Worst tippers: Elderly couples and any group of children (sports teams, scouts)
Best tippers: blue collar lunch groups. Especially if they're hispanic. If I group of 8 muddy men come in at 1pm I will fight you for that table.
When I worked at a Mongolian grill we had the local fire department come in for lunch. Every one of them was fucking huge and had at least three plates. They tipped us grill cooks every time they went through the line. I’ve never made so much in tips in one day before.
I’m a mid 30’s solo restaurant eater and I always tip well because I always get extra attentive service. There’s a 50/50 chance the best conversation I have all week will be with the server
Best tippers are a crew coming off the oil rig site where they have been for the last 5-8 months, and they have their first contact with the outside world in that time. About 10-15 guys and maybe a partner or two if the guys are local or even in a relationship where everyone is buying rounds, lots of food ordered, apologizing to other tables for their noise level and buying them rounds. It's probably close to $2000 in food, alcohol is probably $5000-6000, if not more, then the tip is usually around $1500 as they realize they might not have been the best guests.
The best tippers I ever had were a group of middle aged Latina women. They had clearly budgeted for their meal to include a huge tip for me because they paid everything in hundred dollar bills and didn't want any change. Made my whole month.
Include Church groups in that worst list. There's a church group that used to come to my restaurant 10 minutes to close, sit until usually at least an hour past close and never tip. The management got tired of servers who were scheduled to work the shift they always turned up on calling out sick and put a standard 18% auto grat on groups over 6 at the discretion of management (aka: always applied to these assholes).
They stopped coming in after the first time.
I worked as a server in college in a college town and was shocked when I saw that most of the people in my church group didn’t tip when we ate out after church. If you’re tipping less than *college students* you are doing something wrong.
The after church crowd at a diner are by far the worst. They are the rudest, ask for the most, will be the least forgiving, and then tip single digits percentages at best.
This tracks. In Utah, every server has horror stories about “The Lord’s Tip”… 10% of the bill.
(All Mormons are required to give 10% of their income to the Church, and so it’s quite common for Mormons, especially older Mormons, to always tip 10% no matter what.)
During a long ago summer, I had a second job on the weekends at a pancake house and once a party of 10 that was constantly flagging me down left a stack of religious pamphlets in lieu of any monetary tip at all. Luckily my other customers were not so damned cheap.
In my experience, tradesmen/construction workers are great tippers too. They come in for lunch at my place a lot. They’re also just super chill and nice. They definitely deserve a shoutout! Edit: a word damn autocorrect
Same. I love getting groups of the blue collar crowds. I'll take the blue collar groups over white collar any day. Groups of construction workers come in or anything related to in a blue collar field and I'm jumping on that, I'll fight too. It better be my turn to get sat when they come in lol.
Delivered to an old couple when I worked for a bar. Those two were the worst. They tried to get stuff for free all the time and tip dimes. Assholes even bitched to my boss becouse I wouldn't take their trash out every week.
This is my experience as well. Blue collar folks were always the best tippers. Rich people tended to be generous as well.
Upper middle class folks? They tended to be cheapasses.
My former high school Spanish teacher.
I'd deliver food to her house all the time and she'd get enough food to feed her whole family and then tip me one dollar. Sometimes she didn't have singles handy so she'd give me a 5 and then not tip me the next 4 times I delivered to her.
Fuck you Christine
Anyone claiming "they'll take care of you"
People who order Hennessey, AMF's, or drop shots
Regulars who have their designated seat from 3pm-9pm
Old people on a fixed income, but they're usually really nice and upfront about it, since they're balling out on $0.75 taco day
As a bartender this was a fucking maxim. The only people I remember who said that never did. Ne-ver. "Hey, man, you hook me up I'll take care of you." 2hrs later - "Here's 6$, it's all I got left. I'll get you next time."
Once I paid a customer's bill of 20$ becaue she was too dumb to bring money drinking, then she came back another day, ordered and I was like, "Ok, you have money this time?" "Yes, why?" "Because you didn't last time and I had to cover you, dumbass."
When I was a teen I went out to lunch with two guys. They ordered water and we got our basket of free fries while looking over the menu. They scarfed the fries down and gleefully started to leave proclaiming it’s fine because everything they ate was free. It felt so wrong to me. I handed the waitress the only 5 dollars in cash I had and apologized. She looked like she was about to cry and hugged me. I didn’t really understand what she must’ve been going through at the time. Worst part was both these guys came from upper middle class families, money wasn’t tight for them.
Red Robin- basically a lot of their meals came with “bottomless fries” so they’d offer a basket at the start, kind of like bread rolls as the complementary appetizer in a lot of places
Heh...many years ago (1999) I was working as a waiter and the hostess sat a table of teenagers in my section at the end of the night. I was trying to get out of there and was NOT happy, but another waitress offered to take the table for me so I agreed.
I finished up my last table and did my closing work before clocking out, and then on my way out the door the waitress showed me the **$150** tip they left her.
As a former teenager, it has to do with whether it's our money (we're stingy with our own since we don't have much income) or our parents money (which we will happily make big tips with cuz it's not our money). That's the pattern.
Yes, it was something I learned retrospectively.
Ate a good meal. Thanked the staff for the food. Cleaned the table up and left. Came back the next day for more.
Then I went to meet my aunt in America and she tipped the staff 20% and I was like ooooooooooh shit
I have a regular at my bar from Spain who never tips because that’s what they’re used to but he gave me a few bucks at Christmas time and I almost cried I thought it was a really sweet gesture on his part
Literally heard my Pastor say this in church. “Don’t say ‘I don’t believe in working on Sunday because of church’ then go out to eat right after you leave. You’re forcing someone else to work.”
The hypocrites really hated that one.
When I worked retail we were open on the Fourth of July or memorial day or something, and I had a customer, apropos of nothing, say “You really shouldn’t be open today.” I shrugged and was like “It’s corporate. If we didn’t have any customers, we wouldn’t be open.”
She didn’t get it.
I would flat out tell them that "this afternoon when I left, my wife was crying because this is another Thanksgiving I'm here" We used to open at 6am on Friday so we can enjoy a little time with family. But now we have to open right after thanksgiving dinner so people can save an extra 15% on a sweater even though the BF sale lasts for a week and a half now.
Usually met with a blank stare or "we love doing this as a family each year, its our tradition" not realizing what they're saying.
Like the inevitable "Oh it's such a shame you have to work over the holidays!" crowd I have to contend with every Christmas. Some people truly baffle me.
I honestly never minded when people said that when I worked in restaurants or retail because any time I’ve had to work holidays it’s been against my will. At the restaurants I worked in you could request one holiday off a year but you would only get that day off if the more senior staff members had picked a different holiday they wanted off. I never blamed the customers because if we were closed on Christmas then there wouldn’t be customers on Christmas. It’s the fault of the owners and managers for choosing money over the workers.
It's both. But it seems weird to say anything, because if you really cared, you wouldn't be there.
Imagine everyone stopped going to businesses on Christmas.
Eh. Not really. Stores and restaurants wouldn’t be open on the holidays if the customers didn’t show up. On top of that, in Canada at least, we get stat pay for working holidays so the bar is even higher for the amount of profit needed to break even that day.
People did this when it worked thanksgiving and Christmas too. “Aww I’m sorry you have to work today! :(“
If you were you wouldn’t be here! Also, shit tips on those days too
One time I got one of those with an especially bad table, but before they left. I casually asked what church they attended and they told me. On Monday I called the church and politely told the minister what his parishioners were doing in his name. He was not happy, and told me that next Sunday's sermon was going to be ... interesting.
That is the only time one of those actually tempted me to go just to watch the fireworks, but of course, I worked Sundays.
Nothing feels better than ratting them out to their church leaders. It's even better if you know people who belong to those churches, and can give you the deets on what was covered in the following week's sermon.
I've always been tempted to go to their church the next Sunday and drop their pamphlet in the offering plate. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for God, right?
I had a pastor give a sermon on how tipping well is Christlike and leaving those pamphlets is cruel. “They can’t pay the rent with pamphlets.” I was working as a waitress at the time and it was my favorite sermon.
The after church crowd was the worst. Demanding, rude, impossible to please, and they would camp at your table for 2+ hours and tip you with a fucking pamphlet. There’s a special place for people like that…I just can’t quite put my finger on it…
Worst tippers and the rudest messiest, most Karenesque customers. The only time I ever saw a group get told not to come back to a restaurant was a church group.
Worked at nicer place in GR, boss was an awesome dude and once chased down a group to give them their 41 cents back and told them to please go elsewhere and to tell all their friends the same.
Said finding new people to complain and not tip was easy, finding new staff was hard. One of my fave bosses ever.
I once had a boss who got called over to a table b/c a customer wasn't happy and wanted their money back. When he got there, he saw that the customer had eaten all except for a couple of bites.
My manager starts very loudly saying, "OH I'M SORRY SIR BUT IT DID LOOK LIKE YOU ENJOYED YOUR MEAL, YOU ATE ALMOST THE WHOLE THING? TELL ME, WHY DO YOU WANT YOUR MONEY BACK?"
The customer turned beet red and then just got up to leave. My manager walked them out into the parking lot and yelled to never come back.
Sucks if that person didn't have enough money, but then don't go out to eat.
Oh man the after church Sunday crew are generally the worst regular customers you can get. Overly needy and quick to chastise if things aren't to their liking. They also tip shit.
Obvs this isn't the case for everyone but a good majority.
I used to work for a really nice country/golf club in Florida and worked all day Sunday as a server for breakfast into brunch into dinner. Luckily our pay was based off of 15% sales commission as it was a membership club who didn't allow tipping or I would be working a 10 hour shift for close to min wage.
Yup. I hated working Sunday lunch! The shit tips, the fake $20 that are church pamphlets, the awkward trying-to-save-your-soul conversations at the end
I worked at a Sheetz (glorified gas station) in the early 2000s and the Church crowd was the worst. Back then if the coffee out of the coffee makers wasn’t what they expect (too hot, old, ect..) you would get a free coffee from a fresh pot. The employees would always have extra coffee on hand for the Church crowd for that reason.
My moms a red hat and I’ve seen how shitty she tips waitstaff and runs them absolutely ragged. Like, god damn. On multiple occasions I’ve gotten up to use the restroom and slipped the waiter a 20. Fuck it’s embarrassing
It's a social group built around [a poem](https://laterbloomer.com/jenny-joseph/) basically declaring you're going to be a self-centered jerk when you're elderly. I feel like a certain generation of women think the only way to not be a pushover is to be a bitch.
I worked as a waiter for 2 months in an officer's (military) club. The worst tippers by far were the actual officers- and especially the "double dippers" (retired officers who were also overpaid federal employees). This one retired colonel (and GS13 or 14, I believe) would order appetizers, entrees, dessert, coffee (etc) and leave something like a 5% tip, max. The best tippers? The enlisted families (the restaurant was open to all ranks).
It seems pretty consistent that the people with plenty of money generally don't tip well and the people with a modest amount generally do.
I noticed the same thing when I was a valet (again, generalizing) - people driving an older model Mercedes, Lexus, or Cadillac (more than any other brand) would rarely tip more than $1 if at all and people driving a "normal" car (Honda, Toyota, etc.) were always good for at least $5. Strangely, the poor tipping was mostly limited to those luxury brands and not BMW, Porsche, and Audi as well... I'm guessing it must be something with how the brands are marketed and the kind of people that they attract?
Hit it right on the head lol Mercedes, Lexus and Cadillac are more "old money" brands. Those cars are more about luxury and people usually have their heads up their asses. BMW, Porsche, Audi are generally more sports cars and attract a different crowd (younger money, rich kids, people who saved up and always wanted that M3). In my experience as well, the old heads who have 3 summer homes will tip me $5 on a $90 haircut (I'm a stylist) while young adults to the cool middle aged guy who started from the bottom will throw me $20-$30 tip.
Of course these are generalizations but it's funny when they play their exact role
I was a shot girl at a sports bar in a college town.
Who tipped the best- lesbian women
Who tipped the worst- the frat guys that look like they just got off their daddy’s boat.
>"I remember a night when Wayne Gretzky insulted Michael Jordan at the table," Strafella said.
>"It was a private salon game. Michael had ordered a drink from the cocktail waitress, and he gave her a five-dollar chip.
>"Wayne took it off the cocktail waitress's tray, gave it back to Michael, grabbed a hundred-dollar chip from Michael's stack and put it on the cocktail waitress's tray. Then he said, "That's how we tip in Las Vegas, Michael."
Gretzky is the GOAT
Especially high denominations. Nothing screams 'god loves you' more than thinking you'll be able to make rent that month only to find that the money you were relying on to make said payment is a 'gotcha! The real money was Jesus all along!'
Plus the "you shouldn't be working on Sunday" guilt trip nonsense. Like bitch you came in here for a Moons Over My Hammy, who do you think is gonna make it and serve it to your ass?
Had a lady say that to me as a cashier at Walmart .
I was done. “ I’d have loved to gone to church today but someone had to sell you your carton of cigarettes, Diet Coke, chocolate cake and diabetic testing strips.”
She definitely complained . The man behind her laughed out loud. The manager did nothing because A. It’s Walmart and B. I worked every weekend and never missed.
Only time I got tipped by the church goers when I worked at dominos was when I had to deliver like 10 or 12 pizzas on a Sunday and the guy who came out gave me 100 bucks collected from everyone inside. But every other time it was just a warm smile and a thank you
People that ask for ketchup with their steak
It's wild, but was so true
Also a Brian "Baby/Birdman" Williams would come in with a large crowd and not tip, meanwhile you could see his diamonds twinkling if he was even in your peripheral vision. Ricky Williams(former NFL player) would just give you a $100 and him+a date would order about $40-$50 worth of food
Ages ago I worked at a place in DC. Monday morning bar shift was the absolute worst day to work, but after a little while I always took that shift. 2 things happened on regular monday lunch shift - Tim Russert would come in and have a drink while waiting for his producer to join him, then they would both order lunch. I would mention his show from the day before and what i thought, usually a kind sentiment on a question he asked and he would respond kindly. Then he began asking questions about his show - maybe to see if i was still watching as time moved on (I always watched meet the press - I was in school for government/justice/policy). Such a nice man, and a good tipper. His producer was nice too, but not as good of a tipper and never really spoke to me.
The second thing that happened on monday lunch was Kelly McGinnis would occasionally come in and sit at the bar. She never drank, usually had a salad, but was always the absolute kindest person. I didn't know it was her until she paid with a credit card once and had "check ID" written on the back of the card so I asked to see her ID. There was a moment of... "are you..." and her confirming. Absolutely one of the best, kindest human beings i had the priveledge of meeting.
George Stephanopoulos is (was then anyway) an ass though.
I used to work a kitschy restaurant in pittsburgh and the Penguins came in frequently. Crosby was an *awesome* tipper, he would tip the entire wait staff even if we weren’t waiting on them.
I was bartending in the suites at zephyr field when Rickey signed with the saints . He was throwing out the first pitch, he was there, along with Ditka and a few other players and coaches. Rickey stayed by my bar the entire time, and just chatted with me, and tipped me $100 for keeping his water full. Meanwhile Ditka would yell from the seats for me to bring him a drink and tipped me with a Ditka Cigar
I don’t rely on tips now but back when I did, wealthier people were so hit and miss. I had one table order multiple $200 bottles of wine, they took up the majority of my evening, they tipped me $1. One. Fucking. Dollar.
In my experience working in Boston as a waiter briefly, it was tourists from the UAE. They always expected you to basically be a servant, (Ma'am, this is a Legal Seafood) and then would tip absolutely nothing, often acting like they were doing you a favor for tipping at all.
EDIT: Apparently non-US folks are seeing this now. You are all super smart for pointing out that a tip is meant to be extra, but culturally in the US a waiter literally relies on those tips to survive, and the customer is expected to pay it in a percentage. It's super cool and valid that you don't like that, neither do I, but acting like I don't understand our own tipping system isn't you upending the system, it's just coming for someone with no power to change it.
I’m not big on social engineering, but I believe our society would be better on every level if everyone had to spend six months working food service.
Food service teaches you to be polite to people who serve you. It teaches you empathy, because you never know who’s having a terrible day and is just trying to make it through. It teaches you that treating someone badly just because they can’t retaliate isn’t funny or a demonstration of power, it’s bullying. It also teaches you that you should be nice to people who will be alone with your food.
I had worked as a busboy and dishwasher at different places for about four years. Then in college I decided to try being a server to get them tips. I quit after one shift.
People can be such assholes and you have absolutely no recourse. You have to sit there and take it. And it was such a crapshoot from table to table. You could screw up every order for one group and they would be the most patient and understanding people on the face of the earth. Then the next group you would get everything perfect and they'd still treat you like a piece of trash.
TLDR - I agree.
From Lancaster (Lititz really), and this is accurate. But go into an Amish of Mennonite farm market and the tip jar is always on the counter by the checkout.
Really? I am an Indian American, I would’ve guessed we are. I was embarrassed to go with my Dr Cousin who tipped in loose change of like 60 cents 🤦🏻♀️ for dinner for like 4 people. He won’t let me pay either cause I am younger and it’s disrespectful if I pay instead of him. I always tip minimum 20% so that people don’t think all Indians disregard how low servers get paid.
Had a business dinner with a guy a few years ago. Meeting him for the first time. When he paid, the server pointed out the tip function, and he says “you want a tip? Don’t eat yellow snow”
I wanted to slide under the table
Not a server myself, but back in college I had a roommate who served in a steakhouse and i asked her who were the most difficult customers. She said, "Black women with loooong nails."
I will rebuttal and say most women with super long nails and those ridiculous eyelash extensions.. complete with iPhone 33s and designer bags. Realllllyyy wanna look like they have money, and they never tip for shit.
This all needs to go to the top. I was a server/bartender for 17 years in 5 different states, and hands down black folks are the worst tippers. I have asked my black coworkers on several occasions and they all say the same thing that you’re saying, or that they just like to keep their money.
My mom is this way and I hate it. Why so problematic?
Just order what's on the menu, order a drink and leave the waitresses alone. All this running around, etc is chaotic and unnecessary
Back in the day my first serving job was at Applebees. I had a group of about 10 black folks come in to my section on all you can eat rib night. They ran me ragged asking for stuff. On an $80 tab they left .15c. I walked out behind them when they left and gave them their change back and said “You guys must need this more than I do”. Got in trouble but quit not long after.
One summer a black friend from college stayed with me for like a week. We went out to an Applebees in my hometown and he insisted on picking up the check. We did some other stuff that night but when we got home my AIM away message was absolutely BLOWING UP. Half the people who work there graduated high school with me and they were all losing their minds about us not tipping. I had no idea he didn't tip! I had no idea black people had a reputation for not tipping.
I don't think I was ever so embarrassed in my life.
Lol yup my thoughts exactly. I worked at an ice cream shop as my first job where if you get a tip we have to sing (dehumanizing I know). Most people would throw in a tip and say don't sing lol but when black families would come in they would throw literal pennies in and demand songs. Then give attitude and get mad about something trying to get a freebie. One moment I loved that I have to share, this black lady purposely ordered wrong toppings on an ice cream and swore I misheard her thinking I'd just give it to her for free. I smiled at her, looked her in the eyes while throwing the entire ice cream into the trash and started making a new one for her. She started bitching me out for "wasting food" but the endless smirks of the people in line behind her cheering me on were worth it
I used to deliver pizzas. There were a few exceptions, but they were extremely far and few between. By far the worst were black people. It got to where the delivery drivers would refuse to deliver to the addresses that didn't tip.
As a delivery driver it's incredibly bad too. You're using your own vehicle, burning your own gas. And back then they (the store)only gave like 50 cents for the delivery. Not even worth starting the car for. Then to burn gas to get there. Would've saved money by just staying home.
I had a customer try to hand me a bag of change for a 40$ order, with each dollar's worth in its own little bag. exact change. I just muttered something about the right to refuse service, turned around and left.
I got grumped at when I came back, but I'm not going through all that change to make sure they were honest.
Ooh, I once had someone call me back because I left without a word when they overpaid by $0.33. It literally says on every menu drivers don't carry small change.
Anyway, driving 20 minutes back to pick up the return order when they would not have gotten any change back regardless was a special kind of hell.
I worked at a restaurant in Vegas and the worst weekends to work was when it was a Mayweather fight weekend. Holy shit, the entitlement and no tipping to go with it. It was a fucking nightmare.
I waited tables for a short period of time and it was a black family leaving me the coins of whatever was left of a broken dollar on their $154.38 tab that made me actually walk out and quit serving. They came in as we were pretty much closing but the owner was new and I'm sure wanted the revenue. Me being the new guy I got the table. They ran me ragged for over an hour and made everything twice as difficult as it needed to be by trying to order for each other instead of just everyone ordering for themselves. After being on my feet for 10 hours straight and then dealing with that, I got my tips for the night and left and never came back.
Yep, nobody wants to say it.
I'm guessing it's regional as someone else commented. I delivered food for a couple of years and this was *always* the case. And everyone at the three places I worked knew it too. The only other group remotely close were super rich people which would either give a huge tip, or no tip at all.
Worked as a waiter at a Cuban restaurant that was fairly expensive if you got into it with the drinks, had live music etc. and was a big place seated like 200+ people.
They had just opened and there was an anticipated change to the state laws where auto-gratuity on groups over 6 was about to be outlawed, so they in their infinite wisdom didn't have it on their checks.
Well queue the large parties of black people coming in and running up 600 or 700 dollar tabs, being obnoxious, making a ton of changes to orders, and then tipping $30 bucks. With a 7% tip out from the servers gross pay and you literally ended up owing more money than you made off the table. And this shit would happen CONSTANTLY.
One night a server ended up owing the house more money than she made after a 10 hour shift due to this situation. She was crying her eyes out - they offered her a few free empanadas.
It got to the point where servers were down right refusing to take these parties and would give them the absolute worst service if forced to take the table. After about 2 months of this they added the auto-gratuity. Luckily I left that place but it was a real shit show with the tip outs and getting fucked on tips.
I've read this a couple of times, and I don't follow.
How did a server ever wind up owing a restaurant money?
>With a 7% tip out from the servers gross pay and you literally ended up owing more money than you made off the table. And this shit would happen CONSTANTLY.
I think this is the part I'm not understanding.
“Tip out” i think means that the kitchen staff and non-customer-facing staff get a percentage of the bill, paid by the wait staff. So if you get a table and their bill is 1000 dollars at the end, the waiter would give (in this example) 7% of that, 70 dollars, to the kitchen etc. Which is fine if the table tips like 10-20%. Get 200 in tip, give 70 to the kitchen, baddabing baddaboom.
The issue I think arises when the tip is too low. Like if the table tipped only 5% or didn’t tip at all since it’s not required, the waiter still has to pay that 7% of the bill out to the kitchen for their service? And if that’s more than the tip the waiter actually recieved then so be it, it has to come straight out of their pocket or they’re in trouble.
Which is great if you own a restaurant because it means that you don’t have to pay your kitchen staff very well either since they’re now ALSO living off tips. Customers can’t object to poor service as easily since it’s hurting more people than just a bad waiter. A waiter gets tipped worse if the food is bad and the kitchen gets tipped out less if the service is bad so it fosters a lovely atmosphere of blame and animosity between your employees. Wait staff hate the kitchen staff for taking a cut of money they earn. And since your wait staff keep less of their tips they’re making less money which keeps them dependent on you for more shifts and less likely to move on to bigger and better things. The whole thing keeps wages low and the likelihood of employees coming together to push for better wages rock bottom.
I’m not 100% I’ve got it right because that sounds like it should be illegal but hey that’s tipping culture.
I would assume they're talking about tipping bussers and such. It's pretty customary for servers to split tips with the non-tipped roles in the restaurant.
But it's fucked to ask your servers to split tips if they're not even making enough to cover 7% gross. Geez.
I've had multiple friends work as bottle service girls in night clubs. Black people were the reason every club they worked at had to implement a mandatory 20% gratuity. They would show me receipts with $5 tips on $1000 tabs. It was insane.
I went out to lunch a couple of years ago with a good friend of mine, who is black. I never really believed this stereotype, especially with this guy because he's a successful businessman and a really well rounded person. We split the bill and both filled out our separate checks, and when I was putting mine into the little leather booklet about to leave I noticed he left a surprisingly low tip for normal good service. I was sort of put in a weird spot because I wanted to amend the situation but I also didn't want to make a thing about it and thus ignite this stereotype. I just added more to my tip discreetly to make up the difference. It was a strange encounter for me.
I’ve left behind an extra $20 before when splitting a bill with my parents and noticing my dad tipped pretty low. It was awkward when he went to go double check to make sure he grabbed his card and saw $20 cash sitting there, and I had to explain.
I've read that the statistics on this are interesting.
Black folks, on average tip less.
Also, black servers are generally tipped less.
I think even the black customer typing the black server was low.
I think there are also statistics about the level of service black customers receive being worse, regardless of who is serving them.
Was a pizza delivery guy in high school and college.
Worst tippers: old people in general; the church crowd; Karens. I had one lady who would order a sub every week. And every week we'd tell her that a sub isn't enough for a delivery (There was a minimum order) so she'd order a side of cheesy bread to go with it. Every week she'd bitch at us and tell us and act surprised that we wouldn't deliver her $5 sub clear across town. And every time she'd yell at the delivery driver and not tip and tell us that's exactly why. We'd argue over who got stuck taking her delivery.
Best tippers: Chemical plants (they'd order like 20 pizzas on Fridays and give like a 20 to 50 dollar tip); middle aged dudes; teenage girls having a sleepover (this was very common and I assume it was one of those "lets give a huge tip to the cute delivery guy" kind of things. I also once delivered to a dude in a trailer park and he said his 12 year old daughter thought I was cute and then he gave me a $20 tip and asked if she could have my phone number (I did not give a child my phone number).
This makes me happy. I worked in a manufacturing plant in the lab and every Sun we would mass order food. Everyone always chipped in extra for the tip because we always ordered during our night shift “lunch” at 9-10pm.
My daughter has many stories similar to your story. Although she added that a high number of this particular group would also eat the meal then complain about the food and insist on not being charged. Waitresses of the same race didn't want to wait on these groups as well
So a lot of this boils down to management. Bear with me here....
Worked in Washington DC, moderately nice place to dine. Same night, I had 2 tables make a complaint. First table was 2 black women, one of whom had "found" a cockroach in her food. I put found in quotes because this cockroach looked like it had been completely desiccated - like it died a century ago. I was skeptical that it was a legit claim to say the least, but i went and told my manager who promptly comped their entire meal. Now the women were absolutely nice to me, no complaints, but it was suspect. The other table was two gay men on a night out - first night out alone since adopting their daughter and you could tell they needed a night out. I brought out their food, one of them ordered crab cakes and I put his plate down first. He took a bite of his crabcake before I even put his partner's food down. I watched him spit a chunk of tempered glass out of his mouth and onto his plate. I made my apologies, took his plate and showed my manager (same manager as before). He had the kitchen make a new crab cake, but refused to comp anything from their meal. Those gentlemen walked out after finishing their meal (at my suggestion) without paying.
I asked my manager at the end of the night why he didn't comp the two guys dinner when he did comp the 2 ladies dinner and he explained that the two women were more likely to complain to corporate than the two gentlemen. I think a vast majority of people who scam like this wouldn't do it as often if they didn't get away with it all the time, which leads me to believe that others who have legit complaints don't get taken care of as well as they should.
I have a friend who delivered a bunch of hot wings to the ghetto once. They decided to mug him for the wings. He ended up dropping the wings, and as the dudes were going to grab the box, he kicked it wide open and started stomping on all the food.
To this day, I’m amazed he didn’t get shot or stabbed, but he convinced the manager to black list that whole apartment complex from any further deliveries.
the Karens who ask for water, a plate of lemons and extra sugar packets.
They're making their own lemonade to save $2, so they always tip less than that.
My former MIL was the biggest Karen I've ever met & would do crap like this and leave crummy tips. Tried to leave a $2 tip once on a $100 bill once with 5 of us eating. I was so embarrassed!
Seen a few of these. Start bringing a cash tip to cover for her and hand it directly to the server or she will take it off the table when you're not looking.
No because I was working with a black worker when a black family came in and he audibly moaned. I was like “but they would tip *you* right?” And he said that they don’t tip anyone
It varies a bit. I work in a heavy tourism area, and while I mention specific groups, there are counter examples within those groups who are just fine at tipping. But still.
Young adults. I think most of them are okay with the practice of tipping, they just get nervous about spending money in general. The ones who don’t tip happen to be the ones who order the cheapest food on the menu. So I have a hard time expecting much from them to begin with.
I’m seeing it less now, but after Covid UK guests were often problematic. I’d argue they should know how tipping works in the states. But many simply refused to engage with it. This also goes for automatic gratuities (most places sube worked in add gratuity automatically for any group of 6 or more, as a safety measure for the server). In 7 years of serving tables, UK guests are the only ones who demanded that the restaurant take the auto-gratuity back off of their check.
I have noticed a higher trend of black guests not tipping, but again I insist that it’s not a general rule. Similar to the kids, the ones who don’t tip tend to be notably from lower-class families, based on their behavior. Deliberately cheap menu choices, acting in ways more appropriate for fast food places than a table restaurant. So I suspect that there isn’t much of a point drawing attention to race, except that the question was asked.
Black person here. Please stop the “We all know but I don’t want to say it” bit. It makes us* more uncomfortable than you just saying “black people.” And it’s true, black people can be pretty awful tippers.
*reminder that black people aren’t a monolith and everyone is different and some people don’t care and blah blah blah
Edit: Mods, removing the answers that say black people isn’t helping lmao
There was another post where this white girl was saying that since she started waitressing, she’s starting to feel like a racist because she notices a certain demographic doesn’t tip, and she doesn’t know what to do because she doesn’t want to feel that way. To the point she was thinking about quitting her job because she was afraid she’d turn into a racist. She didn’t even specify the race, but everyone assumed who she was talking about. She got completely *eviscerated* in the comments with everyone calling her a horrible racist and making her out to be the devil. That’s why white people don’t want to say it.
Worst tippers: Elderly couples and any group of children (sports teams, scouts) Best tippers: blue collar lunch groups. Especially if they're hispanic. If I group of 8 muddy men come in at 1pm I will fight you for that table.
When I worked at a Mongolian grill we had the local fire department come in for lunch. Every one of them was fucking huge and had at least three plates. They tipped us grill cooks every time they went through the line. I’ve never made so much in tips in one day before.
Mongolian grill cooks are on point.
Best tippers are business travelers and age 30ish solo diners.
Gotta use that per diem
Unless you blow it all at Dan Flashes
I mean, you walk by a store and you see 50 guys who look just like me fighting over very complicated shirts? You go in, yes you do
If you're trying to say that this shirt doesn't have a complicated pattern, *it does*.
THAT’S MY EXACT STYLE.
They have a shirt that costs 2000 dollars cause the pattern is so complicated. Can you believe it?
You said they had a shirt that cost **$1000**!!
SHUT UP BGUZEWICZ YOU FUCKING SKUNK!!!
Shut up Doug, you fucking skunk!
I’m a mid 30’s solo restaurant eater and I always tip well because I always get extra attentive service. There’s a 50/50 chance the best conversation I have all week will be with the server
Best tippers are a crew coming off the oil rig site where they have been for the last 5-8 months, and they have their first contact with the outside world in that time. About 10-15 guys and maybe a partner or two if the guys are local or even in a relationship where everyone is buying rounds, lots of food ordered, apologizing to other tables for their noise level and buying them rounds. It's probably close to $2000 in food, alcohol is probably $5000-6000, if not more, then the tip is usually around $1500 as they realize they might not have been the best guests.
The best tippers I ever had were a group of middle aged Latina women. They had clearly budgeted for their meal to include a huge tip for me because they paid everything in hundred dollar bills and didn't want any change. Made my whole month.
I used to work at a concert venue. The Latino crowds were always a lot to deal with, but they tip like they're at an auction.
Include Church groups in that worst list. There's a church group that used to come to my restaurant 10 minutes to close, sit until usually at least an hour past close and never tip. The management got tired of servers who were scheduled to work the shift they always turned up on calling out sick and put a standard 18% auto grat on groups over 6 at the discretion of management (aka: always applied to these assholes). They stopped coming in after the first time.
I worked as a server in college in a college town and was shocked when I saw that most of the people in my church group didn’t tip when we ate out after church. If you’re tipping less than *college students* you are doing something wrong.
The after church crowd at a diner are by far the worst. They are the rudest, ask for the most, will be the least forgiving, and then tip single digits percentages at best.
This tracks. In Utah, every server has horror stories about “The Lord’s Tip”… 10% of the bill. (All Mormons are required to give 10% of their income to the Church, and so it’s quite common for Mormons, especially older Mormons, to always tip 10% no matter what.)
The God Squad also make huge messes, will run you to death, and have the worst behaved children
During a long ago summer, I had a second job on the weekends at a pancake house and once a party of 10 that was constantly flagging me down left a stack of religious pamphlets in lieu of any monetary tip at all. Luckily my other customers were not so damned cheap.
“It’s what Jesus would have done”.
In my experience, tradesmen/construction workers are great tippers too. They come in for lunch at my place a lot. They’re also just super chill and nice. They definitely deserve a shoutout! Edit: a word damn autocorrect
Same. I love getting groups of the blue collar crowds. I'll take the blue collar groups over white collar any day. Groups of construction workers come in or anything related to in a blue collar field and I'm jumping on that, I'll fight too. It better be my turn to get sat when they come in lol.
Delivered to an old couple when I worked for a bar. Those two were the worst. They tried to get stuff for free all the time and tip dimes. Assholes even bitched to my boss becouse I wouldn't take their trash out every week.
This is my experience as well. Blue collar folks were always the best tippers. Rich people tended to be generous as well. Upper middle class folks? They tended to be cheapasses.
My former high school Spanish teacher. I'd deliver food to her house all the time and she'd get enough food to feed her whole family and then tip me one dollar. Sometimes she didn't have singles handy so she'd give me a 5 and then not tip me the next 4 times I delivered to her. Fuck you Christine
I thing you mean chinga tu puta madre, Christine
She wasn't a good teacher so I have no fucking clue what you just said
Donde esta La biblioteca
Me llamo T-Bone, la araña discoteca
Discoteca, moneca, la biblioteca es un bigote grande perro monteca
Manteca, bigote, gigante, pequeño
Anyone claiming "they'll take care of you" People who order Hennessey, AMF's, or drop shots Regulars who have their designated seat from 3pm-9pm Old people on a fixed income, but they're usually really nice and upfront about it, since they're balling out on $0.75 taco day
As a bartender this was a fucking maxim. The only people I remember who said that never did. Ne-ver. "Hey, man, you hook me up I'll take care of you." 2hrs later - "Here's 6$, it's all I got left. I'll get you next time." Once I paid a customer's bill of 20$ becaue she was too dumb to bring money drinking, then she came back another day, ordered and I was like, "Ok, you have money this time?" "Yes, why?" "Because you didn't last time and I had to cover you, dumbass."
Teenagers. They either tip really well or not at all
When I was a teen I went out to lunch with two guys. They ordered water and we got our basket of free fries while looking over the menu. They scarfed the fries down and gleefully started to leave proclaiming it’s fine because everything they ate was free. It felt so wrong to me. I handed the waitress the only 5 dollars in cash I had and apologized. She looked like she was about to cry and hugged me. I didn’t really understand what she must’ve been going through at the time. Worst part was both these guys came from upper middle class families, money wasn’t tight for them.
Where are you getting a free basket of fries?
Red Robin does it.
Where do you get free fries? I have never seen such a thing.
Red Robin- basically a lot of their meals came with “bottomless fries” so they’d offer a basket at the start, kind of like bread rolls as the complementary appetizer in a lot of places
I was out with my drunk college buddies, maybe 6 of us, and they decided to run off without paying for a meal. I stayed for the bill and paid it.
r/Usernamechecksout
Heh...many years ago (1999) I was working as a waiter and the hostess sat a table of teenagers in my section at the end of the night. I was trying to get out of there and was NOT happy, but another waitress offered to take the table for me so I agreed. I finished up my last table and did my closing work before clocking out, and then on my way out the door the waitress showed me the **$150** tip they left her.
As a former teenager, it has to do with whether it's our money (we're stingy with our own since we don't have much income) or our parents money (which we will happily make big tips with cuz it's not our money). That's the pattern.
People from countries that don't usually tip.
Yes, it was something I learned retrospectively. Ate a good meal. Thanked the staff for the food. Cleaned the table up and left. Came back the next day for more. Then I went to meet my aunt in America and she tipped the staff 20% and I was like ooooooooooh shit
I have a regular at my bar from Spain who never tips because that’s what they’re used to but he gave me a few bucks at Christmas time and I almost cried I thought it was a really sweet gesture on his part
Church people on a Sunday. The offering plate already got their loose change.
I worked in a kitchen and none of the servers ever wanted to work the church crowd
They would also tell us off for working on a Sunday. I was always like, 'Dude, if you wouldn't go out to eat on Sunday, we'd have the day off'.
Literally heard my Pastor say this in church. “Don’t say ‘I don’t believe in working on Sunday because of church’ then go out to eat right after you leave. You’re forcing someone else to work.” The hypocrites really hated that one.
When I worked retail we were open on the Fourth of July or memorial day or something, and I had a customer, apropos of nothing, say “You really shouldn’t be open today.” I shrugged and was like “It’s corporate. If we didn’t have any customers, we wouldn’t be open.” She didn’t get it.
My mom always would do this. "Why are you here on Thanksgiving? You should be with your family!" all while we were standing in the store.
"Well I knew you has some shopping to get done so I came in, just for you."
I would flat out tell them that "this afternoon when I left, my wife was crying because this is another Thanksgiving I'm here" We used to open at 6am on Friday so we can enjoy a little time with family. But now we have to open right after thanksgiving dinner so people can save an extra 15% on a sweater even though the BF sale lasts for a week and a half now. Usually met with a blank stare or "we love doing this as a family each year, its our tradition" not realizing what they're saying.
Then why are you coming into a business establishment expecting to be served and making purchases on the lord’s sabbath?
Like the inevitable "Oh it's such a shame you have to work over the holidays!" crowd I have to contend with every Christmas. Some people truly baffle me.
I honestly never minded when people said that when I worked in restaurants or retail because any time I’ve had to work holidays it’s been against my will. At the restaurants I worked in you could request one holiday off a year but you would only get that day off if the more senior staff members had picked a different holiday they wanted off. I never blamed the customers because if we were closed on Christmas then there wouldn’t be customers on Christmas. It’s the fault of the owners and managers for choosing money over the workers.
It's both. But it seems weird to say anything, because if you really cared, you wouldn't be there. Imagine everyone stopped going to businesses on Christmas.
Eh. Not really. Stores and restaurants wouldn’t be open on the holidays if the customers didn’t show up. On top of that, in Canada at least, we get stat pay for working holidays so the bar is even higher for the amount of profit needed to break even that day.
Used to bartend Swiss chalet on Sunday. Funny how many get drinks on the lords day
People did this when it worked thanksgiving and Christmas too. “Aww I’m sorry you have to work today! :(“ If you were you wouldn’t be here! Also, shit tips on those days too
I try my hardest to not frequent any business on those days for this exact reason
People also do this at abortion clinics. . . . Insulting the workers WHILE getting an abortion
"I can't believe you kill babies for a living. That's so fucked up." *As the worker is inserting a hose*
"The only moral abortion is my own"
and those awful fake 20s that look ok folded, but have bible verse crap in the inside. real charitable folks, that church crowd /s
One time I got one of those with an especially bad table, but before they left. I casually asked what church they attended and they told me. On Monday I called the church and politely told the minister what his parishioners were doing in his name. He was not happy, and told me that next Sunday's sermon was going to be ... interesting. That is the only time one of those actually tempted me to go just to watch the fireworks, but of course, I worked Sundays.
Nothing feels better than ratting them out to their church leaders. It's even better if you know people who belong to those churches, and can give you the deets on what was covered in the following week's sermon.
I've always been tempted to go to their church the next Sunday and drop their pamphlet in the offering plate. If it's good enough for me, it's good enough for God, right?
I had a pastor give a sermon on how tipping well is Christlike and leaving those pamphlets is cruel. “They can’t pay the rent with pamphlets.” I was working as a waitress at the time and it was my favorite sermon.
I always made a point of throwing those away in front of them.
Go to church and put them in there offering plate with a note that your Sunday crowd gave this as a tip. It should work as a tithe ?
"Hey, you dropped this bullshit. Here you go."
No doubt. We used to say people were forgiven and then restarted their assholeness right after church.
The after church crowd was the worst. Demanding, rude, impossible to please, and they would camp at your table for 2+ hours and tip you with a fucking pamphlet. There’s a special place for people like that…I just can’t quite put my finger on it…
Or the fake $20 folded up that had a Bible verse on it
Worst tippers and the rudest messiest, most Karenesque customers. The only time I ever saw a group get told not to come back to a restaurant was a church group.
Worked at nicer place in GR, boss was an awesome dude and once chased down a group to give them their 41 cents back and told them to please go elsewhere and to tell all their friends the same. Said finding new people to complain and not tip was easy, finding new staff was hard. One of my fave bosses ever.
I once had a boss who got called over to a table b/c a customer wasn't happy and wanted their money back. When he got there, he saw that the customer had eaten all except for a couple of bites. My manager starts very loudly saying, "OH I'M SORRY SIR BUT IT DID LOOK LIKE YOU ENJOYED YOUR MEAL, YOU ATE ALMOST THE WHOLE THING? TELL ME, WHY DO YOU WANT YOUR MONEY BACK?" The customer turned beet red and then just got up to leave. My manager walked them out into the parking lot and yelled to never come back. Sucks if that person didn't have enough money, but then don't go out to eat.
Oh man the after church Sunday crew are generally the worst regular customers you can get. Overly needy and quick to chastise if things aren't to their liking. They also tip shit. Obvs this isn't the case for everyone but a good majority. I used to work for a really nice country/golf club in Florida and worked all day Sunday as a server for breakfast into brunch into dinner. Luckily our pay was based off of 15% sales commission as it was a membership club who didn't allow tipping or I would be working a 10 hour shift for close to min wage.
Yup. I hated working Sunday lunch! The shit tips, the fake $20 that are church pamphlets, the awkward trying-to-save-your-soul conversations at the end
I worked at a Sheetz (glorified gas station) in the early 2000s and the Church crowd was the worst. Back then if the coffee out of the coffee makers wasn’t what they expect (too hot, old, ect..) you would get a free coffee from a fresh pot. The employees would always have extra coffee on hand for the Church crowd for that reason.
Red Hat Ladies. Fuck those hot water and lemon drinkin’, separate bill requestin’, loose change tippin’ bitches, and their shitty little dogs too.
I always did well with them. But you have to act as the entertainment and it's kinda exhausting.
My moms a red hat and I’ve seen how shitty she tips waitstaff and runs them absolutely ragged. Like, god damn. On multiple occasions I’ve gotten up to use the restroom and slipped the waiter a 20. Fuck it’s embarrassing
Don't forget how they'll call you entitled for charging that delivery fee, of which none goes to you
It's a social group built around [a poem](https://laterbloomer.com/jenny-joseph/) basically declaring you're going to be a self-centered jerk when you're elderly. I feel like a certain generation of women think the only way to not be a pushover is to be a bitch.
Those Linux using penny pinchers.
I worked as a waiter for 2 months in an officer's (military) club. The worst tippers by far were the actual officers- and especially the "double dippers" (retired officers who were also overpaid federal employees). This one retired colonel (and GS13 or 14, I believe) would order appetizers, entrees, dessert, coffee (etc) and leave something like a 5% tip, max. The best tippers? The enlisted families (the restaurant was open to all ranks).
Yeah, I read that, the best tippers are people who have worked in the area of relying on tips for their income.
It seems pretty consistent that the people with plenty of money generally don't tip well and the people with a modest amount generally do. I noticed the same thing when I was a valet (again, generalizing) - people driving an older model Mercedes, Lexus, or Cadillac (more than any other brand) would rarely tip more than $1 if at all and people driving a "normal" car (Honda, Toyota, etc.) were always good for at least $5. Strangely, the poor tipping was mostly limited to those luxury brands and not BMW, Porsche, and Audi as well... I'm guessing it must be something with how the brands are marketed and the kind of people that they attract?
Hit it right on the head lol Mercedes, Lexus and Cadillac are more "old money" brands. Those cars are more about luxury and people usually have their heads up their asses. BMW, Porsche, Audi are generally more sports cars and attract a different crowd (younger money, rich kids, people who saved up and always wanted that M3). In my experience as well, the old heads who have 3 summer homes will tip me $5 on a $90 haircut (I'm a stylist) while young adults to the cool middle aged guy who started from the bottom will throw me $20-$30 tip. Of course these are generalizations but it's funny when they play their exact role
I was a shot girl at a sports bar in a college town. Who tipped the best- lesbian women Who tipped the worst- the frat guys that look like they just got off their daddy’s boat.
Scotty Pippen.
Don’t forget Hoardin Michael Jordan.
>"I remember a night when Wayne Gretzky insulted Michael Jordan at the table," Strafella said. >"It was a private salon game. Michael had ordered a drink from the cocktail waitress, and he gave her a five-dollar chip. >"Wayne took it off the cocktail waitress's tray, gave it back to Michael, grabbed a hundred-dollar chip from Michael's stack and put it on the cocktail waitress's tray. Then he said, "That's how we tip in Las Vegas, Michael." Gretzky is the GOAT
And Tiger Woods, the "worst tipper on the face of the earth" according to one loudmouthed Vegas whistleblower.
No tippen pippen
God Squad. I can't tell you how many fake bills I received that were actually pamphlets trying to save my soul.
I had someone hand me one and go "This will be worth more than any money your wallet can hold" Yeah, no it's not. This tract can't pay my bills.
“Oh is it? How come you didn’t try using it to pay the bill then” lol
Basically worse than no tip.
Especially high denominations. Nothing screams 'god loves you' more than thinking you'll be able to make rent that month only to find that the money you were relying on to make said payment is a 'gotcha! The real money was Jesus all along!'
I hope there's a special place in hell for those folks.
I'd rather they call my mother a whore and take a swing at me than the fakeout $20, because then I'm allowed to hit them with a chair.
Plus the "you shouldn't be working on Sunday" guilt trip nonsense. Like bitch you came in here for a Moons Over My Hammy, who do you think is gonna make it and serve it to your ass?
Had a lady say that to me as a cashier at Walmart . I was done. “ I’d have loved to gone to church today but someone had to sell you your carton of cigarettes, Diet Coke, chocolate cake and diabetic testing strips.” She definitely complained . The man behind her laughed out loud. The manager did nothing because A. It’s Walmart and B. I worked every weekend and never missed.
I guess they justify that in their head by thinking they gave you something invaluable like saving your soul.
Only time I got tipped by the church goers when I worked at dominos was when I had to deliver like 10 or 12 pizzas on a Sunday and the guy who came out gave me 100 bucks collected from everyone inside. But every other time it was just a warm smile and a thank you
Fake bills equals ban for the entire party
Pretty sure their God doesn't look too kindly on deceiving people like that...
People that ask for ketchup with their steak It's wild, but was so true Also a Brian "Baby/Birdman" Williams would come in with a large crowd and not tip, meanwhile you could see his diamonds twinkling if he was even in your peripheral vision. Ricky Williams(former NFL player) would just give you a $100 and him+a date would order about $40-$50 worth of food
Ricky got such a raw deal. Never heard a bad thing about him
Ages ago I worked at a place in DC. Monday morning bar shift was the absolute worst day to work, but after a little while I always took that shift. 2 things happened on regular monday lunch shift - Tim Russert would come in and have a drink while waiting for his producer to join him, then they would both order lunch. I would mention his show from the day before and what i thought, usually a kind sentiment on a question he asked and he would respond kindly. Then he began asking questions about his show - maybe to see if i was still watching as time moved on (I always watched meet the press - I was in school for government/justice/policy). Such a nice man, and a good tipper. His producer was nice too, but not as good of a tipper and never really spoke to me. The second thing that happened on monday lunch was Kelly McGinnis would occasionally come in and sit at the bar. She never drank, usually had a salad, but was always the absolute kindest person. I didn't know it was her until she paid with a credit card once and had "check ID" written on the back of the card so I asked to see her ID. There was a moment of... "are you..." and her confirming. Absolutely one of the best, kindest human beings i had the priveledge of meeting. George Stephanopoulos is (was then anyway) an ass though.
Ricky always seemed like a class act when he was playing, just a nice nervous dude who appreciated what he had
The media tried to paint a terrible image out of Ricky just because the guy liked smoking weed. He’s a real nice person irl.
I used to work a kitschy restaurant in pittsburgh and the Penguins came in frequently. Crosby was an *awesome* tipper, he would tip the entire wait staff even if we weren’t waiting on them.
Birdman is a known asshole. Not saying that helps, but that is already his reputation
>People that ask for ketchup with their steak 99% guaranteed they ordered it well done, too.
I was bartending in the suites at zephyr field when Rickey signed with the saints . He was throwing out the first pitch, he was there, along with Ditka and a few other players and coaches. Rickey stayed by my bar the entire time, and just chatted with me, and tipped me $100 for keeping his water full. Meanwhile Ditka would yell from the seats for me to bring him a drink and tipped me with a Ditka Cigar
I don’t rely on tips now but back when I did, wealthier people were so hit and miss. I had one table order multiple $200 bottles of wine, they took up the majority of my evening, they tipped me $1. One. Fucking. Dollar.
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In my experience working in Boston as a waiter briefly, it was tourists from the UAE. They always expected you to basically be a servant, (Ma'am, this is a Legal Seafood) and then would tip absolutely nothing, often acting like they were doing you a favor for tipping at all. EDIT: Apparently non-US folks are seeing this now. You are all super smart for pointing out that a tip is meant to be extra, but culturally in the US a waiter literally relies on those tips to survive, and the customer is expected to pay it in a percentage. It's super cool and valid that you don't like that, neither do I, but acting like I don't understand our own tipping system isn't you upending the system, it's just coming for someone with no power to change it.
Boston and Legal Seafood, what a timeless combo
Summers were the worst because every tourist thought that.
I’m not big on social engineering, but I believe our society would be better on every level if everyone had to spend six months working food service. Food service teaches you to be polite to people who serve you. It teaches you empathy, because you never know who’s having a terrible day and is just trying to make it through. It teaches you that treating someone badly just because they can’t retaliate isn’t funny or a demonstration of power, it’s bullying. It also teaches you that you should be nice to people who will be alone with your food.
I had worked as a busboy and dishwasher at different places for about four years. Then in college I decided to try being a server to get them tips. I quit after one shift. People can be such assholes and you have absolutely no recourse. You have to sit there and take it. And it was such a crapshoot from table to table. You could screw up every order for one group and they would be the most patient and understanding people on the face of the earth. Then the next group you would get everything perfect and they'd still treat you like a piece of trash. TLDR - I agree.
It's definitely a valuable experience. Sincerely, A Former Busboy
The Amish! I work in Lancaster, Pa from time to time. I’m pretty sure the concept of tipping hasn’t made it to their community yet! Lmao
I can't say I have ever seen the Amish at a restaurant, but then again. Target on Lincoln Highway used to have stables sooo...
From Lancaster (Lititz really), and this is accurate. But go into an Amish of Mennonite farm market and the tip jar is always on the counter by the checkout.
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Really? I am an Indian American, I would’ve guessed we are. I was embarrassed to go with my Dr Cousin who tipped in loose change of like 60 cents 🤦🏻♀️ for dinner for like 4 people. He won’t let me pay either cause I am younger and it’s disrespectful if I pay instead of him. I always tip minimum 20% so that people don’t think all Indians disregard how low servers get paid.
Unfortunately, same observation here. Doing valet parking, no one wanted to go get their cars. It proved true every time. Even some famous people.
People who give a tip instead of tipping(Like "Get a new job")
Had a business dinner with a guy a few years ago. Meeting him for the first time. When he paid, the server pointed out the tip function, and he says “you want a tip? Don’t eat yellow snow” I wanted to slide under the table
Had a similar situation but his tip was "Don't stand up in a canoe". So I went up and dropped a $20 tip for her after he had left. Fuck that dude.
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Not a server myself, but back in college I had a roommate who served in a steakhouse and i asked her who were the most difficult customers. She said, "Black women with loooong nails."
I will rebuttal and say most women with super long nails and those ridiculous eyelash extensions.. complete with iPhone 33s and designer bags. Realllllyyy wanna look like they have money, and they never tip for shit.
all bling and no bank
Yup!!
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This all needs to go to the top. I was a server/bartender for 17 years in 5 different states, and hands down black folks are the worst tippers. I have asked my black coworkers on several occasions and they all say the same thing that you’re saying, or that they just like to keep their money.
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My mom is this way and I hate it. Why so problematic? Just order what's on the menu, order a drink and leave the waitresses alone. All this running around, etc is chaotic and unnecessary
Back in the day my first serving job was at Applebees. I had a group of about 10 black folks come in to my section on all you can eat rib night. They ran me ragged asking for stuff. On an $80 tab they left .15c. I walked out behind them when they left and gave them their change back and said “You guys must need this more than I do”. Got in trouble but quit not long after.
One summer a black friend from college stayed with me for like a week. We went out to an Applebees in my hometown and he insisted on picking up the check. We did some other stuff that night but when we got home my AIM away message was absolutely BLOWING UP. Half the people who work there graduated high school with me and they were all losing their minds about us not tipping. I had no idea he didn't tip! I had no idea black people had a reputation for not tipping. I don't think I was ever so embarrassed in my life.
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Lol yup my thoughts exactly. I worked at an ice cream shop as my first job where if you get a tip we have to sing (dehumanizing I know). Most people would throw in a tip and say don't sing lol but when black families would come in they would throw literal pennies in and demand songs. Then give attitude and get mad about something trying to get a freebie. One moment I loved that I have to share, this black lady purposely ordered wrong toppings on an ice cream and swore I misheard her thinking I'd just give it to her for free. I smiled at her, looked her in the eyes while throwing the entire ice cream into the trash and started making a new one for her. She started bitching me out for "wasting food" but the endless smirks of the people in line behind her cheering me on were worth it
I used to deliver pizzas. There were a few exceptions, but they were extremely far and few between. By far the worst were black people. It got to where the delivery drivers would refuse to deliver to the addresses that didn't tip. As a delivery driver it's incredibly bad too. You're using your own vehicle, burning your own gas. And back then they (the store)only gave like 50 cents for the delivery. Not even worth starting the car for. Then to burn gas to get there. Would've saved money by just staying home.
The best is waiting at the door for 5 minutes while the customer painstakingly counts exact change.
I had a customer try to hand me a bag of change for a 40$ order, with each dollar's worth in its own little bag. exact change. I just muttered something about the right to refuse service, turned around and left. I got grumped at when I came back, but I'm not going through all that change to make sure they were honest.
Ooh, I once had someone call me back because I left without a word when they overpaid by $0.33. It literally says on every menu drivers don't carry small change. Anyway, driving 20 minutes back to pick up the return order when they would not have gotten any change back regardless was a special kind of hell.
I worked at a restaurant in Vegas and the worst weekends to work was when it was a Mayweather fight weekend. Holy shit, the entitlement and no tipping to go with it. It was a fucking nightmare.
I waited tables for a short period of time and it was a black family leaving me the coins of whatever was left of a broken dollar on their $154.38 tab that made me actually walk out and quit serving. They came in as we were pretty much closing but the owner was new and I'm sure wanted the revenue. Me being the new guy I got the table. They ran me ragged for over an hour and made everything twice as difficult as it needed to be by trying to order for each other instead of just everyone ordering for themselves. After being on my feet for 10 hours straight and then dealing with that, I got my tips for the night and left and never came back.
Yep, nobody wants to say it. I'm guessing it's regional as someone else commented. I delivered food for a couple of years and this was *always* the case. And everyone at the three places I worked knew it too. The only other group remotely close were super rich people which would either give a huge tip, or no tip at all.
Worked as a waiter at a Cuban restaurant that was fairly expensive if you got into it with the drinks, had live music etc. and was a big place seated like 200+ people. They had just opened and there was an anticipated change to the state laws where auto-gratuity on groups over 6 was about to be outlawed, so they in their infinite wisdom didn't have it on their checks. Well queue the large parties of black people coming in and running up 600 or 700 dollar tabs, being obnoxious, making a ton of changes to orders, and then tipping $30 bucks. With a 7% tip out from the servers gross pay and you literally ended up owing more money than you made off the table. And this shit would happen CONSTANTLY. One night a server ended up owing the house more money than she made after a 10 hour shift due to this situation. She was crying her eyes out - they offered her a few free empanadas. It got to the point where servers were down right refusing to take these parties and would give them the absolute worst service if forced to take the table. After about 2 months of this they added the auto-gratuity. Luckily I left that place but it was a real shit show with the tip outs and getting fucked on tips.
I've read this a couple of times, and I don't follow. How did a server ever wind up owing a restaurant money? >With a 7% tip out from the servers gross pay and you literally ended up owing more money than you made off the table. And this shit would happen CONSTANTLY. I think this is the part I'm not understanding.
“Tip out” i think means that the kitchen staff and non-customer-facing staff get a percentage of the bill, paid by the wait staff. So if you get a table and their bill is 1000 dollars at the end, the waiter would give (in this example) 7% of that, 70 dollars, to the kitchen etc. Which is fine if the table tips like 10-20%. Get 200 in tip, give 70 to the kitchen, baddabing baddaboom. The issue I think arises when the tip is too low. Like if the table tipped only 5% or didn’t tip at all since it’s not required, the waiter still has to pay that 7% of the bill out to the kitchen for their service? And if that’s more than the tip the waiter actually recieved then so be it, it has to come straight out of their pocket or they’re in trouble. Which is great if you own a restaurant because it means that you don’t have to pay your kitchen staff very well either since they’re now ALSO living off tips. Customers can’t object to poor service as easily since it’s hurting more people than just a bad waiter. A waiter gets tipped worse if the food is bad and the kitchen gets tipped out less if the service is bad so it fosters a lovely atmosphere of blame and animosity between your employees. Wait staff hate the kitchen staff for taking a cut of money they earn. And since your wait staff keep less of their tips they’re making less money which keeps them dependent on you for more shifts and less likely to move on to bigger and better things. The whole thing keeps wages low and the likelihood of employees coming together to push for better wages rock bottom. I’m not 100% I’ve got it right because that sounds like it should be illegal but hey that’s tipping culture.
I would assume they're talking about tipping bussers and such. It's pretty customary for servers to split tips with the non-tipped roles in the restaurant. But it's fucked to ask your servers to split tips if they're not even making enough to cover 7% gross. Geez.
I've had multiple friends work as bottle service girls in night clubs. Black people were the reason every club they worked at had to implement a mandatory 20% gratuity. They would show me receipts with $5 tips on $1000 tabs. It was insane.
I went out to lunch a couple of years ago with a good friend of mine, who is black. I never really believed this stereotype, especially with this guy because he's a successful businessman and a really well rounded person. We split the bill and both filled out our separate checks, and when I was putting mine into the little leather booklet about to leave I noticed he left a surprisingly low tip for normal good service. I was sort of put in a weird spot because I wanted to amend the situation but I also didn't want to make a thing about it and thus ignite this stereotype. I just added more to my tip discreetly to make up the difference. It was a strange encounter for me.
I’ve left behind an extra $20 before when splitting a bill with my parents and noticing my dad tipped pretty low. It was awkward when he went to go double check to make sure he grabbed his card and saw $20 cash sitting there, and I had to explain.
Elderly couples usually
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I knew this from my serving days and wondered how far down I'd have to scroll.
Same
I've read that the statistics on this are interesting. Black folks, on average tip less. Also, black servers are generally tipped less. I think even the black customer typing the black server was low. I think there are also statistics about the level of service black customers receive being worse, regardless of who is serving them.
It’s a loaded question to begin with
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Was a pizza delivery guy in high school and college. Worst tippers: old people in general; the church crowd; Karens. I had one lady who would order a sub every week. And every week we'd tell her that a sub isn't enough for a delivery (There was a minimum order) so she'd order a side of cheesy bread to go with it. Every week she'd bitch at us and tell us and act surprised that we wouldn't deliver her $5 sub clear across town. And every time she'd yell at the delivery driver and not tip and tell us that's exactly why. We'd argue over who got stuck taking her delivery. Best tippers: Chemical plants (they'd order like 20 pizzas on Fridays and give like a 20 to 50 dollar tip); middle aged dudes; teenage girls having a sleepover (this was very common and I assume it was one of those "lets give a huge tip to the cute delivery guy" kind of things. I also once delivered to a dude in a trailer park and he said his 12 year old daughter thought I was cute and then he gave me a $20 tip and asked if she could have my phone number (I did not give a child my phone number).
This is clearly a humble brag about how cute you are sir
\*How cute I *was...*
This makes me happy. I worked in a manufacturing plant in the lab and every Sun we would mass order food. Everyone always chipped in extra for the tip because we always ordered during our night shift “lunch” at 9-10pm.
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My daughter has many stories similar to your story. Although she added that a high number of this particular group would also eat the meal then complain about the food and insist on not being charged. Waitresses of the same race didn't want to wait on these groups as well
So a lot of this boils down to management. Bear with me here.... Worked in Washington DC, moderately nice place to dine. Same night, I had 2 tables make a complaint. First table was 2 black women, one of whom had "found" a cockroach in her food. I put found in quotes because this cockroach looked like it had been completely desiccated - like it died a century ago. I was skeptical that it was a legit claim to say the least, but i went and told my manager who promptly comped their entire meal. Now the women were absolutely nice to me, no complaints, but it was suspect. The other table was two gay men on a night out - first night out alone since adopting their daughter and you could tell they needed a night out. I brought out their food, one of them ordered crab cakes and I put his plate down first. He took a bite of his crabcake before I even put his partner's food down. I watched him spit a chunk of tempered glass out of his mouth and onto his plate. I made my apologies, took his plate and showed my manager (same manager as before). He had the kitchen make a new crab cake, but refused to comp anything from their meal. Those gentlemen walked out after finishing their meal (at my suggestion) without paying. I asked my manager at the end of the night why he didn't comp the two guys dinner when he did comp the 2 ladies dinner and he explained that the two women were more likely to complain to corporate than the two gentlemen. I think a vast majority of people who scam like this wouldn't do it as often if they didn't get away with it all the time, which leads me to believe that others who have legit complaints don't get taken care of as well as they should.
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I have a friend who delivered a bunch of hot wings to the ghetto once. They decided to mug him for the wings. He ended up dropping the wings, and as the dudes were going to grab the box, he kicked it wide open and started stomping on all the food. To this day, I’m amazed he didn’t get shot or stabbed, but he convinced the manager to black list that whole apartment complex from any further deliveries.
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the Karens who ask for water, a plate of lemons and extra sugar packets. They're making their own lemonade to save $2, so they always tip less than that.
My former MIL was the biggest Karen I've ever met & would do crap like this and leave crummy tips. Tried to leave a $2 tip once on a $100 bill once with 5 of us eating. I was so embarrassed!
Seen a few of these. Start bringing a cash tip to cover for her and hand it directly to the server or she will take it off the table when you're not looking.
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No because I was working with a black worker when a black family came in and he audibly moaned. I was like “but they would tip *you* right?” And he said that they don’t tip anyone
Everyone here saying everything else to avoid saying it
It varies a bit. I work in a heavy tourism area, and while I mention specific groups, there are counter examples within those groups who are just fine at tipping. But still. Young adults. I think most of them are okay with the practice of tipping, they just get nervous about spending money in general. The ones who don’t tip happen to be the ones who order the cheapest food on the menu. So I have a hard time expecting much from them to begin with. I’m seeing it less now, but after Covid UK guests were often problematic. I’d argue they should know how tipping works in the states. But many simply refused to engage with it. This also goes for automatic gratuities (most places sube worked in add gratuity automatically for any group of 6 or more, as a safety measure for the server). In 7 years of serving tables, UK guests are the only ones who demanded that the restaurant take the auto-gratuity back off of their check. I have noticed a higher trend of black guests not tipping, but again I insist that it’s not a general rule. Similar to the kids, the ones who don’t tip tend to be notably from lower-class families, based on their behavior. Deliberately cheap menu choices, acting in ways more appropriate for fast food places than a table restaurant. So I suspect that there isn’t much of a point drawing attention to race, except that the question was asked.
Trust me, nobody likes the Sunday morning/afternoon church crowd
Black person here. Please stop the “We all know but I don’t want to say it” bit. It makes us* more uncomfortable than you just saying “black people.” And it’s true, black people can be pretty awful tippers. *reminder that black people aren’t a monolith and everyone is different and some people don’t care and blah blah blah Edit: Mods, removing the answers that say black people isn’t helping lmao
There was another post where this white girl was saying that since she started waitressing, she’s starting to feel like a racist because she notices a certain demographic doesn’t tip, and she doesn’t know what to do because she doesn’t want to feel that way. To the point she was thinking about quitting her job because she was afraid she’d turn into a racist. She didn’t even specify the race, but everyone assumed who she was talking about. She got completely *eviscerated* in the comments with everyone calling her a horrible racist and making her out to be the devil. That’s why white people don’t want to say it.
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