Poll: Would you eat out with someone who doesn't tip?

[mackler]

I think I'd rather see the prices raised 15%, the employees paid a fair wage, and custom recommending an extra 5-8% for exceptional service.  

While we're on the subject of customs and practices we'd like to see changed, I would like to see all prices removed from the menu.  Every customer should be free to negotiate the price of their meal with the server before they order.  And different servers should be able to compete with each other.  And if the server wants to put in an option to adjust the amount paid after the food's been eaten based on the customer's assessment of service quality (or anything else), that should be up to the server and the customer to agree on.  If one server is offering the flexibility to pay less if the service sucks, and that's what you want, then order from that server.  If another server is offering you the lower price you want, order from that server.  If another server is promising to bring your food quicklier and that's what you want, order from that server.  If another server is a cute chick and that's what you want, order from that server, if one server has a menu with pre-printed prices and you get freaked out by too much freedom, order from that server.

If we're going to complain about customary ways of doing business, I'm going to raise my objection to this "one-size-fits-all" pricing system that almost all restaurants use and that everyone submits to unquestioningly.

[MengerFan]

Where's the option for "No friend of mine would ever refuse to pay for services rendered"?

[Russell Kanning]

If you knew in advance that your friend doesn't tip, would you eat at restaurants with him?

Sure ... I even used to go to restaurants with Caleb and watch him torture the waitstaff with his requests.

[Russell Kanning]

Do you know what the free market will dictate will happen to your food when you patronize the restaurant a second time?  Waiters have an awfully long memory about being stiffed, and they see your food before you do.

so it might come to threats?
so how much should I tip to not get poisoned? 50%

[Russell Kanning]

The menu price is the cost of running the business.  The cost of the service is separate, as per custom.  Since it's custom, it's not explicit.

so the owner doesn't pay them anything and it all comes from tips?
the custom used to be no tipping ... then it went to 10% 15% and now 20% ... they might keep losing customers

[AnarchoJesse]

Yes. Why? Because I don't care what they do or don't do. It's not my business in the first place.

[Russell Kanning]

Where's the option for "No friend of mine would ever refuse to pay for services rendered"?

maybe I will have to start warning people that I sometimes don't tip .... for lousy service

[dalebert]

Do you know what the free market will dictate will happen to your food when you patronize the restaurant a second time?  Waiters have an awfully long memory about being stiffed, and they see your food before you do.

so it might come to threats?
so how much should I tip to not get poisoned? 50%

I'm sure Caleb isn't saying that's ok. It's not. He's just pointing out the real risk someone is taking by consistently trying to buck a very prominent social custom. More likely it won't be poisoned. Just secretly gross.

[dalebert]

maybe I will have to start warning people that I sometimes don't tip .... for lousy service

That's actually not a very unusual stance. I doubt you'd catch much flack for that.

[Jan]

I've really enjoyed reading this thread and Mike's got-banned-from-Murphy's thread because the custom of tipping has always irked me, but I've never had the spine to do anything about it.  So, I tip the customary 15% regardless of the waitperson's effort or expertise.   

Last Christmas/New Year's my father took all of his kids and grandkids out for a fancy schmancy dinner at the William Tell in Thornton.  It's a somewhat upscale restaurant.  There were 10 of us and a few of us are deaf and use hearing aids.  So in noisy restaurants we have a hard time communicating with people.  Anyway, the waitress had to work our big table and shout at us deaf people, but I don't think she had to do anything especially noteworthy.  My dad got the bill and calculated the tip and we all got up to leave.  As we were putting on our jackets the waitress ran after us and grabbed my father and told him he didn't leave a big enough tip.  Our collective jaws dropped and we were all speechless...and extremely embarrassed.  He went back to the hostess station and did some adjusting of the bill because she told him he had to. 

We got the hell out of there and asked Dad what her problem was.  He told us he'd added on a 15% tip.  The waitress told him that wasn't enough - and that usually they would have automatically added on a 18% tip for a group of our size (ten???), but they forgot.  So, she told him he needed to adjust the amount he'd written in to be AT LEAST 18%. 

[Caleb]

If you knew in advance that your friend doesn't tip, would you eat at restaurants with him?

Sure ... I even used to go to restaurants with Caleb and watch him torture the waitstaff with his requests.

Yes, I do tend to be pretty high maintenance as a customer, mainly because I like things to be a certain way plus I drink a lot so I need lots of refills. But I also appropriately compensate the server for his/her service.  No one is suggesting that a server should not perform his job, just that they should be appropriately compensated.

so it might come to threats?
so how much should I tip to not get poisoned? 50%

I doubt it would come to threats. If a server decided to punish you that way, I doubt he'd threaten you beforehand, he'd just do it. I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying that it happens. If I was a server, and I had been stiffed by him before, I would simply tell the person on his next visit that I choose not to serve him, and if he has a problem with that, he can take it up with my manager. Other servers I knew ... well, let's just say they had a "don't get mad, get even" philosophy. It may not be right, but if Mike and others want to take a no-tipping philosophy, they might be well advised to never eat at the same place twice.  And don't figure that if you get a different server that you are safe. Where I worked, every server who was stiffed made sure that every other server in the restaurant knew that that particular person was a cheapskate, and a lot of servers have an attitude that they have the other server's back. Once again, I'm not defending it, just letting you know how it is.

maybe I will have to start warning people that I sometimes don't tip .... for lousy service

You could do that, but why? Is that the best way that you want people to treat you?  Lousy service isn't always the fault of the server. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes they have been given way too many tables to serve. Sometimes the kitchen is understaffed. Sometimes they just don't care. I find that usually my service is very good. If it's not very good, but not terrible, you can always reduce the tip by a few percentage points (it doesn't have to be reduced to zero.)  If the service is awful, I usually try to tactfully broach the issue with the server to see what the problem is. Given a chance, most servers will let you know what's going on. If it seems reasonable, then I just figure that it's no big deal. If the service is really lousy, and the server's attitude about it is "who cares?" then I'll usually tip 10%, and let him know that I usually tip much higher (25% at least) but that he might be in the wrong field. I have only done that once in my entire life. I spoke with the server who I could see flirting with girls the whole time while my meal was just sitting at the counter. I spoke with him about it, but then he did the same thing when I ordered my dessert and my milkshake was delivered to me already melted. I tipped him 10%, but very politely and yet firmly let him know that he had robbed himself of about an extra 15% by ignoring my service.  As I was walking out to my car, the manager flagged me down and thanked me for bringing that to his attention. She said that particular server just doesn't seem to ever serve well, and she's tried to make him see that he's only hurting himself, and that maybe hearing that from customers will help. Then she gave me some free vouchers. Like I said, that is the only time I've felt that the service was so egregious that I needed to dock the tip below 15%. 15% is standard, and tipping below that is an insult to the server. It's basically saying, "Your service was piss poor!"  Even 15% is like saying, "You did so-so."

[Lloyd Danforth]

This whole debate makes me want to quit tipping. 

Makes me want to quit eating out and enriching business owners who are exploiting this 'custom'.
On the other hand perhaps we should eat out more often and our tip could be or include a message for our servers to rise up against their exploiters. 

[Pat K]

If you won't tip a waiter, will you tip a cow?

[Sam A. Robrin]

As we were putting on our jackets the waitress ran after us and grabbed my father and told him he didn't leave a big enough tip. 

I've had the same experience--a number of times, in fact--in (where else?*) New York.  Always at group dinners with the science-fiction club (heavily stocked with the socially backward, admitted).  My only tip after an experience like that is "SunUp in the Ninth . . ."

_________
*Okay, San Francisco

[Lloyd Danforth]

If you won't tip a waiter, will you tip a cow?

Although I never attended classes, I spent a lot of time smoking Pot, playing Frisbee, 'Womanizing' and tipping Cows where Cow Tipping was invented.  The University Of Connecticut, at Storrs.