Man arrested for not tipping at NY restaurant

[phanbot]

Sure its rude not to tip, but of coarse its not mandatory.

The article does state that the restaurant imposes a mandatory 18% tip for parties of 6 or more, whether this is legal or not is what I'd like to find out.

[skiiper]

ya tips are pretty stupid. this one restaurant me and some friends went to had terrible service, and on the bill it actually says "$80 plus 10% tip" i mean com on! you dont ASK for a 10% tip, you get whatever the customer gives.

[DrCheese]

Its crazy, They use them has an excuse for paying waiters low wages whist at the same time charging customers more without making it look like they have huge prices

[JaredVolkl]

Seriously people. You need to watch the restaurant scene from Reservoir Dogs. You sound exactly like them.

[Sn1p3t]

It is legal (at least in Idaho where I live) to pay an employee less than minimum wage if a substantial amount of their income comes from tips. When my sister started at Moxie Java, they started her at a little over $3 an hour (minimum wage was $5.25). She made a little over $6 on average.

I think if it's clearly stated that a tip is mandatory for large parties, and it is present on the bill, it should be paid. Failure to do so could constitute arrest. Although I agree tipping is WAY out of hand here in the states.

Tips are incentives for waiters to do a good job. I say pay them what they'd make with tips, don't require tips, and if a waiter is driving away customers with their crappy service, fire them. :p

[Raum]

in all fairness, unless the waiter is hurling abuse or actually ruining your night then i think its quite rude to not tip. the guy is going out of his way to carry a plate to your table and ensure your night goes well and if that isnt worth a measly 10% then shame on you.

I don't see how doing aq job that person willingly signed up to do is going out of his way. He's just doing what is expected of him. That'd be like rewarding a teacher for teaching your kid something instead of doing nothing.

[StrangeTikiGod]

OK, here's the scoop from a guy that actually works, at this moment, in a restaurant. No, I am not a server. No, I am not a manager. I'm a host who also does a lot of data entry and sees a lot of invoices in the office, which means I'm sort of somewhere in between.

The minimum wage of (I believe) around $5.30 an hour DOES NOT APPLY to servers/waitstaff. In Wisconsin, the minimum wage for a server or waitperson is $2.33 an hour. This is posted in the back of the house (that is, an area away from where customers can go), as it is in nearly all restaurants, to comply with federal law. Tips are an extremely important aspect of the server's income, because of this low wage. Generally, in the US, for good service (i.e. food is what you ordered, beverages refilled promptly, nothing spilled on you) the recommended and expected tip is 15% of your bill BEFORE TAX. IF you have outstanding service, feel free to leave more than 15%.

Our restaurant also has a policy, stated on the menu, that we will add an 18% gratuity to the bill of parties of 8 or more. If you really don't feel that your server merited that, hauling ass and trying to keep everything straight and perfect for your large party, you can speak to a manager and have that removed. In America, at least, it is very rarely, if ever, acceptable, much less polite, to not leave any tip at all.

As for prices of the menu, perhaps you don't realize how much the raw ingredients cost for most food. A restaurant will pay $4 for a 12 ounce steak, but once you factor in training, and wages for the person in the back who prepares the ingredients, cooks it, garnishes it, and plates it, $15 leaves very little profit left over. Do you know where most of the profits in your standard mid- to upscale restaurant come from? Booze. Beer, wine, cocktails, they are more or less what carries the restaurant in terms of profits. You can mark alcoholic beverages up 500% and people will happily pay it. But for all the labor involved in food preparation, quite frequently, you are paying an extremely good price for what you get.

And with that, I'm pushing the soapbox back behind the couch.

[Detroit]

Only in america lolol

[Osiris]

Yeah its your own fault for nuturing and abusing this notion of gratuity, In Australia tipping is a pretty rare event? why because we dont foster a culture of it, and our minimum wage is more than enough to live off to we dont have to subside them for their pay.

[bayrider]

But again, it's because waiting staff people don't get paid enough to get by.

neither do teachers or nurses but the poor people that bring our food from the kitchen to our table should be taken care of so they can live a comfortable life doing a job that anyone with an elementary school education can do

[kak]

in all fairness, unless the waiter is hurling abuse or actually ruining your night then i think its quite rude to not tip. the guy is going out of his way to carry a plate to your table and ensure your night goes well and if that isnt worth a measly 10% then shame on you.

Why it may be rude, it is not illegal.

The guy is not 'going out of his way' to get you some food. If anything, the cooks in the back are. Waiters do the least amount of work . Its their job to take the guy his food.

And further down [your next post I believe] you saying that people may live on their tips, maybe they should put a little bit more effort forward. Even if you do get stiffed once, the better tips you get from other people make up for it. The waiter probably sucked.

This just goes hand in hand with the current America. You can have someone arrested or sued for something, even if it is for absurd reasons.

Edit - Him saying he's just doing it to defend his waitress? Yeah right bud, this is for publicity. Get real.

[psybapunk]

I do pizza delivery full time and build computers part time. when I get to a customers house under the time that was quoted to them, I expect a tip, even if its a dollar. I'm always nice, curteous, and respect their property. Tonight I got to a woman's house, in 25 minutes when she was quoted 45. I expected at LEAST a dollar, what'd she do? on the credit card slip I handed to her she wrote in the "Tip" section a big fat zero. I wanted to go back to her house later on that night and slash her tires. Mind you, the order was for $65 and I had to walk up her flights of stairs numerous times with bags of pizza to get it all up there.

[insanekiwi]

:no:

[idkfa]

I think I can hear the worlds smallest violin playing

[Ghostdraconi]

I think I can hear the worlds smallest violin playing

:rofl: That's was my reaction

[zivan56]

Only in America :D

Why did they just not include the tip and cost as one amount on the receipt instead of saying mandatory paymentof that percentage?

[Stonkwell Bogtrotter]

in all fairness, unless the waiter is hurling abuse or actually ruining your night then i think its quite rude to not tip. the guy is going out of his way to carry a plate to your table and ensure your night goes well and if that isnt worth a measly 10% then shame on you.

Sorry mate. But isn't his job to "go out of his way to carry a plate to your table and ensure your night goes well"?

When I do myu taxi-ing I don't expect to get a tip like they seem to in the US.

[Stonkwell Bogtrotter]

yeah, hes being paid to run around after your lazy ass and the least you can do is tip him!

No mate. He is being paid to do a job. If someone goes to a restuarant, and is paying for the food, he is usually already paying at a premium for it, therefore the resurant owener should pay better wages.

It's got jack ****e to with anyones "lazy ass" :no:

[Bearded Kirklander]

They say right in the article that the 18% tip for parties of 6 or more is MANDATORY. I've seen this in Vancouver BC, and it is always right on the menu itself. Clear as day. It is included in the price of the meal and if you don't pay it, then you are considered to be shorting the check and that is against the law.

[s0wi]

ha, that's funny. Don't some restuarants add tips to the bill?

[Chamook]

I went to america once, we went to a pizza place where the waitress took twice as long as stated to deliver our food and tbh she wasn't really that friendly, after our meal we went to the till to pay and were asked if we would like to tip, we said no because the waitress was crap, the excuse we were given was that the waitress had been crying earlier that day.

Whats wrong with that picture?

1. Being prompted to tip - I'll tip if the service is great and not otherwise, I don't need you to remind me to do it, if the service warranted a tip then I will remember to do so.

2. Having a section for a tip on the receipt - [see #1]

3. Telling me that the service was poor because the waitress had been crying - As if that makes everything alright? I really don't give a **** what kind of a day my waitress has had, if that makes her unable to do her job maybe she shouldn't be doing it, even worse was that she did a poor job and then the restaurant expected the customer to tip her.

In conclusion, America's tipping system is utter BS, whilst most places we went to did have great service, some don't and I don't want to shell out 15% on top of my bill to pay for their incompetence. In the UK we tip as and when we feel like it and I don't ever recall being asked to tip. Thus UK > US :p

[rvbfan]

Feh!!!

[parimal_kumar]

The US gratuity system is being abused. In the UK, if there's a party of 8 or more, usually there will be a surcharge of 10% be added to it - the menus usually state that quite clearly - and it's a surcharge, hence it's part of your official bill, as opposed to gratuity (which by law remains optional).

Bottom line is, I'd rather pay more for food and have my waiters be paid a fair wage and then actually work for their tip. The current state of affairs means that tipping has become mandatory and that just defies the point of tipping!

Pay your waiting staff a fair wage - tipping is optional for service which is beyond professional.

[housegroover]

in all fairness, unless the waiter is hurling abuse or actually ruining your night then i think its quite rude to not tip. the guy is going out of his way to carry a plate to your table and ensure your night goes well and if that isnt worth a measly 10% then shame on you.

He's not going out of his way... it's his job!

Here in Australia, we pay enough as it is for for a meal at a restaurant but restaurants and cafes do have a coin bowl at the counter, which i DO use when i get change back from paying the bill. (I keep the 1 and 2 doller coins tho :p)

Edited September 12, 2004 by nathanintu

[hulibecker]

I used to work as a waiter here in the UK, we never expected a tip, a tip was a bonus to us!

Much prefer our way of doing things than that of the U.S.

Maybe the employers over there should pay the staff more rather than having the blame labelled onto the customer! Jus my opinion! :huh: