workers including the ones behind the seen. So the sent these workers to you and make you feel guilty as thier living in totaly dependent on your tip. In the mean time the owner did not bother cutting what he used to pay them from your bill.
I think the tip is a steal the goes to resturant owner, it is demeaning to resurant workers, it is becoming a way to judge cutomers and even deprive some from thier right of good sdervice and make them feel cheep even if they tip but not %15 but say %11. Tip used to be a sign of wvaluation and appreciation for real good service. but now it is a sign of evaluation of customers.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 17:00:32 +0000

Steph, most places in the US only pay waiters about half the minimum wage because they are expected to earn money from tips. If they don’t earn enough to cover minimum wage, then the restaurant has to make up the difference in wages. (there are laws to cover this). It doesn’t seem fair, but that is how it is, and why it is so important to tip well.