Question on Tipping Etiquette at Restaurants

So my wife and I recently ate at Redd in Yountville and splurged on a bottle of Burgundy, paid roughly $350. Whenever we go to a restaurant, whether good or decent service, I play the good samaritan and tend to tip my usual 20%. Tonight, for some odd reason, I thought to myself, should I be tipping the waiter $70 on a bottle of wine I just ordered, seems excessive. The meal cost roughly $200 and tipping $40 for the food service seemed appropriate. But an additional $70 for a Somm to pop, decant and pour a bottle…seems kinda over-the-top, IMHO. I don’t want to offend any Somms on the board, but us consumers, we’re already paying twice retail or three times wholesale and I’m sure that spread goes straight into their pockets. But just curious what others think the proper etiquette is, I paid the all-in 20% but what the -eff do I know. newhere

I’ve had the same feeling before,but I ultimately conclude that if you want to roll with the big boys and drink big boy wine, the big tip, on everything, comes with the price of admission. I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t tip at all on alcohol, but I almost always tip 20% on the full pretax bill, unless the service was great, or unless the service was terrible. As you said, they served the wine to you. That deserves a tip. How much… Whatever you’re comfortable with.

Jason, According to travel and leisure magazine - 17 to 20% has become “standard” for US restaurant tipping. My thoughts:

  • 15% min tip. If the service sucked enough not to warrant the minimum, it’s worth a comment to an owner or manager.

  • Good service - 15 - 20%

  • Outstanding service - 20 - 25%+

  • Wine by the bottle - Depends on the work performed by the Somm. Did they do anything besides give you glasses and provide/open the bottle? That rates about $10 - $30 IMHO. Good to great service certainly deserves more. Standard wine tipping is supposedly 10 - 15%. IMHO, outrageous wine pricing results in a downward adjustment .

If all your Somm did was bring and open that bottle of Burg, $70 was a generous tip. I’m sure he/she appreciated it.

RT

This is a cultural thing too.
Where I Iive, no one would be nearly as generous.
The waiter or wine waiter would not see the point, it would be considered just throwing your money around.
However, I gladly accept that “when in Rome”…

Best regards,
Alex R.

Related to this is whether (and, if you do, at what rate) you tip on corkage, which is a service fee.

The thing to note is that the tip goes to the staff. Any profit on the bottle isn’t directly credited to them so far as I know. Once you get into the stratosphere of the wine list, I would tend to think a percentage is less important and a flat gratuity would be a better option. For example, I’m not going to tip $1000 if I buy a $5000 bottle of wine at a meal. That’s purely hypothetical, by the way.

It would be interesting to hear/see what establishments with “minimum gratuity for parties of x or more” do for this.

Cheers,
fred

Russian Billionaire's Son Drops $100,000 on Champagne for Zac Efron & Pals. Check out this tip!

I tip a bit over 20% on food and wine up to $100/bottle. Over $100/bottle the tip on wine is $20/bottle. I don’t buy the notion that you have to tip like a Russian billionaire just because you bought an expensive bottle, and I don’t consider wine in the same category as food.

Tip 15-20% (or more if you feel like it) on the wine as well.
Or don’t order expensive wine.
You did it right.

On a percentage basis, Chumlee did a bit better:

I tend not to order expensive bottles in restaurants, rarely exceeding $100/bottle, so I just go for 20%. If it’s a BYO (no corkage), I will tip 30% on the food, figuring that I am saving money and making the server work a bit harder.

Not quite the same, but I always feel that breakfast servers get shafted. Is it that much harder to serve a $40 steak than a $9 omelette? Plus all the coffee refills…happy to give them 30%.

The somm most likely does not get the tip that you left. They typically receive a commission based on the bottle they sold. The somm was just happy that you ordered the $350 bottle. The server receives the tip themselves or it goes to the tip pool that is split among all tipped employees. Many times the somm’s commission comes out of the tip pool, so if you don’t tip on wine you are screwing the server rather than the somm.

I typically tip 20% on wine up to $500. Above that I usually do 10-15%. (these are group dinners…i don’t drop that kind of coin solo.)

I think it is always a good idea to tip the somm directly if you receive great wine service or if they hook you up with corkage. Typically servers make more than the somm’s even though the somm has much longer hours and greater responsibility. The tips are very much appreciated and will ensure that you are well taken care of. The somm has a much greater ability to send freebies, augment the bill, etc. than a server does as well.

It is a tough call and I understand not wanting to tip on an ‘off the shelf’ sort of item like that. What you need to consider is that the staff is taxed on a percentage of their sales. When I was working in restaurants that number was 8%. The govt assumes they will be making at least that amount of their sales in tips and taxes on it. This is especially important to consider in states where they allow a lower minimum wage for tipped employees. With that in mind I agree with what others have said about if you are not willing to tip on it then don’t order it. The total sale will be part of the serves sales.

I don’t feel responsible for US tax collection policy, wages paid by restaurateurs, how they divvy up the tips, etc. A tip is supposed to be for service and I rarely see a difference in service provided based on the cost of the wine. Sometimes we get better glasses with the pricier bottles but cost of glasses, breakage, washing, etc isn’t part of the tip equation, that’s covered by the cost of the wine or corkage.

All of the other financial stuff has nothing to do with the purpose of the tip: service. I rarely order expensive wine in restaurants - usually BYO instead - so I guess I feel better that no one’s getting screwed by restaurant policy (and let’s put the responsibility where it belongs, on the restaurants) when I tip no more than $20/bottle.

Does anyone here make their tip per bottle of wine equal to how much corkage per bottle costs?

I tip 20%+ on the entire bill unless there’s some type of problem. No particular logic to it and I really haven’t given it that much thought, it’s just what I do. That’s on this side of the pond. In Europe I just round up for casual places and maybe leave up to 10% at the nicer ones.

No, because staff doesn’t set corkage rates and that punishes staff at wine-friendly (low corkage) places.

I understand the tax issue but I’m kind of with David G. I’m not tipping to make up their wages, I’m tipping for service. On the other hand, I think when you’ve dropped $550 on food and wine it’s a bit odd to start worrying about a $50 difference on the tip.

In Denver this week a cab I rode had a touch screen where I could swipe my card and then add a tip. It offered 4 choices… 20%, 25%, 30% or other. I chose other and paid 10%. Really 20% as the lowest suggested tip? I wonder how many riders fall for that?

True. However, staff doesn’t set the price of the wine, either. How is that any different?



P.S.: I always BYO and pay corkage, or buy a cheap(er) bottle off the list; in either case, my tip starts at 20% of entire post-tax bill, and goes up or down from there depending on quality of service.

In Portland, there isn’t a special (aka much lower) minimum wage for servers as is true in many places. I never start my tip at 20% because of that. I reserve 20% for very good service and above that for exceptional service.

I think my edit and your reply crossed… I wouldn’t set my tip to the corkage amount because it hurts staff in places with lower corkage.

At the end of the day, we’re talking about not a lot of money. Consider two cases:

  1. 2 people, each doing an app + entree + dessert, no drinks at all. Let’s say the app and dessert are $10 each and the entree is $25. So that’s $45/person, $90 before tax. A 20% tip is $18, round that to $20.

  2. Same people, they buy a $70 bottle of wine. All else remains the same. The bill is $160. 20% tip is $32.

We’re talking, in that case, about $12. Twelve… dollars. If that amount matters to someone they probably should think twice about dropping $160 in the first place.