Yet Another Tipping Question

April 28, 2013 10:36 PM

I usually over tip--22-25 percent. But I was confused about something that happened tonight. I went to a new bar, kind of a renovated dive, with a friend. We both ordered cocktails, I ordered a charchturie (sp) platter and he ordered a pizza. My food came right away, and both of our drinks came quickly. The bar was empty for our first drinks, but was filling up quickly. We ordered a second drink. The bar was filled with people that the bar tender seemed to know. The second drink came. No sign of pizza, it was more than an hour at this point. We remind the bartender, who is also the server twice. He finally says, five minutes, and five minutes later, the pizza comes. This would have been 90 minutes. No offer to comp the food, no apologies, but the food was really good, the drinks were strong, and I would like to go back...I tipped 4 on a 32 bill, after tax. They also split the bill in a weird manner. My friends kind of shy, so I took his lead, and didn't complain. How much should I have tipped? Should I have complained? Should I go back to complain? What's the protocol here?
posted by PinkMoose to Food & Drink (25 answers total)

I don't know what the protocol is, but my personal opinion is that that was really bad service. It's nice that the food was good, but you're not tipping the guy who made the food, you're tipping the guy who served it to you, and he served it to you poorly. At the very least he should have been apologetic and acknowledged the crazy long wait. (And the fact that your food came out so quickly while your friend had to wait 90 minutes--90 minutes!!--isn't okay either.) I personally wouldn't bother going back to complain, but I would probably also avoid that place in the future.
posted by Bella Sebastian at 10:54 PM on April 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

You can tip whatever you want. A low tip is appropriate for bad service without an apology, which is what you got.

This doesn't seem like such a huge deal that I would personally go back just to raise a stink, but again it's all up to you. If it's just one time, I try to write stuff like this off to someone just having a bad night, but I don't blame you for being annoyed.
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:55 PM on April 28, 2013

You received poor service and tipped accordingly. It's over.

(I've waited tables and yeah sometimes the kitchen is slow or a ticket gets dropped. The server apologizes and comps something. The restaurant will have a policy about what gets comped. You aren't stiffing the waiter/bartender because the kitchen screwed up. You're leaving a short tip because the waiter/bartender didn't do anything to correct the problem.)
posted by 26.2 at 11:08 PM on April 28, 2013 [13 favorites]

It's certainly annoying, and it would have been nice if the bartender offered to comp you something, but I don't know that there's a specific protocol to follow (and I certainly don't think it warrants going back to complain). You tipped on the low end for bad service, which is what low tipping is for. If you want to go back and see if you receive better service the next time around, that seems reasonable. If it's enough to turn you off going back a second time, that seems reasonable, too.
posted by scody at 11:20 PM on April 28, 2013

A lot of bartenders I know would likely comp you a drink after something like that, by way of apology. I think a poor tip is appropriate, though I'd probably hold off on going back there for a while. If I really liked the place otherwise I'd have tipped well, gone back another time in the near future to give it a second chance, and then if I got a similar problem I'd barely tip and not come back. If everything went great, I'd write off the first experience and call it good.
posted by Scientist at 11:21 PM on April 28, 2013

What's your desired outcome here? You can probably get an apology from the manager if you go back in person. He might offer you a comped drink or meal in the future, if you're pushy enough. But if this is a place you want to come back to, you could approach the interaction in a more constructive framing. As in, 'I had a poor service experience here last night but it was an otherwise great meal, and I'd like to bring this to your attention so I can return without hesitation'. New places may take a while to find the rhythm. If you are friendly, they will probably appreciate the feedback, especially if you tell them that you really did enjoy the meal aside from the service issue and really do want to come back. Who knows, maybe you'll be a regular at this place.
posted by PercussivePaul at 11:32 PM on April 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

We don't really tip here in Oz, but I had something like that happen to me once as waitress. The ticket had fallen on the floor, the people didn't say anything, I comped them something without them asking...and I got fired. Their wait was 45 min., it was a bistro-cafe in an art gallery, nice but nothing super fancy or pricey. I should have been tracking my orders/tables better...even though it was quiet and turnover not an issue.

I think you have him a great tip for the lousy service you got. Tip for good service, not for bad.
posted by jrobin276 at 12:47 AM on April 29, 2013 [1 favorite]

You're fine. I would have tipped even less for service that lousy.
posted by corb at 2:58 AM on April 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

You have to bear in mind the kind of place it is - if the bartender is also the server, it's not fine dining. He's juggling a lot more than the typical wait staff, and that means sometimes he forgets about the pizza.

I think it was likely an honest mistake, and you should have asked after the pizza when the second drink showed up. Especially at a gastropub where the guy mixing cocktails waits tables at the same time... the standards would be very much different at a place where the check looks more like a car payment, and they have a guy with a crumb comb.

But even in that situation, I've had servers in high-zoot restaurants as well as mom'n'pop greasy spoons make a mistake - how they deal with the mistake after it's been brought to their attention is usually my guide on how to tip. Do they deal with it immediately and with no hassle? Full tip. Do they make excuses, foot-drag, or refuse to fix it/make it worse? That hits the tip significantly. Do they offer some compensation, like a reduced price, free drink or dessert? Bigger than usual tip.

When you did point out that he forgot the pizza, he moved quickly to fix the mistake. Good pizza in five minutes? That's service. I would have tipped him the usual, and made a mental note to ask after the food when the second round arrives if I wanted to come back.
posted by Slap*Happy at 4:45 AM on April 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

You received bad service without any attempt at a justification, the correct tip is 0. You over-tipped.
posted by epo at 4:51 AM on April 29, 2013 [3 favorites]

It actually says they reminded him twice, and that at some point after that, he said five minutes. That's just poor service. Not really just forgetting until reminded, which is unfortunately common when ordering from bartenders.
posted by smackfu at 4:52 AM on April 29, 2013

I try to cut new businesses some slack. The kitchen is probably getting in order and the staff, well, they might need a good shake out. It sound like your bartender was hired more for his mixology than service skills. Hopefully the latter will develop in time.

That said, I operate on the Three Strikes rule when it comes to return visits. If I fail to have a satisfactory time three visits in a row, the place becomes Dead To Me and I won't go back unless cajoled.

So feel free to go back if you liked the place. I doubt the bartender will even remember you, but the more you show up, the more chance you have of becoming one of those people he focuses on when you arrive.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:03 AM on April 29, 2013

Is it possible they thought the charcuterie platter was an appetizer for both of you and that the pizza was your shared entree? Still too long for the pizza to come out but more explainable that the food arrived separately and in that order.

I probably would have made it clear at the time that the orders were separate and my friend was waiting and hungry, but I wouldn't go back to do this. I might have even asked for a comp drink or dessert for the wait, in a friendly way. And I still would have tipped -- if they had comped me something I would have tipped even more.
posted by onlyconnect at 5:23 AM on April 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

bad service is a result of bad/absent management, no systems in place and no accountability for the staff. If you like the place and want it to succeed you might want to write a letter to the owner and let him know that you loved the food but he needs professional help to get his service up to par or he's going to lose repeat business. Yeah, I watch too much Restaurant Stakeout, and an overwhelming theme is ownership saving pennies stretching the staff thin with too many roles. He needs to hire a dedicated food server for the busy nights.
posted by any major dude at 5:27 AM on April 29, 2013

You tipped appropriately: poor service gets poor tips, great service gets great tips --- and I say that as someone who usually tips generously.

Whatever the reason, you waited 90 minutes for that food, and that's way too long. Plus, it's poor service to have brought YOUR food and not your friend's: good service means bringing the food for an entire party at the same time, not having one person eating while the other sits there like a lump.

If this was the place's opening weekend or so, yeah, I'd give them another chance. If this was a long-established place, probably not. Either way, call the manager this afternoon and calmly explain what happened --- not in the expectation of getting something comped, but more as a way to let them know that bartender and/or the kitchen needs more training..... if you don't tell the manager there was a problem, then they won't know there's something to correct, and this will continue.
posted by easily confused at 6:31 AM on April 29, 2013

Just to give another perspective: In my view, waiters are paid below minimum wage because tips are understood to be part of their income. To me, because I think people should get paid at least minimum wage even if they're not that great at their jobs, that means that the minimum tip is 15%, and that applies to any level of service between "terrible" and "acceptable." Good service gets more.


In other words, one way of viewing tipping practice is as a means of rewarding particularly good work, not a means of punishing particularly bad work. But as you can see on this thread (and on every tipping thread!) there is no general consensus on what tipping actually means and you will find much support for just about any theory you choose to adopt.

So I think you should have tipped 15%. I think it would have been fine and indeed pretty normal to complain at the time (or to say, at the 45-minute mark, this is ridiculous, cancel the pizza and I'm not paying for it), but I think it would be weird to make a special trip back to the bar to complain. I think you should try the place again if you like the food, because service is often very variable and you really don't know why it took so long to get your food last time (e.g. you don't know whether it had anything to do with your waiter.)
posted by escabeche at 7:49 AM on April 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Not strictly related but with so many people saying "poor service gets poor tips", felt that it was appropriate to mention I take into account effort in addition to service: I've tipped highest on occasion at a place where we've gotten horrible service. If the waitress is obviously swamped, running around at a frantic pace, failing miserably despite best efforts, possibly because they're shorthanded or something, that is invariably a "poor service" scenario, but effort has to count for something.

It doesn't sound like that's what happened in this case though.
posted by jgreco at 8:47 AM on April 29, 2013

I wouldn't go back and complain, but I would have complained while I was still there. I think your tip was fine, but mostly comes off as "bad tipper" rather than "not pleased with my poor service".

Side note- 22-25% is not overtipping at this point in time in most areas of the United States.
posted by arnicae at 8:59 AM on April 29, 2013

I waitressed on and off for years and as a result I feel very strongly that tipping should be directly linked to quality of service. If everyone just tips a standard percentage no matter what then you may as well do away with tipping and just add staff pay into the cost of the food.

Of course there were times when my customers didn't get the service I would have liked to give - kitchen messed up, lost ticket, wrong drink, accidentally dropping a latte in your handbag - but I rarely lost tips on those occasions because I worked really hard to apologise and make things right. On occasions when I couldn't I expected to take a hit on the tip.
posted by Dorothia at 9:06 AM on April 29, 2013

I spent a lot of time as a server, and escabeche's points are quite good. A basic (10%-15%) tip is just wages - it's not a vote. It is the cost of having someone bring your food to you. it's roughly the amount a restaurant would have to raise prices if they paid servers a standard hourly wage. If someone goes the extra mile, adding to those wages a bonus - 18%-20% or more - is a great way to say thanks. But subtracting from the trip is not a great way to say "I am unhappy." For one thing, no one who can or will do anything about will ever know about it or learn from it. For another, it is simply refusing to pay part of the cost of your meal, the cost of the service. For a third thing, servers have no idea why you might be stiffing them - in this case he probably knew, but servers also deal with Europeans (who often don't tip), broke students, people who are cheapskates on principle, and people who are not completely with it for one reason or another, and you can never be sure why you didn't get a tip, or a good tip, so it's a totally unclear message. Stiffing a server or giving them a painfully low tip is not smart, it's sort of the mark of people who don't know a lot about restaurants and are not great at being assertive.

But this is a situation that's pretty extremely bad. The service really was very poor - you did get the food and drink you ordered, but not in a timely way and not with courtesy. It calls for some action and specificity from you about what went wrong.

What you should have done/should do next time is: speak up more (definitely inquire when you got the second drink, "How long on the pizza?") It's quite likely he just plain forgot to put in your order, then got busy. It happens. Then only when you said something did he remember. So always, always inquire if it feels like you've waited a bit too long. That can be someone's tipoff to say "OMG, I forgot, my fault, I'll expedite it and here's a drink and some bar snacks to tide you over, on me." But...The fact that he didn't do anything at all to say "I'm sorry" or make it up to you is the bigger problem. That's a customer service issue that the manager should know about.

The problem with people who use tips as punishment or a vote is that they don't accomplish jack that way. The solution to this problem - the bartender is poorly trained or has lousy skills - is a managerial one, not a customer-driven one. The managers or owners of the place need to know that you had a bad experience in order to do something about it. So the top-line, sophisticated, appropriate, I-get-restaurants way to act in this situation is:

Speak up as soon as you notice a problem. Right away. Give them a chance to correct it.

If the chance is not taken, and you find on getting the check you got no breaks and no apologies, let the bartender know you were unhappy...verbally.

Tip a low but still acceptable amount to acknowledge that you were in fact served, no less than 10%. In this situation I'd have tipped 10%. Believe me the message of 10% is loud and clear - "I didn't stiff you, as I am not a skinflint, but you didn't do well at all."

Ask to speak to the manager or, even better, call or write the manager the next day with a detailed story. Specify that you like the place and want to return and recommend it, but you had a bad experience, and are sure they'll want to correct it.

Give them one more try when you're ready. If they fail a second time, you're pretty much done. Try it on a different night of the week, too. Especially when some places are newly catching on, they have a very rough patch when nights that used to be dead are suddenly very busy, and their systems and methods aren't up to the challenge yet. Let them shake it down, and try it when it's quieter.

But there is a chance that they don't care much about service, and if that's the case, you'll find out by talking to the manager and trying it once more.

posted by Miko at 1:08 PM on April 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

Because this is in question - I think people are pretty aware when you undertip them, why you've done it, but I have also known people to write on the receipt the reason for the undertip. I'm not sure how seriously this is taken, but I know it's a Thing People Do.
posted by corb at 1:57 PM on April 29, 2013

I basically agree with Miko above.

My tip scale is as follows (all except the first two rounded up to the nearest dollar):

- Nothing for order-at-the-counter-serve-yourself places, except usually my change in the tip jar. Probably controversial, but the truth.

- 1 penny for abysmally bad service, insulting or some kind of flare-up that wasn't my fault. I've done this once in my life. "I didn't forget, but fuck you."

- 10% for terrible service, as in this case. "Maybe you should learn to do your job."

- 20% for good service, this is about 60% of all trips for me.

- 25-30% (rounded up) for great service, about 30% of all trips.

- 40-50% for crazy good. As with the 1 penny example, I've done this once.

Honestly, I'd like to tip more, just give me the service.
posted by Invoke at 1:58 PM on April 29, 2013 [2 favorites]

I think people are pretty aware when you undertip them, why you've done it,

You might think so, but every case is not as obvious as this one, and in fact it is impossible to know sometimes. If you've worked as a server this is pretty evident. It's hard to tell people who are just low tippers from people who have a beef unless they say something, and sadly, a lot of people are just low tippers. Too much goes on in a shift to worry a lot about that.
posted by Miko at 2:57 PM on April 29, 2013

It's hard to tell people who are just low tippers from people who have a beef unless they say something, and sadly, a lot of people are just low tippers. Too much goes on in a shift to worry a lot about that.

I think that's true in general, but in this case of making a table wait 90 minutes for a pizza, I don't think it should be much of a mystery.
posted by scody at 2:59 PM on April 29, 2013

Not in this case, but I say it more in the spirit of encouraging people to be clear about what the problem is to the manager, because a tip does not always speak, and when it does, it only speaks to the server, which may not correct the problem at all. Also, 90 minutes when you're the one waiting is a whole lot different from 90 minutes when you're behind the bar with never a second to collect your thoughts, and it's really possible he didn't realize how much time had gone by. In matters of poor service, it's always best to be clear.
posted by Miko at 3:03 PM on April 29, 2013 [1 favorite]