Many are tipping less, survey shows. How about you?

[Robin Garr]

This is a fascinating report in the Restaurant Hospitality magazine website, suggesting that as the economy continues to stagger for many Americans, diminishing tips for servers at all levels of restaurant service may put additional pressure on restaurants to go tip-free.

How about you? I would hope a community of foodies and industry pros would run counter to this trend, but who knows? Are you tipping less these days?

Restaurant guests getting tightfisted about tips
As customers trim gratuities, some operators are eyeing new tipping formats.

Because quick-service restaurants have been the primary target of minimum wage advocacy groups and their political allies, they have been taking most of the heat over restaurant worker compensation issues of late. But the tipping policies and practices of other segments are coming under scrutiny, too. What we’re learning: Customers tip less than they used to, a few more operators have opted for a built-in “service charge” model and Starbucks hopes to replace the tip jar with an app.

A new survey conducted by website vouchercloud examined the tipping behavior of 2,612 U.S. consumers and found that full-service restaurant customers now leave smaller gratuities than they once did. Roughly three-quarters of respondents said they now tip less than the “customary” 20 percent. Within this group, 57 percent said they simply couldn’t afford to tip that much and one-third said it was a merit-based decision. Twenty-nine percent said they would not tip 20 percent, period.

Here’s how restaurant customers routinely tip, according to the vouchercloud survey:

• 20 percent or more of the tab: 23 percent

• 10-19 percent of the tab: 29 percent

• 10 percent of less of the tab: 35 percent

• “Nothing”: 11 percent

Nearly half of respondents—46 percent—said they leave a smaller percentage today than they did five years ago. How come? 65 percent said it was because their financial situation had changed.

There's a lot more to the full story. Read it here:
http://restaurant-hospitality.com/consu ... =article_2

I always tip 20% unless service is seriously lacking, in which case I tip 15-18%. However, that rarely happens. A few weeks ago I had my first time ever leaving no tip at all. The worst dining experience I've ever had.

I routinely tip my daughter 30-40% when visiting her at work, and shake my head at the paltry tipping that goes on there.

I view tipping as part of the budgeting to dine out. If I can't afford to tip properly, I can't afford to dine out.

Being in the business, we tip extremely well, particularly for exceptional service. I know what the behind the scenes of all of that looks like and appreciate the working conditions and demands. Even mediocre service will get a benefit of the doubt from me. It takes truly dismal and disinterested service to make me do the math after a meal.

This is something I've felt uneasy about for some time, so I guess it's confession time.

Over the course of this century I've ceased tipping the proper customary 15% for standard service and 20% for great service. Instead I now routinely tip 20% unless service just sucks. Of course, the quality of food in no way affects the tip. Only an idiot would punch the person on his left when the person on his right hits him in the gut.

I feel a stab of conscience that I am culpable in degrading the servers. That is, rewarding everyone the same except for egregious service so quite good servers get the same as average ones. Frankly, as a result I've gradually taken to eating out less and eating home cooking more as I lack enthusiasm for supporting an increase in my $ to servers that is not in direct proportion to the size of the bill for the food. We're down from 3 - 4 times a week to about half from I suppose 2001 to 2014.

One abomination is tip jars in counter service food & coffee places where you order at a counter and pick up there. What service am I paying for? So you think you are more deserving of a tip than the people who do a similar job at KFC, Taco Bell, Mac's? Get a clue! When there are tip jars in situations like that it is just pan handling. If you don't like the wages at Heine Bros. or wherever, trade places with the folks at Dairy Queen. Or do something else but, do not labor under the delusion that any customer in that situation is anything less than a sucker to put money in a tip jar.

One abomination is tip jars in counter service food & coffee places where you order at a counter and pick up there. What service am I paying for? So you think you are more deserving of a tip than the people who do a similar job at KFC, Taco Bell, Mac's? Get a clue! When there are tip jars in situations like that it is just pan handling. If you don't like the wages at Heine Bros. or wherever, trade places with the folks at Dairy Queen. Or do something else but, do not labor under the delusion that any customer in that situation is anything less than a sucker to put money in a tip jar.

I agree, except for a quibble about coffee shops. If I'm just getting a cup of brewed coffee, I don't think a tip is reasonable. But espresso, and espresso-based drinks, are a real craft that takes skill and training to do properly, and deserves a tip every bit as much as a bartender does.

One abomination is tip jars in counter service food & coffee places where you order at a counter and pick up there. What service am I paying for? So you think you are more deserving of a tip than the people who do a similar job at KFC, Taco Bell, Mac's? Get a clue! When there are tip jars in situations like that it is just pan handling. If you don't like the wages at Heine Bros. or wherever, trade places with the folks at Dairy Queen. Or do something else but, do not labor under the delusion that any customer in that situation is anything less than a sucker to put money in a tip jar.

I disagree with your hostilities. Counter Service employees often wear the server hat along with many others.

Baristas are the people who actually make your drink, they pull espresso shots, and craft your beverage just like a bartender. It is safe to assume that you would tip a bartender?

Speaking for the FOH employees at Feast they are expected to be knowledgeable about the menu(waiter), take food/drink orders(waiter), deliver a bill to the guest,(waiter) pour drinks/make cocktails (bartender), deliver the food (waiters), point out the directions that first time guests may need (locations of utensils, napkins, sauces), check on the guests as needed (waiter), clear food from the guests(busboy/waiter), clean off the tables for the next guests (busboys), and keep the restaurant clean (stewards).

Our counter service employees are paid in the double digits, well over minimum wage, but I actively encourage them to put a tip jar out that they've graciously decided to split equally with the BOH employees that cook all of the food and wash all of the dishes.

Quick service adds a convenience factor for me that is worth just as much as table service. I never have to wait on a server for my bill or a refill.

And even though our counter service employees may do a far share more than the guy handing out bags of food at McDonalds, as one of those former McDonalds counter service employees making minimum wage that spent a fair amount of his time cleaning the bathrooms, the play place, and the occasional vagrant vomit a tip would have been nice every now and then.

I hear what you are saying and I agree...to a point. Waiters and waitresses make below the minimum wage (not something I agree with) and I don't mind an additional 20%+ tip. Not all restaurant workers make that wage. I don't consider a busboy or a disher skilled labour. At some point business owners accept the responsibility of paying their employees a fair, livable wage. It shouldn't depend on diners tipping out to everyone within the four walls. I tip my hairdresser and the person that washes my hair but I do not tip the janitor that keeps their bathrooms clean. And, just like in any other business, if you can not afford to pay your help than you don't have enough capitol to open a business.

I feel like I've been tipping at about the same level since I graduated from college. In general I'll tip 20% except for the most egregious of server behavior. If the service is truly bad, I'll either not tip at all or leave an obviously lowball amount.

I'm considering changing my criteria for that 20% because in the last year or so I've noticed a distinct decline on the quality of servers at most of the places I frequent. Granted, I'm not a typical $$$ diner (on the $-$$$$ scale), as I don't frequent places where a meal for one starts at $50 and up. I would expect top-notch service in that category.

It just seems that in the $$ category, the servers are getting worse. Just in the past month, I've encountered the following in restaurants that were NOT busy (I can make exceptions if they're "in the weeds"): 1) being ignored by hosts/servers (when servers are serving as hosts) even though my BF is 6'5" and kind of hard to miss 2)not approached/given menus/offered drinks in a timely fashion once seated 3)dirty dishes not being cleared from the table 4) servers forgetting to actually place my orders with the kitchen (that happens way too often to me in this city) 5) servers totally disappearing once the food is served thus no refills or cleared plates 6)excessive wait times to receive our check (has been upwards of 30 minutes after the server has noted we were finished eating).

My plan is to start docking my tips accordingly based on how many of these issues occur, starting at 20% and docking a percentage per each issue. I've started giving a 5 minute limit (in non-busy restaurants) to be acknowledged by a host or server. If more than that, I walk out. Thankfully most of the places where I've done the "walk out" have gone out of business.

Maybe I've reached the "get off my lawn" level of the game, but bad service at a restaurant makes me cranky, and less inclined to part with my own hard-earned money.

One abomination is tip jars in counter service food & coffee places where you order at a counter and pick up there. What service am I paying for? So you think you are more deserving of a tip than the people who do a similar job at KFC, Taco Bell, Mac's? Get a clue! When there are tip jars in situations like that it is just pan handling. If you don't like the wages at Heine Bros. or wherever, trade places with the folks at Dairy Queen. Or do something else but, do not labor under the delusion that any customer in that situation is anything less than a sucker to put money in a tip jar.

This blows my mind. Honestly. Wow.

The ONLY reason we ever put a tip jar out at Gumbo A Go-Go was because a majority of the customers kept asking us where they could leave a tip for us. We were totally counter service (take the order at the counter, then run it out to the table) and never once asked nor expected a tip of any kind. Customers actually wanted to tip us. We put the jar out as a simple way to facilitate that. We split all tips amongst every person on shift during the service. I can assure you we never panhandled or felt entitled to any tips.

So I guess there were a lot of suckers on Frankfort Ave back in the 2000's.

I view tipping as part of the budgeting to dine out. If I can't afford to tip properly, I can't afford to dine out.

Same here. If I'm dissatisfied with a place I just don't go back.

I'm wondering if this is part of an overall trend in society, where people pushing for better wages are demonized and blamed for society's ills (in the same way as teachers and police officers seem to be when their wages are discussed). On my way home this afternoon I caught a snippet of a story about raising the minimum wage in Louisville. One of the quotes was from someone who predicted doom for the restaurant industry if such a measure were to pass. Funny, it sounded just like the argument that was made when the minimum wage went from $2.10 to $2.35.

I view tipping as part of the budgeting to dine out. If I can't afford to tip properly, I can't afford to dine out.

Same here. If I'm dissatisfied with a place I just don't go back.

I'm wondering if this is part of an overall trend in society, where people pushing for better wages are demonized and blamed for society's ills (in the same way as teachers and police officers seem to be when their wages are discussed). On my way home this afternoon I caught a snippet of a story about raising the minimum wage in Louisville. One of the quotes was from someone who predicted doom for the restaurant industry if such a measure were to pass. Funny, it sounded just like the argument that was made when the minimum wage went from $2.10 to $2.35.

Or maybe when Marie Antoinette said, "Let them eat cake."
And we know how that ended.

My plan is to start docking my tips accordingly based on how many of these issues occur, starting at 20% and docking a percentage per each issue.

I've been doing this for years...A server -starts- at 20% when we walk in the door and the percentage goes up (or down) based on performance. We're not so consumed by this formula that we get down to nut crunching a servers every last move but at the end of the meal...You know if it was a 25 or 30% effort...or if it was a 10% effort.

This blows my mind. Honestly. Wow.
The ONLY reason we ever put a tip jar out at Gumbo A Go-Go was because a majority of the customers kept asking us where they could leave a tip for us.

Well, in truth I'm pretty blown away as well. My assumption has always been that wait staff got tips for the extra services they perform in catering to guests at tables to help compensate their Third World wages. I certainly do my part on that score. I worked in fast food when I was in school in the 1970s making minimum wage and it never even crossed my mind that I should be tipped for it. It never crossed anyone else's mind either as I don't recall seeing it happen in a counter service situation then or until probably sometime in the 1990s. The notion that customers actually ASKED for a tip jar to be set up in a counter service situation is mind-blowing. When did it become a generally acceptable notion that tips were something one should give to workers for being polite, doing some food prep, collecting payment and handing the order over the counter? Or just politely collecting money as I see tip jars at the cash register at self-service frozen yogurt places? Was I an exploited youth who is taking 40 years to become aware of my poor treatment?

Depends on the service, and hasn't changed. I go from 15% to 20+%. I've only received truly terrible, actually insulting, service twice in my life, and both times I left nothing and told the manager why.