Why stop at wine? Takes the same effort to take an order for an omelette at a diner and the best dish on the list at Jean Georges. Why ‘pay up’ for increased food charges but not wine charges as the wait staff has to do the same amt of work?
Curious, if you get shit service, do you leave 0%? b/c if it’s a sliding scale that can go up to 50% for amazing service, i assume the low end of 0% occurs as well?
that’s awesome. it’s like using the whole 100 pt scale ! ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
It’s probably a complete fake. From Twitter:
Adam Schefter @AdamSchefter · 4h
Remember the $64K+ bill @EvanMathis69 tweeted about? Read first letter of each item: ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS-ROSHAMBO…
Not your point, but FWIW I always tip extra at breakfast because the wait staff often does more work (esp. refilling coffee) than when I go out to dinner costing an order of magnitude more.
I may be misremembering, but wasn’t it the norm NOT to tip on alcohol? I remember reading that, but it was before it really mattered to me. I tip on alcohol, but I also don’t order terribly expensive bottles in a restaurant.
I called on a wine shop a few years back, and one of the buyers/tasters was Ryan Hughes, who played the mascot role of SWOOP for the Eagles for 12 years. Wine won him over, and he now lives in Napa. A new respect for the Eagles!
I looked at the first letter of each item purchased, and I don’t see any Rock Paper Scissors tie-in … what am I missing?
if you read the first letter of each item purchased… it spells out the following:
R O C K P A P E R S C I S S O R S R O S H A M B O
+1
Let’s assume that’s a real receipt for a moment… the debate isn’t even relevant on tipping… b/c that’s an itemized receipt… not the credit card receipt…
it says “AUTO GRATUITY” - $1.7K… that’s just the system calculated amount
it doesn’t mean the person who paid didn’t add more tip on.
These recurring tipping arguments reflect the fact that there are areas of tipping in which there is no universally established custom. Alcohol is one of them (taxes is another). Since there’s obviously no authority to look to, I think we’d all do well to acknowledge that the lack of consensus allows for differing opinions, and no one is going to get very far just asserting his opinion of what is right without making a valid and compelling argument for it.
At any rate, I have lately come to agree with Kirk, with the caveat that I tip extra based on wine service in general; it’s not based on the cost of the wine itself but rather the fact that we required wine service at all. While this is based on my own opinions, they are informed by my prior service experience both as a waiter and bartender, and what the expectations were at our restaurant. At that restaurant, like many, tips were not pooled. It was a reasonably high-end restaurant but not a very high-end wine list; we all made good money, although the better servers made more (because like it or not, lots of people still tip extra for good service). But in general, tips and earnings were pretty consistent because we’d all turn about the same number of tables and there wasn’t a lot of variance in the total bills given that we rarely sold bottles of wine for more than about $150. I don’t think anyone there thought it was anything but a windfall for an undeserving server when a table ordered a bunch of expensive wine and then tipped on the total bill. The server in question would often buy drinks afterwards for everyone when something like that happened because we all knew that it wasn’t fair.
Is there any surprise why so many professional athletes have NO money when they aren’t playing professionally anymore? This is so silly.
agreed, but the bill is fake
It certainly is a fake, but these things do happen. I hear the first round NFL picks have an initiation where they do pay for quite a few at a nice restaurant.
Yes this bill was a fake. Evan Mathis posted in response to the heat Lane Johnson was taking when he posted the $17,747 receipt from last week’s rookie dinner. Receipts were rather similar except the real receipt had no Harlan, only 1 bottle of Screaming Eagle and a few less Remi Martin’s
But Peter…it’s not the same amount of work…nor is it the same quality, attention to deatail, or effort. It’s like comparing tarter removal from your teeth and liposuction from the gut…because they’re both removing unwanted build up.
The woman at the diner brings me water (when I ask for it) after rolling her eyes when I only want a bowl of oatmeal and cup of tea. (she gets a 50% tip of $3.30 because that’s what I value her service and attention to my meal…for the total of 10 minutes she spends with me)
The team of servers at Eleven Madison Park take nothing to chance and attempt to preemptively meet my every dining need. I don’t ever ask for my water to be refilled, I’m offered complex explanations of the food preparation, and we can discuss the differences between pairing an aged Rioja or Burgundy with the courses for a red while selecting a Gruner for the white to offer a level of balance to the 11 course meal. (The team of servers gets a $350 tip on my $1,150 total bill because that’s what I value their total of 5 hours serving me and the whole experience was well worth $1,500 to me.)
Tipping is not a concrete decision. It’s influenced by factors like service, memories, and other service based experiences. To answer someone’s question…for horrible service…I absolutely don’t tip (much over 5%) and there have been 1-3 times in my life where the experience was so awful that I just didn’t tip at all…but I always talked to the server to make sure I wasn’t missing something important. I try to factor in the difference between a busy restaurant with a server that’s in the weeds and a slow restaurant where the server can’t be bothered to stop texting for 5 minutes while my meal gets cold sitting in the pass. I can understand when a server is in the weeds…and to me that’s half not their fault…so it’s rarely a factor. However, if someone’s too busy flirting, talking/flirting with other staff, I don’t have any patience.
I don’t see why it’s ok/tollerable for some people to ignore part of their jobs while it’s not ok for others. Again…just my thoughts and absolutely in no way attempting to say anyone else is wrong for seeing it their own way. Peter, I think your arguement with me is flawed…but you sir, strike me as a pretty stand-up man. I can absolutely see arguing to ensure that good servers are rewarded appropriately. My problem is with rewarding people across the board equally for unequal work. Why should someone who does 15 minutes of work get the same pay (or percentage) as someone who does 4 hours?
Kirk, I try to be a stand-up guy, thanks!
So in terms of my flawed argument, I usually like to think of the 2 limits in any argument and see if the guiding principal still works. So let’s try one of the limits for your argument.
Take the identical restaurant, the identical servers, the identical menu. Take a table for 6, you and 5 friends, where you’re paying for everyone!.
The first night, everyone orders the chicken main course.
On the second night, everything identical except that everyone at the table orders the A5 Matsuzaka strip steaks flown in from Japan, and covered in white truffles.
So same server, same amt of work, same restaurant, etc. Except your bill is going to be about $1,000 (at least) more.
Do you tip more for the 2nd meal, and if so is it because you had a more ‘high end’ experience, as you would if you ordered better wine?
Are you going to tip a smaller percentage of the total bill vs the ‘chicken’ night?
My bet, you’re going to tip the same percentage.
If my bet is right, why is a better food experience worth the percentage tip, but not a better wine experience?
That’s awesome!
Talking with some burgundy growers last night about their 3 star michelin Paul Bocuse dining experiences, they said that they usually pay 30 euros a head for a tip, flat amount.
American waiter wages and european waiter wages are apples and oranges, I know.
Fwiw.
Tipping in that situation isn’t expected.
I thought it a useful data point on the relativity of the whole question of personal/cultural tipping practices.
Just as individuals in the US have different expectations on what’s appropriate, apparently Europeans do too.