The Tipping Point: A Nine-Part Treatise On The Art And Science Of Restaurant Gratuities

A steady trickle of sweat tinged with guilt and indignation, or the sure stroke of a pen to rival the trademarked slash of Zorro? Come meal's end, all diners stand somewhere along this spectrum. I get countless questions about a variety of restaurant-related issues, but tipping -- how much, when, and why -- is the single issue that weighs most heavily on everyone's mind.

Rather than answer everyone's individual questions, we at The Blue Cleaver thought it would be useful to create a comprehensive guide to restaurant tipping. In the attempt, we stumbled upon something much larger -- the desire to buck the whole system. Quickly, our guide became a manifesto.

Just the tip of the iceberg (to dispatch with the pun straight way), we hope you will find this piece enlightening, if not downright helpful.

Part I: A Brief History of Tipping, or "Why do I have to give you more money just to do your job?"
Part II: How Much to Tip, or "Is 20 is the new 15?"
Part III: Tipping Under the Influence (of Others), or "Is my date cheap, or am I just a big spender?"
Part IV: The Psychology of Tipping, or "What makes you tip?"
Part V: Tipper Types, or "Is that a wad of Hamiltons or are you just happy to see me?"
Part VI: Who Gets the Tip, or "If our server just made $60 cash from each of five tables in one hour, why did I go to law school?"
Part VII: Service Complet, or "Can't we just make restaurateurs pay their own staff?"
Part VIII: A Brave New World, or "But what will my burger cost?"
Part IX: Service After Tips, or "Will the coffee still be refilled?"
Addendum: Reader Questions

Part I: A Brief History of Tipping, or "Why do I have to give you more money just to do your job?"

The gratuity has grown from humble roots into a great, big rusty can of locally grown, certified-organic worms. To break down the overly complicated rules of tipping, we should first investigate the somewhat mysterious history of the practice.

The origin of tipping is unclear. The most romantic and quaint explanation traces the word "tip" to an 18h-century acronym -- for "to insure promptness," "to improve performance," or "to insure prompt service" -- that appeared on jars in European coffeehouses. Just imagine some slacker college graduate (Cambridge, Class of 1757) pointing to his tip jar, "Karma doth shine upon thee, dude." It's too funny.

And, apparently, it's too funny to be true.

Many linguists discount this explanation because acronyms didn't popularly appear in the English language before World War II. And don't even get me started on the insure/ensure confusion. That "insure" is commonly substituted for "ensure" is a complete abuse of the language. (Simply, it is incorrect. I'm no grammaticaster, but come on. Can't people just learn the right word, rather than bend and misshape language to their own uses? But I digress.)

Other scholars, namely the Oxford English Dictionary, point to "tip" as a derivation of an alternate usage meaning "to pass from one to another." Think, "stock tip." Alternatively, the Latin word "stips" means "gift" and may have trickled down -- like tips themselves -- into our humble English. And just to demonstrate my complete lack of authority on the history of the tip, I'll add that other scholars (re: the Internet) believe the gratuity has origins in Judaism (re: of course the Jews invented the tip).

Regardless of its roots, many historians agree that tipping for service first appeared in the States after the Civil War, and, according to James Surowiecki of The New Yorker, it was "met with fervent public opposition from people who considered it a toxic vestige of Old World patronage."

Most -- both patron and server -- might argue not much has changed. After six years of battle-tested service in the field, I find it difficult to reconcile what the tip represents today with its history, etymological or otherwise. And worse, I just can't get over the correlation between gratuity (a favor, a gift) and gratuitous (unearned; unnecessary; unjustified). If I pondered that dichotomy on the way to work, I might just give up the dream and slink home. Instead, I'll try to explain it.

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Part II: How Much to Tip, or "Is 20 is the new 15?"

Just as its origins are shrouded in mystery, there is nothing cut-and-dry about the everyday, practical world of the gratuity. Agreeing on the "accepted rate" is only the beginning; the role of the gratuity in society is more complicated than a matter of percentage points. Frankly, nothing in American culture so succinctly brands a consumer like his/her tipping habits.

Since the 1970s, the going tip rate at restaurants has been 15%. Though they don't, most servers should expect that a large segment of the dining population, especially older diners, consider 15% standard. However, the tip average has recently crept up to 18%, with 20% becoming the new standard among younger diners. Though I'm no social anthropologist, I would guess the tip average would be higher for younger diners because they might have a stronger connection to the service sector and consequently tip empathetically. Of course, given a taste of blood, servers are only going to want more. Face it, folks, as far as most of us are concerned, 20 is the new 15.

But why? As food cost is a factor considered in cost-of-living figures, it should rise commensurate to cost-of-living increases. If this is true and the tip is calculated as a percentage of cost, shouldn't 15% still be acceptable? (Readers take note: I am trained even less in economics than in social anthropology.) Nevertheless, it would seem that the tip percentage could stay static and a server will still earn a cost-of-living "raise."

An common way to calculate the tip is to double the sales tax which, in most states, is about 8% of the net cost of food and beverages. Nevertheless, most servers (and diners) figure in taxes when they calculate their tip percentage. Say the cost of your food is $90. Add 8% in sales tax, and the subtotal is $97.20. The "tax-doubler" would double the sales tax ($7.20), maybe round up, leaving $14.50 (a 16% tip). Remember, however, that virtually all servers -- for whatever reason -- calculate their tips based on the final total. All of a sudden, that respectably standard 16% is 14.8%. The same situation can also work in the server's favor. Most diners will leave $20 on $100. Generally considered a 20% tip, it's more like 22% of the food cost.

As far as the I.R.S is concerned, restaurants calculate tips as a percentage of food and drink sales. Bottom line. Regardless, tipping before tax is a bit nickel-and-dime. If the average tax one pays on a meal for two is somewhere between three and six dollars, this diner is looking at leaving an additional dollar or so. Cough it up, cheapskate!

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Part III: Tipping Under the Influence (of Others), or "Is my date cheap, or am I just a big spender?"

The tip is more than a couple of percentage points. A variety of factors -- economic, social, and personal -- figure into a gratuity. Aside from its ostensible role as a supplement to low wages, it seems to play a larger role as a cultural signifier. The tip can say as much about the diner (re: individual) as it does the server (re: society). Gratuities -- especially in a city like New York where the opportunity and obligation to tip pops up frequently -- speak to our desire and need to keep-up-with-the-Joneses.

This mentality creates an environment where tipping habits have become as indicative as style of dress. If you pay attention -- and trust me when I tell you that I'm opening for you Pandora's Box -- you can tell a lot about people by how, when, and why they tip. But before we leave the restaurant, grab our coats, salute the captain, hail a cab, and greet our doorman, tipping all the while, let's try to keep this discussion in the dining room.

Next time you dine with friends, observe how long they consider and calculate the bill, how free they are with their gratuities, and whether they tip 10%, exactly 15%, or go over 20%. There is meaning embedded in every percentage point that reveals a person's relationship with money and, whether or not the system warrants it, relative generosity. What is more, your reaction to your friends' tipping habits can speak as much to your own relationship to money as it does to your relationship to your friends.

Even more interesting is the role the tip plays on a date. I have heard countless horror stories about dinners gone wrong come tip time. In fact, just like a magical parabola where a value continues to an apex and then dramatically switches directions, the progress of a nascent relationship can hinge on the customs of paying the bill and, more specifically, on the tip buried deep within. Just as we are attracted to certain types, we can be attracted to certain types of tippers.

[A friend once told me about a blind date who lined a number of dollar bills on the edge of their table and removed them one-by-one with each "infraction" the server inflicted on their dining experience. What a fucker. I can guarantee his "fuckerism" extended well beyond that ridiculous and feeble power play. This friend, by the way, ended up marrying a very different -- generous and polite -- young man.]

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Part IV: The Psychology of Tipping, or "What makes you tip?"

What I have referred to pejoratively as "nickel-and-dime" points to the larger issue of one's tip psychology. Nothing in my years of service experience has proven so elusive as predicting the tip I might earn, or receive, as it were. I learned early that crouching at a table to engage diners in smiley chitchat does very little to affect my overall tip average. If it did knock that percentage up a point or two, I still wouldn't engage in the crouch-and-chat because it makes me feel like a bullshitter. And for my own well being, I try very hard to avoid a handful of choice topics -- namely, where I graduated from college (or that I graduated) and "what I do."

Don't get me wrong; revealing personal information can work in the server's favor. I just tend to try to keep my cards a little closer. In New York, for example, the chances are high that a struggling actor might serve a one-time-struggling-actor-cum-successful-actor. This complicity might net the server a huge tip, or, even more useful, a business contact. On the whole, however, I find these subjects -- one's hopes and dreams -- amplify the awkwardness for all parties involved. Nearly every time a customer wants to know what I do, nothing comes of it. (Though in the long moment between my revelation and their response, you better believe that I have already imagined them whisking me away from the restaurant to launch my career. And when it inevitably doesn't happen, I skulk back to the wait station thinking, "Why does it only work in the movies?" For a hopeful playwright, this adds insult to injury.)

In the current restaurant atmosphere, dominated by casual dining and casual service, servers alternatively do a job and facilitate an experience. This is to say that a server and his/her profusion or lack of personality can figure as prominently into a customer's experience as the food itself. This is true in few other fields. Imagine discussing a doctor's golf handicap or a teacher's boyfriend troubles. Nevertheless, this information can find its way into a night at the restaurant. And as far as I'm concerned, it only distracts me from my purpose: to serve you.

What does this have to do with tipping? Servers and restaurants have changed. The fact is, there are more restaurants than ever and more service jobs to be had. Americans dine out more regularly, and our attitude towards dining has grown as casual as the restaurants themselves. Following this trend, there seems to be a greater fluidity across gender and class lines in the service industry. The stop-gap server -- that employee on his/her way to another career -- has usurped the tradition of the career server -- with men working at institutions like Trader Vic's or Peter Luger's and women working at diners.

That college graduates line up (résumés in hand!) for restaurant jobs seems to be a relatively new development. No other job in this country better represents the stopgap. The service industry is almost entirely comprised of wayfarers, or wagefarers. In this dining atmosphere, the tip is a form of small-scale, covert patronage. Frankly, I am more confused about the tip than ever.

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Part V: Tipper Types, or "Is that a wad of Hamiltons or are you just happy to see me?"

Servers are often forced to rely on variables they simply cannot control, despite the competence of their service. Frankly, any time I step up to a table, it's as if I've stepped into a game of craps. The tip I receive, and the work I have to do to get it, is entirely determined by the diners who happen to sit in my section. I have broken down these diners into six basic categories of tippers.

• The Empathetic Tipper -- Briefly addressed above, the Empathetic Tipper increases his/her tip out of a sense of guilt and obligation. Perhaps, like me, they are or were a server. Perhaps, like my mother, their child is a server. Or perhaps they just feel bad for participating in that whole "toxic vestige of Old World patronage" thing.
• The Flat Tipper -- At the risk of dating myself (and this piece), I call the Flat Tipper the Steve Forbes of the gratuity. The Flat Tipper tips a fixed percentage regardless of service, usually exactly 15% or exactly double the sales tax.
• The Skinner Tipper -- This diner adjusts his/her tip down based on perceived lapses in service, or, on rare occasions, up if service exceeds expectations. Though B.F. Skinner found that positive reinforcement is more effective than punishment, the Skinner Tipper tends to err on the punitive side of the spectrum.
• The Over Tipper -- The Over Tipper, though ultimately benefiting the server, tips at almost embarrassing levels. Overcompensation or garish display of wealth? Regardless, most servers will laugh all the way to the bodega, buy an $8 pack of cigarettes, and then light them with all of that paper money.
• The Toady Tipper -- The most psychologically complicated of tippers, the Toady tips out of a need for some kind of acceptance. While a good tip does tend to ingratiate you to your server, it doesn't necessarily mean your server wants to be your friend or, worse, your lover. This kind of tipping comes closest to shattering the delicate "server/served" balance, verging on a "whore/john" relationship. (That seems a bit harsh to all parties involved, doesn't it? Let's just say "escort/client.")
• The Verbal Tipper -- The worst of all tippers. This diner lavishes praise, as they fold their wallet or button their pocket book. If they truly enjoyed their meal, why did they leave 10%? Thanks for the encouragement, Verbal Tipper, but I'll call my mom when I need a boost.

The one type I left out is the foreigner. There's just no accounting for what they might do. Much has been written about the various tip customs across the world, thanks to the booming guidebook industry. Why then do Europeans and, worse, Canadians, flagrantly ignore American custom? Honestly, I have served the same British dirtbag multiple times, and he always tips me 10%. I'm less upset about the tip than I am about the fact that, given he now clearly lives in the States, he still flouts the customs of his adopted country. Like it or not, it is custom to tip one's server, and it is inconsiderate to ignore that. Cough it up, EU!

Given these distinctions -- and, believe me, servers do make them -- I find that there is virtually no way to affect your tip average. People, on a whole, tip what they tip and almost always fit one of the aforementioned labels. So much for the notion of tips improving service . . .

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Part VI: Who Gets the Tip, or "If our server just made $60 cash from each of five tables in one hour, why did I go to law school?"

The idea of giving one person $20 to bring you a couple glasses of wine, two entrees, and a dessert might seem preposterous. And it would be, if that were how gratuities worked. The fact is that tips are often divided up to the point that a server generally receives roughly 50% of the tips he makes (as if he received 10% all night).

Everyone working behind the scenes to bring you that duck confit or double espresso must be paid somehow. Generally, bussers and bartenders (sometimes even the kitchen staff) receive a portion of the tips taken in by the server. At many restaurants across the country, servers are required to "tip out" support staff (i.e. bussers, bartenders, and hosts), with managers setting the rates. For example, a server might pay out 1% of net sales to bussers and hosts or a percentage of liquor sales to bartenders.

That said, most restaurants in New York use the point system (familiar to fans of The Sopranos, or, ummm, actual mobsters). I'll break it down for you:

• All of the tip money is pooled together. Each worker earns a specific number of points. Say, for example, each server earns ten points. Each busser, bartender, and food runner then earns five points. If all of the servers brought in a total of $2000 in tips, and there were six servers, four bussers, two food runners, and two bartenders on that night, then . . .
• Six Servers x 10 points (60) + four Bussers x five points (20) + two Food Runners x five points (10) + two Bartenders x five points (10) = 100 total points
• $2000 divided by 100 points = $20 per point
• Therefore, servers earn $200 and everyone else earns $100 for this night of service.
• Given that each server brought in an average of $333, your servers would have earned 60% of the tips that diners assumed they were giving them. And that fantastic tip you gave your magnanimous and efficient server? It went straight into the shared pot to benefit everyone else. Oh, and that slacker you stiffed? Amortized over the whole staff, that bad tip means less to the slacker than your business.

Essentially, the tip pool is a system of profit sharing. A server can be the Yankees of the league one night and the Devil Rays the next. Fair or not, the tip pool definitely levels the field and helps guarantee consistent tip averages.

As a server, I am still unconvinced as to the fairness of the tip pool. At my restaurant, where entrees are in the $18-30 range, $200 is a good night and $150 is typical. Based on these figures, bussers earn an average of $75 a night. If the typical shift is 4:00 pm to midnight, these bussers earn about $9 an hour. On a slow night, that number fluctuates to as low as $5 an hour. That's why most bussers are immigrants or teenagers. No college-educated, middle-class actor hopeful would work for such a low wage.

Also keep in mind that most front-of-house employees (a category that includes everyone but kitchen staff) receive a criminally low hourly rate on the expectation that it will be augmented by tip income. Pre-taxed cash tips. Yes, though they work for a restaurant, servers are essentially independent contractors, individually responsible for covering the taxes assessed on their tip income come the April 15th deadline. Though some wisely set aside money throughout the year, many of my coworkers had to "scrounge" up thousands of dollars to pay income taxes. Anyone who has received this springtime sticker shock can appreciate the downside of waiting tables and not receiving a yearly salary.

Stay in law school. Waiting tables is not the get-rich-quick scheme it might seem.

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Part VII: Service Complet, or "Can't we just make restaurateurs pay their own staff?"

Thomas Keller, executive chef/owner of Napa's French Laundry and New York's Per Se, recently made his restaurants tip-free zones, igniting a debate about the reliance of American restaurants on "paying" their employees in tips. After much meditation on the matter, speaking as a person who relies on tips to pay his rent, I am coming out firmly on the side of the abolitionists. Tips are essentially government-approved subsidies meant to benefit business owners at the expense of their employees.

As is the case with almost every other product one buys in America, the solution is to include wages in the cost of the product -- the food. Employee wages are part of the overhead of running a business, but restaurateurs are allowed to skirt the issue. Imagine buying a television set at the electronics store and paying an additional $20 to cover the salesman's wages. Or worse, see how tip cups have started popping up at fast-food joints. Tips are hidden costs -- in a sense, a sin, er, use tax.

Just to reiterate, I am not a trained economist or some kind of Ché Guevara in an apron. That tips are vestiges of Old World patronage nevertheless seems accurate to me. It is as if food servers must rely on a Reagan-esque system of trickle-down charity (i.e. tips) without the help of a strong Federal government (i.e. consistent wages and benefits). While some of the upper classes (the diners, to extend this metaphor) see this giving of charity as an obligation, others feel coerced and consequently resent it. And, frankly, diners are right to feel this way. Tips are gratuities -- all but required, yet still a gift nonetheless.

In the end, restaurant owners always win. If food is sold, they make money regardless of how much their servers take home. (Though, in all honesty, most restaurants make very little money relative to other retail stores. But that's another question to Ask The Waiter.) The problem with this payment structure arises when it negatively affects the relationship between the restaurant owners and their employees. Though servers represent the public face of the restaurant, they are nonetheless expendable because they essentially are independent contractors. Owners necessarily have very little invested in their employees -- in every sense of the word "invested."

(That does not mean that all owners are bad. I work for particularly nice people. Though they don't provide me with health insurance, 401(k) options, or paid vacations . . . or a guarantee of payment . . . Hmm . . .)

Tips also breed resentment among employees. Kitchen staff is usually paid hourly and, consequently, less than what amounts to a server's hourly pay. I frequently hear back-of-house employees grumble about how much servers make. Thomas Keller included service charges at his restaurants in an attempt to close this wage gap and ostensibly erase the de facto class structure of the restaurant. As a server, I will be the first to say that the pay scale seems inequitable.

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Part VIII: A Brave New World, or "But what will my burger cost?"

Fine, tips are bad. So, let's say that tomorrow they are abolished and salaries are included in the cost of the food. What would that mean for the restaurant industry as we know it? Once all the stalwart creatures of habit get over the assault on tradition, I say, very little would change. We'll start with the math:

• In the scenario from Part III, six servers brought in $2000 to pay out all of the front-of-house staff. If the average tip was 18%, total net sales were around $11,000. Including wages in the price of the food, raising net sales to $13,000 will, logically, increase prices by 18%. That $8.00 salad will now read $9.50 on the menu, that $24.00 steak is now $28.50, and that $2.00 cup of coffee you're drinking with dessert is now $2.50 (rounded up, of course).

This math is really crude. I doubt that it's that simple. There are ways to massage these numbers so that cheaper items that sell in greater volume are increased relatively higher than big-ticket items that sell less frequently.

Who might benefit from this arrangement?

• The Government -- A higher cost of food increases the net sales and consequently the proportion of sales taxes that everyone has to pay.
• The Consumer -- Including service costs increases transparency. The diner will literally get what they pay for -- food and service. Without having to arbitrarily tack on some variable "use tax" to their bill, diners will know what things cost from the outset and choose to pay for it or not.
• The Employee -- The role of the server will be clear. Currently, waiters are somewhere between servants and go-fers. With service costs incorporated into food costs, servers can focus on doing their jobs more simply and efficiently. Furthermore, as is the case at Keller's restaurants, a more egalitarian payment structure can only benefit employee morale.

Of course, there will be losers in this transaction. Employers will have to shoulder a greater burden of wages. They will also no longer be able to stick their employees with covering the portion of credit card fees that are applied to tips. (Oh, yes, this happens. When MasterCard charges a restaurant 2% of the total credit card sales for the convenience of taking credit cards, employers can pass down 2% of the tips to the employees. Talk about nickel-and-dime.)

Tips exist so that employers can cut corners and save money. As servers are essentially independent contractors, we are not entitled to employer-provided healthcare or any of the other benefits to which employees are entitled or have come to expect. I don't know that servers will necessarily get these benefits, but they will certainly, like their customers, benefit from the transparency. I have heard of sketchy restaurant owners using tip money as petty cash, deferring paying back their staff for weeks.

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Part IX: Service After Tips, or "Will the coffee still be refilled?"

Now, you might still be thinking, "Aren't tips an incentive to give better service?" As I stated in Part II, just about every server knows that people tip what they tip regardless of service. Really bad service will be reflected, yes, but really good service generally goes unrecognized. The simple fact is that a server will work hard or not based on his or her individual work ethic. And customers need to remember that lazy servers affect more than just their own meal; they gum up the entire works and piss off their coworkers. These jerks don't last long on the job.

In the heat of a busy Friday night, I work hard and try to give good service because it's my job, not because I'm trying to squeeze an additional dollar or two from a customer. That roll of the dice that is my tip dangles ominously over every table in section. To some (like the Empathetic Tipper), it is a non-issue. Other tables believe that dangling tip gives them license to run their server ragged. To be honest, this unseen pressure never benefits your service. The calmer I am, the more efficient, and the better my service.

The less nonsense I have to put up with from customers, the easier it will be to earn what is, in the end, going to be a consistent "salary" based on the tip pool. And the tip pool is a sort of prisoner's dilemma: When a great tip benefits others more than it does me, why would I go out of my way just to dazzle you for that 25%?

With or without tips, slackers will still slack and workers will still work. That's the way of the world. Essentially the issue comes down to transparency and fair business practices that benefit everyone -- server, diner, and restaurateur. The entire system will be much, much more civilized. Have you ever seen a kid snap his fingers at the record-store clerk?

The problem with the included service charge is not mucking with tradition or, in some interpretations, that it forces customers to tip; rather, the included service charge suffers from bad publicity. Thomas Keller has spun it all wrong. When you look at your check and see "service included," it can appear presumptuous. When an employee's salary is considered part of a restaurant's overhead, it no longer is a service charge. A server's wage -- along with rent, electricity bills, and maintenance fees -- is just the cost of doing business. Just as one wouldn't list the customer's share of space rental, the "service charge" doesn't even need to appear on a diner's check.

By now, I hope that you haven't cued the string music. For all of the nonsense that I put up with, my job is easy and fun. I really do love food, and -- when I'm not driven mad by another table -- I really do enjoy facilitating your dining experience. And I get paid a lot relative to what I go through on the job. I certainly don't have to crack open someone's chest or descend into a coal mine. I only wish that this system would be more equitable to all parties involved -- small and large, front-of-house and back-of-house.

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Addendum: Reader Questions

Should a party exclude the price of an expensive bottle of wine from the bill when calculating the tip? -- Tippy Lush

Your question, Tippy Lush, hits the knife on the neck (of the champagne bottle). The fact that gratuities are calculated as a percentage of food cost doesn't necessarily reflect how much work went into earning in. When a table buys a $110 bottle of Pommard, say, the server typically gets $20 just for opening it. Is the effort worth $15 more than opening up a $30 bottle of wine? Assuming the cheaper bottle is not some screw top from New Zealand, probably not.

The dirty truth is, the bottom line of a party's check does not always reflect the effort required in serving them. Sometimes this works in a server's favor, often it does not. Honestly, situations where the check average is lower -- say brunch -- often require more work. (Have you ever tried to keep up with the liquid needs of a hangover that wasn't your own?)

To answer your question Socratically, let me ask you a question: Isn't this scenario evidence as to why servers should be salaried? To answer your question practically: most servers understand if the tip percentage is a tad lower when a table has ordered an expensive bottle of wine. With that said, if you have enough discretionary income to buy a $110 bottle of wine, what's the difference between a couple of percentage points for your server?

Simply, kick down.
--Monkey Boy (1/4/07)

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"Ask A Waiter" is a regular feature in which we ask our contributor Michael Sendrow, a practicing waiter and self-described monkey boy, to demystify the mysteries of food service. If you have a question for the waiter, email us at info -at- bridgeandtunnelclub.com