Tipping 10% of the bill seems a lot to me

[ElderAve]

I'm prepared to be flamed but let me explain my logic.

Now DC are grown up, when we go out to dinner we are usually 4 adults. We don't do it very often but like somewhere "nice" so when we do, two courses plus drinks probably cost £150-£200. We'll be in the restaurant say 2 hours and the waiter will typically have 5/6 other tables (?).

That's an awfully good hourly rate if everyone leaves 10%.

Would you leave £20 on a £200 bill for 4 people? If not what is a fair/reasonable amount to leave?

KatherineJaneway virtually nowhere we go adds service charge. We're in Manchester.

I was taught 10% of the food not the drink should be tip

I'd say an automatic service charge is the exception, not the rule. Not even all chain places do it and independents rarely do IME

10% is my usual tip. I do it when I feel the service has been good and personal.

For example, in a restaurant I use frequently, staff always remember what I drink and are happy to let me change my order (things like, can I have no sauce with that, can I have that without the rrocket, can I have this starter as a main).

They always are ok with this.

This week, I ordered ( or thought I had) Halumi. They brought me Humus. I like Humus and thought I'd just go with it.

The waiter saw my plate and realised he'd ordered the wrong thing for me. He was very apologetic. I told him that it was ok, I like Humus too.

Nevertheless, the restaurant refused to charge me, saying I was a liked customer and it was their pleasure to make up for their mistake.

Win win. I'm a return customer, the staff get a decent tip. What's not to like

99problemsandthecatis1 interesting as my experience is the opposite. Might be a London thing.

A 10 per cent tip 'flashy'?! Ha. I have to convince my better half not to leave 25 percent usually!

You don’t need to tip if the service isn’t great . I say that as an ex waitress.
25% is incredibly flashy.

I never purposely pay 10%. I usually leave whatever I have in my purse. Sometimes it's nothing but mostly its £5, £10 or £20.

We tip 15%. Always. I just factor it into the cost of the meal. I don’t eat out with stingey tippers or people that want to itemise the bill without asking to do so at the outset.

I don’t tip unless the service has been exceptional.

I don’t agree with the notion that everyone should tip 10%.

Most restaurants I eat at add 12.5% and I always leave that as it doesn't seem worth the hassle not to. I have stopped leaving tips if it's not added lately though. I feel like other NMW jobs don't get tips so what's the difference. I also think it's another Americanism coming over to this side of the pond.

In the US and Canada I always tip15-20% and factor this into the cost of eating out. Their wages reflect the need for tips.

What do mumsnetters tip at hairdresser?

I always tip 10% but it’s out of custom and a sense of obligation more than anything else, and not wanting to be seen as mean as a result. I do question why we tip restaurant staff but not other unskilled / low wage service providers - I know waiting is a hard job but I’m not sure it’s necessarily harder than working in retail or catering or caring.

This, absolutely. And I’m glad it was followed up by anxiouswaiting’s post. We have the NMW and NLW in the UK. The majority of jobs are not tipped and a good number, like hers and her colleagues’, are far more brutal than hospitality to boot. I’m happy to tip for really exceptional service but everyday stuff - I don’t like the expectation and I don’t have to. If places want to charge for service and divide tips between staff then they should factor it in to prices at the outset and reflect that in pay.

I always tip 10% everywhere and ensure my kids do too. I also tip even if bad waiting on service - esp if the meal was nice as tips don’t just go to the server. They are almost always shared

I dobt like tipping though if it goes on electronically through a card machine

I would be embarrassed to not leave a tip, unless the service or the food was very bad.

I know what you mean, but I wonder where we came to a point where we're so heavily socialised to add extra money UNLESS our experience was significantly worse than OK but nothing special. Somebody upthread used the phrase 'stingey tippers', as if it's somehow shameful to agree a price for something and then not to pay significantly extra when it's supplied.

Do most people in regular employment look at their payslip each month, see that it's the same as last month (i.e. one twelfth of your salary minus stoppages) and criticise their 'stingey' bosses, as if it's a surprise?

If you spent £20 in a shop and handed over a £20 note, you'd never expect the assistant to think you stingey for not adding any extra money. Even if you spent £19.99, nobody would consider you tight for taking your penny change.

I'm not saying that waiter/esses don't work hard for their money, but, as has been said, so do lots of people - carers especially.

Also, if we are tipping, I don't understand why it's done as a percentage and not a standard extra fee. Why is it worth more to bring a lobster to the table than a salad? Amazon couriers don't get paid more for delivering a box containing a laptop than they do for one containing a multipack of toilet rolls.

I detest it when some websites clearly aimed at domestic customers (I know it's different for business customers) will give prices for everything and then, once you go to your basket and check out, add VAT on top of the total price it's given you up to that point. I have been known to abandon my purchase for that very reason. How is this scenario any different really? In fact, it's worse: I can abandon my basket of goods and halt the transaction online, but I can hardly give back the food I've already eaten.

I tip my hairdresser,taxi driver can't think of any others

Ex trade here. Will tip between 10% and 30% (30% for truly exceptional food & service)
Funnily enough, never seem to have a problem getting a table at our favourite, popular restaurants!

I tip if the service is excellent, not for bog-standard paid-for service. I will round up a pound or two but no, tipping is misplaced. I'd rather frequent the good places that pay their staff properly, not contribute to entitlement.

These threads always end up the same; carers/nursing staff are more deserving of tips but they don't get them. To bring it back to waiting staff, I stay in hotels often and the breakfast staff are generally brilliantly efficient - they don't get tips and can't have them, but deserve them. Lunch and evening staff... generally, pfft.

Funnily enough, never seem to have a problem getting a table at our favourite, popular restaurants!

I've seen this sort of thing on lots of tipping threads and I always wonder do people ringing to make the reservation tell them "oh by the way I sometimes too up to 30%".

Funnily enough i too never have a problem getting a table at the very popular and busy restaurants I've been to recently, and they dont know me from adam.

Always tip at least 10% unless the service was poor. If meal was £200 then anything less than £20 would feel mean!

I tip 10% as standard unless the service was poor...I am 45 and have always left tips. Spent time in the US when I was in my 20s.

And I live in the depths of Norfolk so not a London thing.

It's the same for me, Frikadela; it's always seemed like lady-bountiful, showing off largesse. It's cringeworthy.

There was a podcast recently about tipping; one restaurant ceasing it and one starting it. I'll see if I can find it, it was interesting.

Isn't there at least one country - maybe Japan? - where tipping is considered to be a gross insult? Like you're either trying to bribe for extra favours or condescend to the 'little people' as if they were beggars when they're actually doing the professional job for which they are sufficiently paid.

I can see how being given an extra discretionary amount that may arbitrarily be 3, 5, 10 times more than you're actually being paid to do the job could, although doubtless welcome, be seen as making a mockery of your whole job. Not quite the same thing, but a little like Westerners causing cultural offence by refusing to participate in the customary haggling in markets in poor countries, because they can't be fussed over a quid or two on some souvenir tat when, to the stallholder, it's their proud livelihood.

Until recently I was a waitress in a really nice restaurant within a small hotel. By the time the tips were divided between everyone who worked in the hotel (chefs, kitchen staff, cleaners, office staff, housekeepers etc) it worked out at an extra £1 per hour.

Not everyone tips, but it’s very much appreciated if you do.

When we go out we usually leave £5 if we have a quick lunch in a coffee shop, £10 if it’s a meal for the two of us and £20 if it’s a nice meal as a family (5 of us). I never leave a percentage of the bill.