Tips

[Maclowery]

Haltz n i are the default bartenders here, right?

Anyway, buck a drink is standard procedure if you are payin cash. If you buy a buncha crap, its fine to round down to a coupla bucks for the round.

Most people pay with credit tabs now, anyway. So, just for karmas sake, tip a few bucks more than you think is average

[IMADreamer]

Going to bump this thread to talk about tips. I always try and tip well I think you should treat the people handling your food well. However we just ordered pizza online. This will shock some of you, but I've never done that before, wifey usually handles it. I didn't tip. Now here's the thing, I'm going to pick it up at their store, so what would I be tipping for? Am I wrong here and should I have tipped? My wife thinks yes.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Same. I always pay cash when I order online and pick up at the store to avoid the tip question. And they don’t have a place to tip with cash at the counter. What am I supposed to do? Awkwardly hand it to the employee like … here you poor thing. Take my pity money?

I used to work at a pizza place (pre smart phones/apps/ordering online) and not one time did anyone coming in to pick up pizza ever tip.

Online ordering is a scam when it comes to tips imo.

That said, i do feel like a tip is almost warranted. If it was a fine dining place, I’d tip for the exact same service.

We just need to get rid of tipping and pay people what they’re worth.

[TGantz]

I don't for carry out, or at Subway/Bread Co type places that are now prompting it. We should be reducing the amount of jobs that receive tips, not adding new ones. Tip culture sucks.

[haltz]

We just need to get rid of tipping and pay people what they’re worth.

This applies more to full service, fine dining or IOW places where having a meal is an experience, but prices will just go up and you'd lose the ability to dial it up or down depending on service. Really good pros will leave the industry because an owner probably is not going to pay them $75/hr to bring people their food, and they are competitive and like any salesperson like to work on commission, which is basically what tipping is. Sales is a way for someone to work their way into a good living who maybe didn't want to go to years and years of school or tied to a desk for the rest of their life. I'm glad it's an option, but obviously some people hate it. I think those people are cheap and should make their own pizza or sandwich or steak tartare and clean up the mess.

I like the idea that other industries give a tip line. I called some local company last week to get rid of a couch and an old mattress. The guys were in and out in about two seconds, super friendly and on time. I didn't have cash on me and I was happy to see that there was a way for me to give them an extra $25 when they ran my card.

[AWvsCBsteeeerike3]

Fine dining/full service is one thing and I get your point. Certainly those servers/bartenders can make bank and upselling gets them even more. So yeah it makes sense.

But the whole tipping culture has gotten out of control. Should we tip a worker at Pizza Hut when we order online and pick up the pizza? Why would we do that? The only reason is because it’s becoming a cultural norm and also largely because the people getting the tip are making less than a living wage.

Frankly I find this entire trend uncomfortable and [expletive] up. If that makes me cheap then so be it. But i also don’t want to propagate it further. So yeah give me a Costco pizza or whatever where I don’t have to feel bad for not tipping or feel like I’m being taken advantage of.

[go birds]

[GeddyWrox]

For a sit down meal, I'll usually tip over 20% (unless service or the food was bad, then it's 18% on the nose).

For carryout like IMA's post, I'll tip a little. Like $5 or something. Nowhere close to 20% though.

If I get delivery, I will tip as if it was a sit down meal.

[ghostrunner]

There might be something to be said for not tipping for carryout. I do it, because I don't trust the owners not to underpay either way. I worked a Starbucks once and that tip cash was very much welcome. But it's possible it leads them to say "hey it's only $10/hour but we get a lot of tips"

[G. Keenan]

I tip 20% whether I'm dining in, or picking up carryout. Delivery I never do anymore. The fees are ridiculous.

I think the tipping on carryout was something I started doing during lockdown when I figured my local neighborhood places could use the extra support, and I've just kept doing it. It probably takes a similar amount of labor to pack up my burger, or Thai, or pizza carryout as it does to walk it 15 feet from the restaurant kitchen to my table if I'm dining in.

That said, tipping culture and just the cost of eating out is ridiculous in this country, at least in Chicago it is. I can only assume that rents are insane or something, because the cost of dining out can't be because of the $6/hour, no healthcare, no retirement plan, no paid time off that most tipped workers get.

My job takes me to Europe pretty often and I can never get over 1) how much better restaurant food is there and 2) how much cheaper it is than here. Whether you're comparing fine dining there to fine dining here, or replacement level dining there to replacement level dining here -- their quality is better, for less money, and you don't have to tip. Maybe in some cases you might want to tip 10%, maximum. I've literally had guys give me tips back. Straight up refused to accept it.

I don't know why the economics are so different. European cities, even when the overall population is smaller than an American city, have higher population densities, so maybe restaurants have more turnover and can charge less per customer? Maybe without tips, servers earn less than their American counterparts, and so incomes in the restaurant industry there are just less and those workers are ok with that? They do at least have healthcare. Average wages tend to be higher here so with more consumer spending power maybe restaurants here can just charge higher prices because the market will bear it?

I've really tried to cut back on dining out in Chicago because the quality to price ratio is just way out of whack, imo. It's one thing to pay a lot for a really good meal, with great ambiance, served by pros who know their stuff and take good care of you. I get that. What grinds my gears is the cost of just regular, nothing special meals. Go to you average neighborhood pub here in Chicago and have a couple of burgers with fries, and a couple of beers each, and after tip you're not walking out of there for less than $80. And this is not some recent, inflation-related phenomenon. Prices here are up a couple bucks on your average menu item, but it's basically always been this way. Just is what it is, I guess, but I've cut way back on my dining out because I just can't justify it to myself.

While I'm on the topic, something that I find absolutely offensive, and am seeing more of, are restaurants in Chicago that say you can only have the table for 90 minutes. This to me is just anathema to the dining experience.