In a given restaurant, why should the server get half the tip just because I choose to order a $10 entree instead of a $20 one? The effort for the server is exactly the same. Perhaps the chef doesn't have to work as hard, but that issue has already been addressed [see link: Tip the chef].

So what I'm suggesting is that instead of leaving a tip of, say, 17% of the cost of the meal. Simply leave $1 per plate or glass. For more expensive restaurants, the suggested tip per plate/glass would naturally be higher. And if you want to be generous, you may want to include the bread baskets as well.

This way the waiter's tip is far more in-line with the work s/he actually does. And as a side benefit, the waiter may also have less incentive to bias the recommendations towards the most expensive entrees on the menu.
-- imho, Jun 15 2009

Tip the chef Tip_20the_20chef
[imho, Jun 15 2009]

So what happens when you order that Indonesian favourite (in Amsterdam anyway) kown as Rice Table or Rijsttafel? This meal consists of 40+ plates of food.... each!
-- xenzag, Jun 15 2009


If the waiter has to go back and forth bringing 40 plates - I say he or she should be compensated appropriately (and perhaps the dishwasher too).

If the restaurant is the kind that serves a lot of small dishes, which are brought all at once, then for that restaurant it might be fair to give a tip of only $0.25 per plate. This doesn't seem like a problem to me.
-- imho, Jun 15 2009


It would make waves in the specialist Tapas waiter market.
-- zen_tom, Jun 15 2009


Let's be clear here. The real reason for tipping in restaurants is so that the owner does not have to pay his staff a fair rate for the time they have put in when the restaurant is quiet.

Why should a waiter have to suffer because it's a hot bank holiday weekend and everyone's gone to the coast? Why does the waitress have to go home almost empty handed just because it's blowing a gale outside?

If the waiter or waitress has been there an hour, the fair payment is the a same whether he has been standing waiting for customers to come in or busy serving a full house. To say otherwise is to treat that man or woman unfairly and make him or her suffer based on matters he or she has no control over.
-- vincevincevince, Jun 15 2009


/That's why I refuse to tip my server. — rcarty, Jun 15 2009

- That's why your food always has that peculiar nutty taste.
-- bungston, Jun 15 2009


//That's why I refuse to tip my server.// Well, I'm sure the waiters and waitresses in your local restaurants appreciate your standing up for your principals. Or principles. Whichever.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jun 15 2009



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