Do you tip on carry out food?

[Moses Yoder]

I remember when my dad complained because tips were now a dollar. They used to be a quarter, he said. I don't hand my wife a five dollar bill when she makes dinner. When my sisters were servers at Peddlers Village restaurant my dad always made sure they waited on him when he went there so he didn't have to leave them a tip. I once had exceptional service from a woman at Menards, finding and helping to load some materials and when we were done held out a five dollar bill. She refused it; honestly nobody would have known the difference, nobody was around. I will never forget that level of integrity.

My dad once talked to a server for 20 minutes while we were on a fishing trip in Wellston, MI and she stood there taking it. I left her a $6.50 tip, 50% of our bill. My dad left his normal dollar. Out in the van he said "Did you leave her A FIVE DOLLAR BILL?!!!!". He was silent the rest of the way to our hotel. The next evening at the same restaurant he started again and I said "Dad, the longer you talk to her the higher I tip." We left shortly after.

I don't get food to go, but if I ran into someone who went out of their way to solve a problem for me I would tip them.

[Ole Anderson]

I tip half my normal inside tip for curbside carryout (like Applebee's, Olive Garden, etc.) assuming that the person bringing me and everyone else their food is just assigned carryout, and if I didn't tip, she goes home with the minimum pay. She or he is the one that has to bundle up for snow or rain or whatever, while the other servers are inside warm and dry, or cool and dry if you are south of the Mason-Dixon line.

[ray hampton]

I tip half my normal inside tip for curbside carryout (like Applebee's, Olive Garden, etc.) assuming that the person bringing me and everyone else their food is just assigned carryout, and if I didn't tip, she goes home with the minimum pay. She or he is the one that has to bundle up for snow or rain or whatever, while the other servers are inside warm and dry, or cool and dry if you are south of the Mason-Dixon line.

I owe the fast-food worker some money, never thought about giving them tips

[Myk Rian]

I tip my barber $3 on a $14 haircut, which is crazy as he owns the shop

Same here, but 2 bucks to round it to $15 and get a 5 back from a 20. Marcy owns the shop where she and her hubby work.

[Kev Williams]

Ok, a couple of hours ago I stopped in to Little Caezar's pizza to pick up some dinner. Got a 3-meat deep dish, which I had to wait for (no problem, I like 'em fresh outta the oven!), cheese bread and Crazy bread. While waiting, this thread came to mind.

Ok, so who do I tip-- the guy who made the pizza, the guy who took it out of the oven, the gal who sliced it, the guy who boxed it, or the gal who took my order and handed it to me when I was done?

It would've been totally unfair to tip only one, splitting a 20% tip between the 5 of them would've made me look cheap, and 20% to all would've cost me $20!

[Dan Hintz]

I tip half my normal inside tip for curbside carryout (like Applebee's, Olive Garden, etc.) assuming that the person bringing me and everyone else their food is just assigned carryout, and if I didn't tip, she goes home with the minimum pay. She or he is the one that has to bundle up for snow or rain or whatever, while the other servers are inside warm and dry, or cool and dry if you are south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Are the people who bring you curbside servers actually servers (i.e., they get paid the server's minimum wage)? If so, I believe a token tip is reasonable... if they're regular minimum wage employees, no tip should be necessary.

Ok, so who do I tip-- the guy who made the pizza, the guy who took it out of the oven, the gal who sliced it, the guy who boxed it, or the gal who took my order and handed it to me when I was done?

Just like in bars, when you tip one, you tip them all... all tip money is pooled at the end of the shift and split up according to percentages. I do NOT like that idea. For example, when I go on cruises that have sommeliers... what if I choose not to drink any wine? I have no tused their services, so why should they get a portion of the tip I leave the waitstaff? Luckily, on cruises you can specify in more detail where the tips should go.

[Phil Thien]

I've never used curbside delivery, except at Culvers (which is a fast-good). I don't tip there.

But if I go to pickup my food at a restaurant, and I see a tip jar, I'll toss some money into it.

Many times when I see a tip jar, I look around and see college students working the place on Thursday through Saturday evenings. I realize they aren't there because they enjoy seeing my smiling face, they need the money.

[Bert Kemp]

I've repeatedly said to family and friends if I ever open a restaurant, I'm going to pay the people a fair, decent wage, have signs on every table that say "NO TIPPING, PLEASE", and I'd hold my staff accountable for providing quality services to the customers. The way that industry works to me is crazy. How you can pay someone $2.00 per hour plus tips seems like an easy way for someone to skirt the minimum wage laws all other businesses have to deal with.

One restaurant we frequent goes through wait staff like mad. We probably eat there twice a week and in the last 3 years, I couldn't count the number of people that have worked there. It's a small Mom & Pop place. If I worked for $2.00 per hour plus tips, I wouldn't make it either. How's my pay (and time) relative to the food you cooked and the marketing you've done for your business? I didn't have anything to do with your marketing, so if you didn't spend money to get people in the door, I'm the one who gets punished. Makes no sense to me.

And if you pay a fair wage you'll be out of business in a week , because your food price's will be so high to cover the cost of paying your employee's that no one will eat there.
My daughters boy friend waits tables at a local breakfast restaurant he gets paid 2 bucks an hour and 200 a day in tips 5 days a week consistently during the summer season and winter ski seasons and about a 100 per day in the off season. So if your good at it and work at a decent place you make a good living on tips.

[Tim Boger]

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious here ..... why should it be the customers responsibility to supplement the restaurants payroll to assist them staying in business?

Is it too difficult to find employees that will do a job well enough and don't expect tips? In it's purest form, all facets of receiving a tip is up to me, the consumer and not the government, the restaurant owner, the employee or my peers ..... if I feel compelled to tip I will, for no other reason.

Something about empowering those the see themselves as entitled.

And if you pay a fair wage you'll be out of business in a week , because your food price's will be so high to cover the cost of paying your employee's that no one will eat there.
My daughters boy friend waits tables at a local breakfast restaurant he gets paid 2 bucks an hour and 200 a day in tips 5 days a week consistently during the summer season and winter ski seasons and about a 100 per day in the off season. So if your good at it and work at a decent place you make a good living on tips.

[Ole Anderson]

By allowing tipping you allow the server to set their own wage. I've known outstanding servers who often made over $200 a night just in tips, and that was back in the 1980s. Who is going to pay someone $200 a day to serve food?

I don't doubt it, but I bet that was just on the busiest nights of the week, probably Friday.

[Dan Hintz]

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious here ..... why should it be the customers responsibility to supplement the restaurants payroll to assist them staying in business?

It seems everyone views tipping from one one viewpoint or another, but most seem to miss the bigger picture. Paying certain employees a lower minimum wage but allowing them to accept tips doesn't shift responsibility to the customers.. it shifts choice. You can either pay high prices for all products they sell if they pay everyone a higher wage (in which case you have no choice in how the payroll is distributed), or you can pay much smaller prices overall and choose where to give "bonuses" to the employees you feel deserve it. In fact, you can choose to give higher bonuses than they would normally make at a higher wage.

Changing from one method to another will "solve" one problem, but immediately open up a different one.

[David Weaver]

One of the restaurants in the cultural district here shut down a couple of years ago. I was in it right before it closed, and I heard one server talking to another and he mentioned to her that he wasn't technically working there any longer, but he'd come back from time to time and work for tips ......because his best day there had been $500.

The cultural district is a spot in the city here that has a bunch of theaters around it. At night when the theaters have shows, people want to eat before and after and the restaurants can be packed. If you only walk by it during the day, sometimes you'd wonder how they stay in business (seeing it at night answers the question).

I've got relatives like moses describes of his dad - when it comes time to tip, they value their money more than they value anything the server could possibly do. A very "us vs. them" mentality when it came to money and there was any discretion.

And one last comment, one of my first jobs was a shoneys in a tourist town. I'd say if a place has turnover with wait staff, it's either because it doesn't generate enough traffic or the owners have a personality problem. Shoneys paid the min wage or a little more (which in PA for waitresses was only about $2 an hour back then, I made just short of $5 an hour washing dishes). During the summer when the town was full of tourists, there were a bunch of older ladies working there as waitresses, and I'll bet they made 5x as much as I did (given the stacks of tip money they'd pull out of their uniforms when they came back to the break room to smoke a cigarette). If a restaurant has good foot traffic and good food, the waitresses will make a ton of money.

[Moses Yoder]

And if you pay a fair wage you'll be out of business in a week , because your food price's will be so high to cover the cost of paying your employee's that no one will eat there.
My daughters boy friend waits tables at a local breakfast restaurant he gets paid 2 bucks an hour and 200 a day in tips 5 days a week consistently during the summer season and winter ski seasons and about a 100 per day in the off season. So if your good at it and work at a decent place you make a good living on tips.

I agree with you. Most customers view themselves as being generous when they leave a good tip and they consider themselves to have power over the server. In other words, a restaurant would soon be out of business if they charged $80 for a meal and forbid tips and someone down the street opened up and charged $65 for the same meal and expected people to leave a $15 tip.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I guess I simply view it like this: Reality check says the way the industry is structured uses low wages and tips to compensate the wait staff.

That includes, for me, the tip jar when I go in to pick up takeout.

In places that run on younger people for those jobs, and in places that are low-cost, I generally "over-tip" in terms of a % - but that usually isn't much on an absolute $ scale. That group of people are working a very demanding job, and I am sympathetic. My now-wife and I worked out way through college with jobs as wait people and bartender.

Then there is the other end of the scale - for example, 1/4 mile from me is a very nice, old-line classic Italian restaurant. You kind of need to know where it is to find it. Staffed by professional waiters - generally men, in the 50+ age range. They have been there for decades. Excellent service, good conversationalists, this is how they support their families. With them, I use a % - which still adds up to big $$$. It is easy for selections from their excellent wine list to completely blow the food $ away. I will explain to the person that the tip is X% of the wine bill, and Y% of the food. They are fine with that.

[Scott Shepherd]

And if you pay a fair wage you'll be out of business in a week , because your food price's will be so high to cover the cost of paying your employee's that no one will eat there.

That must be the "new math" I keep hearing about. The customers are already paying for the food and the wages. I'm not changing anything in the equation. What's the difference in a customer paying $50 for a family, then $7.50 in tip, and paying $57.50 for the meal with no tip? It's the exact same out of pocket expense to the customer. In that example, the bill was for 4 people, so the food price would go up, on average $1.87 each person. I'd pay $1.87 more to eat at a place that held their staff accountable for their actions rather than making me, the customer, responsible for deciding whether their employee did a good job or not. Keep in mind, the price isn't actually "going up" based on what you're spending anyway. It's just shifting the responsibility of managing the employees back to the company rather than the customers.