9 ms·

The problem is they tip on the Groupon price, not the full price, and are thus tipping something like 40% of what they should be. I am not intimately familiar

• abraham 15y ago
  Generally speaking more expensive restaurants have better trained and more experienced servers that are more attentive hence deserving in a better tip. The percentage is really just a hack as a rough estimate of how much work a server had to do. While not always true a meal costing $100 will probably require more work from a server then a meal costing $50.
• mikbetk 15y ago
  Yes, it's a tax thing. A lot of restaurants base your taxes on your gross sales, assuming you will get 10-15% in tips. Coupon deductions are not calculated in this gross.
• patio11 15y ago
  IAmerican tipping culture: there is a near-involiate presumption that wait staff gets tipped N% of the order. Customary practice recently is N is 20. Theoretically, tips are tied to service received. In practice, variation from societal norms is vanishingly rare in polite company. Waiters in higher priced restaurants do make better tips as a consequence of this. That might matter if the culture were designed. It was not, it merely came to be. FYI, apart from suffering social opprobrium, the big reason to always tip is that wait staff are taxed on your imputed tip whether you give it or not. This leads to compelling social justice reasons to tip even if one does not share the culture.
  • ghshephard 15y ago
    Side note - in California 18.5% is the customary practice for tips, though, to make it easy, you can round up to 20%. No service person will complain. If you get lackluster service, you can point it out with a 15% tip. Poor service gets a 10% tip, and, will make it clear you are unhappy. After 15 years of doing this (I'm from Canada, where tips aren't as proscribed, though they are still expected) I find it awkward and socially painful to pay the bill in countries in which there is not a tip expected (certain parts of Australia) - even though the locals assure me that no one will think the less of me.
    • int3rnaut 15y ago
      A lot of the "classier" restaurants in my Canadian city, include a minimum 15% tip on the bill which is an interesting approach--Though it ravages the the funny after-meal banter I have when dining with my grandparents. "15% ARE THEY MAD?!!" Haha.
    • bloggergirl 15y ago
      I'm in Canada, where tipping is just as expected as it is in the US. However, here it seems that 15% is standard for good service; 10% for fair service or a buffet/brunch meal (where the server was less-involved); and 20% or more for fantastic service. I had no idea California was so high. Servers in all proper US/Canadian restaurants have to "tip out", which means paying a percentage of what should have been their tip on any table to support staff (e.g., bartender, host, kitchen). A server can tip out as much as 5% of the pre-tax bill --- or 1/3 of the expected standard tip --- which means that if you leave them no tip, they actually have to pay to serve you.
      • bugsy 15y ago
        Also, often the IRS taxes them not on what they actually make in tips if it is low, but on what the IRS thinks they should have made.
      • kelnos 15y ago
        Interesting; in the US it's common practice for all tips received to be pooled, and then divided among the waitstaff, busboys, etc. I'm not sure if they're divided equally, but everyone should at least get a pre-decided portion.
• burgerbrain 15y ago
  I tip because that's how my society operates. I tip well^ because it means I get above-par service. ^well is relative to what they expect, so this is where the quality of the restaurant is factored in by myself.
  • aquark 15y ago
    Do you tip before the meal then, or is this based on being a repeat customer?
    • burgerbrain 15y ago
      Repeat customer. I generally only eat at small family owned joints anyway, so that helps as well.
• JeremyBanks 15y ago
  This doesn't address your question about culture, but the one time I used Groupon the sheet we printed out with the coupon on it specifically asked that we tip on the full price.
  • contactdick 15y ago
    Sounds like a pretty sensible practice.
• noodle 15y ago
  this is something that probably isn't clear to people who don't live in the US -- wait staff in the US make around $2-3/hour. they aren't paid a living wage. they rely on tips as their primary source of income, and tips are usually shared with a bartender/busboy. if a restaurant runs a groupon and all grouponers tip on the post-coupon rate, the wait staff will be taking a rather large pay cut for the length of time that people are grouponing. i know i'd be grumbling if something my company did resulted in me making 50% less for a month or two. more expensive restaurants and meals mean more expensive tips because the wait staff is more experienced, better trained, higher quality, and do more work. one person at a higher-end restaurant can give high quality service to fewer people than one person at a low-end place, and meals at a higher-end place usually take much longer. yes, the average tip is larger, but the frequency in which they receive tips is lower. yes, they make more, but not that much more.
  • jeromec 15y ago
    wait staff in the US make around $2-3/hour. they aren't paid a living wage. Not true. That's why we have federal minimum wage laws. If the wait staff are actually employed and not acting as independent contractors, then they are paid the minimum wage for their state. (Although I will grant that this being a living wage is definitely arguable.) Edit: Correction - although not California (my state), apparently some states do allow minimum wages in the $2-3 range if employees receive tips [1]. For the downvoters, I only count about 5 states that do this, however. The original statement does not accurately reflect the majority of the U.S. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._minimum_wages http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._minimum_wages
    • c0riander 15y ago
      "Tipped workers" are paid under different rules, and it varies state by state. They typically have a minimum cash wage ($2.13 federally and in NY for example) and an hourly "tip credit" ($5.12 fed/in NY) to bring them up to standard "minimum wage" ($7.25). They only get paid $2.13 an hour by their employer. More here: http://www.paywizard.org/main/Minimumwageandovertime/MinimumWageTIPRecevers http://www.paywizard.org/main/Minimumwageandovertime/Minimum...
• deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
• jeromec 15y ago
  Is there an inherent reason you tip on the full price? Yes, theoretically the higher your bill the better time you are having. (Think celebratory events as opposed to a lunch break.) Is it a tax? No, it's gratuity. You're showing your appreciation for the staff enabling you to have the best experience possible at that time (in theory). If tipping is to support staff wages does that mean waiters who serve fancier higher priced food items are entitled to larger wages solely for the fact that their table happened to order a costlier meal? Serving higher priced food usually means higher caliber of customers, in the tipping sense. For example, patrons of Denny's restaurants might tip well if the coffee refills are on time, but in a finer dining establishment, for example, service requests for something off the menu (like a newspaper) would not be out of the ordinary.
• robobenjie 15y ago
  Also places that have more expensive food tend to have more people to spread the tips around on. The waiter splits the tip with the person busing tables, the person refilling your water glass, the host etc.
• hnsmurf 15y ago
  Right, we pay our waitstaff next to nothing in terms of hourly rate (it's well below minimum wage) and they make all of their money on tips. If a bill is $50 worth of food, you should tip the waiter on that, even if you got it with a Groupon that cost $25. Waiters at higher-priced restaurants do make considerably more. Thus those restaurants are far more selective (a lot of waiters at, say, Fridays are new to the trade, not so at Mortons) and the waiters are better. Their jobs are more time-consuming too since there are more courses, wines, they're expected to be more knowledgeable about the ever changing menu, etc.
• chc 15y ago
  Groupon does instruct customers to tip on the full price. It's probably part of the picture they draw when they're pitching to businesses — so when people skimp on the tip, it's a rude awakening.
• bugsy 15y ago
  In the US, wait staff at restaurants are paid $2.35/hr, same as the minimum wage in 1975. Each time since then that the minimum wage has been raised, there has been an exception for agricultural labor (field workers can be paid $10 for a 12 hr day if you like and often are) and for restaurant workers. For high end restaurants it's not so bad since you can make a living on tips. Also, it doesn't apply to fast food workers who don't get tips. However, some especially seedy fast food restaurants like Pizza Hut will have the staff bring out the food, meaning they are exempt from minimum wage. The problem is most Pizza Hut bills are small and half the customers don't realize they are supposed to tip since they think of it as fast food. In addition to this, most restaurants have no benefit programs or insurance at all. In addition, as is customary in the US, in most cases if you are injured at work, a story will be constructed and you'll be fired.
• Sakes 15y ago
  The company is offering the coupon, not the waitress/waiter. It'd be like every time the company you work for offers a discount to a customer, you see money taken out of your hourly wage or salary. Personally that would make me livid. I always tip on the full price of the meal.