Tipping Again
 

A local restaurant is run by a chef and a waiter. The chef is an employee and the waiter is the owner. I feel funny giving the owner an additional 20% to 25% as a tip. Where as this would be a normal event if the waiter wasn't the owner. I also think that when you go to the barber shop and the owner cuts your hair isn't your patronage enough or should he also get a tip.

Tip the waiter.Anyone is capable of lousy table service.Remember the Chef's birthday and at Christmas (wine or champagne or Harry and david gift).The manager of the salon cuts my hair.She gets the same tip I woould give to someone else.Hope this helps.

hmm, interesting, I would still tip because after all he isn't just a silent owner but an actual working owner. I guess I think that just because they own a business doesn't necessarily mean they make buckets of money, perhaps they make enough to pay the bills and that is why they are also working (save costs on hiring other employees as well). My dad used to get his haircut from the owner of the barber shop, he always tipped.
Yeah, I would still tip.

The haircut is $8.00. He cuts it the way I like it, so I tip him $2.00. I'm happy and he's happy. He had to close his shop because of a rent increase, and now cuts part time in his home.

Darn I hate these tip threads. I tip an owner the same as I'd tip anyone else. If s/he doens't want the tip then it can be given to charity or shared by other workers. The restaurant business is a rough one to be in, so I doubt the owner is exactly "rolling in the dough", and may well need tips more than an employee who does not have the overhead of a business hanging over his head.

Frankly, the fact that someone is also an owner is irrelevant to me. I tip the person who cuts my hair/serves my food. If they have another role as owner, that has nothing to do with their role as my barber or waiter, to me. The tip is for WHAT they DID, not WHO they ARE. IMHO.

Yes, I tip too based on the service. Percentages are up to the individual.

Then should you tip the plumber , electrician , auto mechanic or anyone else who provides a service ?

I'd still tip the owner/waiter. You don't know where his income comes from - he may forego a salary from the restaurant and roll any net income/profit back into the business, so this waiter job may actually help him pay his other bills. That's probably especially true if it's a new restaurant (anything in the first few years can be pretty touch and go financially speaking).

I can tell you that if you stiff the waiter on a tip you won't be a very well-liked customer. If the service is good, tip him like you would any server. Nitpicking about it is kind of cheap in my opinion, we're not talking about a lot of money here.

LOL Bobrad. Plumbers and Electrician's don't usually get minimum wage. :-)

I believe that if someone is providing you a service IN A SERVICE INDUSTRY they should receive a tip equal to the service they provided. It should not matter if they are the owner, or the 19 yr old waiter/waitress. Why should the position within the company be relevant? If he/she is serving you, he/she should be recognized monetarily.

Since we have gone from a farming economy to an industrial nation to a service country then everyone should be tipped.

From another side...

I own a B&B. I do most of the work, but I have part time housekeepers.

Any tips left are divided between the housekeepers. I have always believed the owner should not be tipped so I do not take a share (even though my housekeepers are paid well well above minimum wage and I earn less than $3 an hour... not even counting the hours I work during the off season!)

If a guest leaves a gift for me, I do keep that (I have found it is hard to divide a potted plant evenly :o). But never money. Even if it is in an envelope addressed to me.

You know what? If it bothers you so much then don't go. Find another restaurant where the servers aren't owners so you can be assured they're not making a dime more than what is necessary.

Stay cool my fellow travelers. At one time a tip was a way of thanking the server for good , extra or exceptional service. In this modern society a tip has become something that is expected regardless of the quality of the service. A business owner gave a lagniappe to show appreciation for your patronage. Now you hear young people say, "It's a good place to work the tips are great."And they are totally lacking in the niceties of table service. The day is coming when there will only be buffets or high end restaurants but that is only my humble opinion.

Agree that you tip the server for the service - not for their position in the establishment. I tip my hairdresser even though he is a partner in the shop (they're all partners in the shop). But why should he get less because of that than someone who works for him.

As for plumbers, electricians etc - they are not tipped because they are not "servers" providing a personal service - they are for lack of a better word craftspeople - with incomes often greater than the people who hire them.

Hi bobrad, decades ago it was not considered polite to tip the owner of a restaurant, beauty salon etc. But that rule changed quite awhile ago. Now owners are also tipped. Best regards.

This is an unusual situation that I've never encountered, so I don't know what I'd do -- an owner who is working as a waiter. However, I would never tip 20-25 pct in a restaurant anyway. The point of not tipping owners is because they OWN the place and are setting the fees and taking the revenue. The reason that "rule" exists is because in many places (restaurants, hair salons, etc.), the person working on you doesn't get anything near what you are paying for the service, the owner takes most of it. It isn't because of patronage, just economics.

Given current standards, I would think that any waiter or waitress, irrespective of other roles they may hold within the establishment, should be tipped based on the service they provide.

That said, wouldn't it be nice if some restaurant raised their prices 15 or 20%, and then did not accept tips? Expected tipping has always seemed an odd custom to me for a couple reasons.

First, it is essentially like charging generous people more than other people. That certainly doesn't seem fair.

Second, it is so arbitrary. Others have asked what about plumbers and electricians. Even if you draw some type of income distinction, I'm expected to tip the people who clean up my hotel room, but not the ones who clean up my office. Who got to decide what services were tippable?

Finally and most importantly, the customer is being asked to do the job that should be done by management. Service should be good because management demands it, and appropriately compensates employees who provide it. Instead, customers weed out bad servers with smaller tips. The problem with that is that I've already gotten the bad service. Sure, my smaller tip might encourage the server to improve or leave, so that the next person gets better service, but that doesn't do me any good.

I'm just curious as to how others would feel about a different service model. Assuming that your total bill worked out the same, and the average server's pay worked out the same, would you still prefer to tip?

i'll add my 2c here.. I do tip (generously) the person who serves me, depending mostly on the service i receive.. whether or not he/she has any ownership in the establishment... but here's my RANT.. I hate that Starbucks and other same type establishments have a tip jar and its so expected that everyone leave a tip. That to me is where the establishment should be paying the fare wage and patrons not subsidizing. Am I off?

sorry... i just said 'establishment' three times in that post.. silly !

The rule is that you don't tip Joe at Joe's Bar.

If the waiter/owner is plowing his salary back into the restaurant, then that is simply his idea of a good investment.

Tipping is for personal service.

In the OP's case he could leave a tip and expect/hope/ ask? that it goes to the chef.

I have cruised on Celebrity and ate (early dining) at the same table every night and received wonderful service. So I tipped accordingly. I have cruised on princess where you get a different waiter every night, (anytime dining) The princess waiter could care less about service because his tip is assured and chances are he may never serve you again. This is what I'm talking about. I know that you can see the purser but still. I like to tip but it isn't always an automatic.

No busboy?

Tip the waiter, no matter who owns the restaurant. If it's a 2-person establishment, he deserves it.

Thank you, goldilox --- the voice of reason!

Bobrad - back to your original post, I agree with you. Isn't the whole argument "for" tipping that the service person is underpaid and it is an expectation that his/her income is to be supplemented by tips? Forget about that To Insure Promptness theory -- society has dictated that customers owe 20% or more regardless of the service because the employee is so poorly paid. What a situation.

So if the owner is cutting your hair, that entire argument holds no water. The owner can charge whatever he or she wants and keeps it all after expenses. If there is not enough, he can charge more. I don't see why it is necessary to tip the hairstylist. I don't tip my dentist when he cleans my teeth. He sets his own prices too. And some hair stylists charge more than dentists. And according to ME, they are both trained professionals.

But like most sheeple --- I do tip my hairstylist. Society has made us feel insecure about looking like cheapskates if we don't --- so we are blackmailed into tipping to save face.

Milford 88 whined:

"The problem with that is that I've already gotten the bad service. Sure, my smaller tip might encourage the server to improve or leave, so that the next person gets better service, but that doesn't do me any good."

This is an excellent example of myopic thinking and an inability to view things outside of a narrow box. The flip side of the above example is that there are no doubt many times that a server has improved as a result of others' feedback and tipping, and that you enjoy excellent service as a result of someone ELSE's prior tipping. As mature adults, not everything that we do benefits us directly and immediately. This is a part of our social interaction as humans and making this a better place to live.

As for the original poster . . . if you're determined to rationalize not tipping, nothing that I or anyone else says will deter that. The system is fairly simple--a percentage of the bill for those in service. If you want to complicate it and say what about this job that doesn't have tipping, or what if he is making more money than an average server, etc., then that's your prerogative I suppose. All I will say is that the owner, as goldilox can attest, often makes less than their own employees and might actually need the tip more. I know this firsthand from having worked alongside owners. If they have a bad week, or month, they can't reduce the employees' pay, so it's their OWN pay that gets cut, often to less than that they are paying out.

I'm not American, but I travel to the US quite a bit and I think tipping has got out of hand.

People mention tipping 25%, before you know it, it'll be 30 -35% as people want to be thought of as being even more generous.

I tip 20% in the US as it is the done thing but I know that my dining experience is a lot different to what I do in Europe or Australia.

Firstly, I don't expect to be in the restaurant that long, usually about an hour as everything comes pretty quick, including the bill if you say you don't want a dessert!

Secondly, I won't buy expensive bottles of wine, as wine is marked up so heavily by the restaurants to begin with. I think there should be some sort of limit on the tip, regardless of the size of the total bill.

In Australia most restaurants adopt the Bring your Own Wine approach, even when they are licensed, they charge a small corkage of $2 - $3. Tipping is not done and you can spend hours at the table with your family and friends, with no pressure from the staff for you to leave.

Its a similar story in Germany, just last Saturday my family and friends met at 2.30 in a restaurant for lunch and to watch the World Cup, we left at 8.00pm and we didn't spend much and just rounded up the bill to the nearest 5 Euro as a tip.

Geordie

it hardly matters what is "right" here. if the owner has become used to getting tips at the regular rate, then you will not have a good experience dining regularly in his restaurant without tipping. if he sees tips as a nice extra that he gets regardless of the rule that you don't tip the owner, then you are ok tipping or not.

there is no way to tell how the owner perceives his tips except perhaps to test it by not tipping or witness someone else not tipping. if the owner expects a tip (ie he behaves coldly or stronger if you don't tip), then you have a choice. either continue to pay the tip extortion or find another regular restaurant.

if it were me and i liked the restaurant, i would just tip as normal figuring that it's not worth the hassle of it all.

bobrad, I tip the guy that does the smog check on my car for me. Mostly because it is so hot outside when I have to get it done every year, I just give him a few bucks to go get a cool drink.

Time for me to stop all those arguments.

See the topic? See my name? Mrs Again accepts all kind of tips in any form :))

End of discussion.

My understanding of Europe and many other countries is that the tip has already been added into your bill, which is why tipping isn't done there.

Geordie, in response to your belief that there should be a "limit" on tipping, due to high priced wines: are you also willing to have a minimum limit? Or do you think it's okay to buy a three dollar appetizer and sit for hours and then give a couple of quarters as the "20%" tip at the end?

Here in the USA, waiters earn $3.15 an hour. That is not even 4 euros. If you sit at a table for six hours, as you mentioned, and then tip 5 euros, you are giving that server not even 1 euro per hour in tips. How do you expect him to survive on that, given the low wages and the expectation that people will tip 20% and not "freeze up" a table for hours?

"Plumbers and Electrician's don't usually get minimum wage"
If minumum wage were the criteria then why tip a hair stylist? Some of them make as much as a plumber??

"This is an excellent example of myopic thinking and an inability to view things outside of a narrow box."

How ironic that budget4me would provide a perfect example of myopic understanding while accusing me of the same.

Apparently, he/she didn't comprehend the rest of my post, which made it quite clear that I was suggesting that no one should have to suffer through bad service while a waiter/waitress goes through a form of training and/or career path exploration ... not the guy before me, not me, and not the guy after me. Rather, the management of the establishment should ensure that all the servers do a good job, in part by paying them appropriately.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm going through this again. I'm sure that budget4me was the only one who found the logic confusing the first time.

I have to point out though, that it was also pretty amusing that he/she explained in a subsequent post that the European restaurant industry works very much as I was suggesting. It must be working OK for them.