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?

I usually ask my waiter two things - 1) if they get to keep their own tip? and 2) to please remove the tip from the bill. Tips are meant to be taxed so when they go through as part of the bill they often are so I ask them to take it off. I then give the waiter however much I see fit. I’ve been to places before where I’ve stayed a good few hours and spent £200 between two in which case we’ve tipped the food waiter £10 and the cocktail man/mixologist £10. Usually I would tip about 10% but sometimes less. Personally I want to choose how much to give for a meal. I would rarely tip over £10 unless there was a big group or we had been there a long time, regardless of the amount spent. I’ve seen a comment from someone from Canada talking about how not tipping is unacceptable - bloody rubbish statement. There’s a minimum wage in the UK for a reason and often the tips supplement this well. You are not paying the waiter’s wage, it’s a tip for good service and you get to choose how much that is. Would be interested to know if this person tips their dentist, doctor, nursing staff, paramedics, shop assistants....? The responsibility of a decent wage is on the employer, whilst a tip is nice gesture it is not and should not be compulsory. If service is sh*t I don’t give anything. When asked if there is a problem I will usually explain why.

Incidentally I was talking to someone from the states a few years ago who was also a waitress, she was saying how tips are important and people ought to pay them because the wages of waiting staff/servers in the states was so low and therefore patrons should pay for the service that they receive or they wouldn’t earn as much money. I pointed out the system in the UK about the minimum wage and how everyone earns a basic minimum so that if they don’t get enough tips they still earn enough. I also explained how her employer is making enough money, the onus should be on them to pay her a decent wage, not on the people she is serving. Essentially the rice creaming off the top. Her response was that they can earn waaaaaay more with tips so why change it? At which point I lost interest, her comments just sounded greedy.

1HappyTraveller

I've thought the same too, as per your discussion with the American waitress. Some people are very happy to paint themselves as victims of gross unfairness, but when you try to suggest a way of making it much fairer for everybody, it suddenly turns out that they're very content to keep things as they are. They don't actually want fair: they want to spin the tale of unfairness in order to achieve far more than fair. I have no sympathy for people who complain endlessly about how terrible their lot is, but have not desire or will to do anything to change it, even when options would be readily available.