Tipping

Dining and drinking at various bars and restaurants, I've noticed that people are getting careless with their tipping. When I was coming up, 10% was a tip for crap service (you never didn't leave a tip, which I'll get to later), 15% for good, expected service and 20% for excellent service. If you were a regular at a place maybe you went to 25% every so often. Now, I'll see people leaving a default 20% and its terrible. Waiters are getting conditioned to provide crappier service because they're seeing 20% almost every time. Sure it's easier to calculate 20% of a bill than it is 15% of a bill in just about every case, but that doesn't mean its deserved. More and more I'll see people dropping 20% (yeah, if we go out to eat, sometimes I'll peek on your bill to see what you tip, get over it) and it pisses me off. More than that, if you have crap service, I'll see people leave no tip, NO TIP! Maybe it's because my family has had a lot of waiters, busboys, chefs, cooks and bartenders in it but that's inexcusable. They still brought your food over right? They still poured some water in your glass, didn't they? 10% is the minimum, not 20%. Let's get back to that, please.

Tipping on Wine is another interesting issue. Wine, by most accounts is between two and three times as expensive in a restaurant as it is on the shelf. Just because you bought a $80 bottle of wine, should you tip on the whole thing? Especially if you ordered it from the menu with little-to-no input from the waiter. I lean towards no here. I don't have an accurate % of the total to tip on because clearly you shouldn't not tip on it at all BUT it's not like you ordered an expensive steak that requires careful prep and cooking. Most times (which isn't that often since I don't order bottles at nice places on the red), I'll tip on one-third or half of it. Not the best formula, but the best that I am going to come up with.

Getting a dish, appetizer, dessert, drink for free because the restaurant screwed it up/you had a coupon/you know a guy/they forgot to add it is no excuse to not tip on it. This is a simple one that people often forget, but you get something comped for one reason or another, the same amount of prep, service and time go into it, so you still need to calculate that into the total and tip on it.

Drinks. This is always puzzling to me. Do you tip a buck a drink? A buck each time you go to the bar (ordering 2-3 drinks)? How much more should you tip when ordering a complicated drink/shot as opposed to a beer/whiskey? What about Happy Hour/Dollar Draft night situations. Am I supposed to tip $1 every $1 beer I get? Then its not Dollar Beer night anymore is it? I really just make up new rules every time I go to a bar. You got something better, let me know and we'll post it.