Paris tipping?
 

Is 10 percent tip too much for a 50e taxi ride? 5 percent? also casual bistros for lunch/dinner? 10 percent?

No tipping necessary for food establishments. Americans usually do it, my Parisian friends do not.

I usually slip my Parisian taxi cab driver about5 euros for a ride from CDG to my hotel. NOthing for bistros or restaurants unless I get superlative service.

No tips in restaurants/cafes. I may leave the change from paying a bill. If really great service, maybe a tip.

Service charge is included in bill

Tips for taxis and restaurants consist of spare change amounting to less than 1 euro.

I wish the U.S. had the same (non)tipping policies as in France! Lately, there is a "tipping jar" any place there is a cashier. Taxis, bellmen, doormen, maids, EVERYBODY! I guess businesses pay low wages, and expect the customers to make up the difference.

I realize now that on my first trips to Paris I tipped when it was not expected and over-tipped the rest of the time. The service is included at restaurants but some will let you think it is not because they know Americans will tip and we feel weird about not leaving a tip!

Use the extra money for more champagne and pastries!

So, if you plan to be back, tip a little more. What the heck ... we have been remembered on return trips even the next year.... and I do believe the friendliness of the staff gets a bit better... maybe they just like us...

Of course it does. They're in the kitchen winking at each other and saying "Regardez! Ce sont les américains qui nous ont laissé une pourboire assez grande d'acheter un grand crû! Sourriez-vous, tous!"

Autour d'un bon verre de vin,sourire vient facilement.

Roses or wine - I just don't worry or think about it that much....

<<Roses or wine - I just don't worry or think about it that much....>>

?????

StCirq, per google translate, you spoke of roses, and cafegoddess spoke of wine, and seafox, apparently, isn't concerned what they might be saying in the kitchen.

So much for Google translate. I said absolutely nothing about roses. It's the same word in French: roses.

Well, Skip30, you pretty much have your answer above; to each his own I say.

Note that the French do not view "service" and "tip" as one and the same; something which many Americans do.

Service is service; tip is "pourboire", or "to/for drink". In the days of yore, it was for the servant to literally buy himself a drink to quench his thirst (I assume after all the hard work performed). This easily carries over to today with what those who live in Paris are telling you...if they leave something at all, it is some change rounding up.

I find it interesting StCirq that you take so harshly to Seafox's leaving a tip in a restaurant, but you do tip for a taxi from CDG.

I have the opposite pet-peeve and usually don't tip taxis. By the time they've added on the starting meter fare, per-piece of-baggage supplement, Sunday/night-time surcharge, perhaps run the unsuspecting tourist around an extra block or two, AND (my biggest gripe) yakked the whole time one their cell phone while driving--frequently in a very animated, heated conversation--I just really don't care to leave them anything extra.

On the other hand, if I know I was seated in a restaurant at the last prime table instead of being sat by the swinging kitchen doors or near the hallway to Les Toilettes, or if the waitstaff went out of their way, seeing to our every need and even anticipating what would make the occasion special, if they offered to take a momento group picture without being asked to or brought a little "something" so the only person at the table who ordered just a main plat won't be sitting there the only person with an empty setting, then I have no problem showing my appreciation with a tip.

I have never had any such experience with a Parisian taxi driver. I tip them (a very small amount) because they invariably engage me in fascinating discussions throughout the ride. Many of them are Cambodians who survived the Killing Fields, and they have kept me spellbound with their tales of horror and escape to Europe. I don't have an issue with being run around extra blocks because I know where I'm going and speak up if the driver starts to take a longer route (and sometimes it's because they know there's a detour or a march or something - I've had that happen a few times). And I've never had one who yakked on a cell phone, other than to take a brief call from a dispatcher.

Along with being a pourboire, TIP originally meant "to insure promptness." I'll settle for correct delivery of the food.

There's a thread about tipping now on the tripadvisor.com web site that reveals some rather mean-spirited attitudes about tipping housekeeping staff in hotels. The people who say that tipping is wrong, wrong, wrong have appaently never thought much about what some people leave in their rooms for the staff to deal with--and I don't mean just a mess.

I am still in total shock at the idea of tipping a taxi driver 5€ unless he carries all of my baggage spontaneously up my 3 flights of stairs. (Even more so a Cambodian taxi driver, because even fewer tips are given in Cambodia than in France.)

I'm happy to hear Kerouac's take on this, since he lives there fulltime!

Kerouac's info is always great and helpful, but I have other born and raised Paris/France friends who always tip in restaurants where we dine. I will have to ask about taxis for them.

Joan