Please settle this for me.

I’m from South Africa where I know that service staff rely primarily on tips because the basic wage is terrible. If you get decent service in SA you should tip. Bar staff will actually refuse to serve you again if you dont tip.
If you work in a good restaurant or pub and you are good then you can earn an okay wage.

I’ve been in the UK for 19 yrs and I’m still not sure what to do. Majority (if not all) of my friends (incl wife) dont believe that tips are necessary here at all. In fact it can be a bit akward because when we go out with friends and split the bill I often want to leave a tip and they don’t- so then they feel obliged if I do (although I don’t mind if they do or dont).

What’s the score?
How often do you tip (when the service is good)?

In the UK, depends – if it was really good then a good tip. Most of the time a bit of rounding of the bill.

Pretty much always leave 10%, unless service was notably bad.

I don’t really like the principle of tipping by default, but I thought it was just the done thing.

At least 50% of places around London will add a service charge on to the bill these days though.

I just give them a big hug.

Ah this thread wasn’t what I was expecting.

Pretty much always leave 10%, unless service was notably bad

this is my default position also

Theres two issues really – one is we don’t really have the tradition of tipping that other countries do so neither customers or venues have an real expectations about tips.

It used to be a bit different- when my GF worked in posh restraraunts in London back in the day she didn’t get paid at all by the restaurant the waiting staff’s only income was tips. In that situation though the waiting staff really were your host for the evening and part of your enjoyment of the meal.

The other issue though is more and more though it seems to me theres less and less ‘service’ in a meal out in the UK as everything becomes more and more formulaic – if all thats happened is you’ve been brought the laminated menu of meals that are the same all year round, had the food carried to your table and get the obligatory ‘is everything OK?’ query when you’ve got your mouth full then what are you supposed to be rewarding with a tip? For all that the meal might actually be lovely but service hasn’t really played a part in it.

I tip if the service good and the food, I always have.

I seem to eat in very different places to maccruiiskeen not sure where you go but they sound dire.

Generally eat out in local places that we know are good for both good and service, so habitually tip 10-15%.

Pretty much always leave 10%, unless service was notably bad

this is my default position also[/quote]

+1

I agree with Drac. 10% ish as a rough rule of thumb, bit more if particularly good or we’ve made a bit of extra work (like splitting an adult meal for the children because the kids’ menu isn’t very good).

As above – 10%-ish.

What boils my piss a bit is the way that the tip is sometimes included in your bill but obscured (e.g. “opt svc ch”) so that the unobservant, or tourists, will not realise, and leave some more.

You’ve been here 19years and are still confused ?

I never pay a tip / service added to the bill using card – too often this is simply taken by restaurants as revenue and not passed onto staff. If friendly I will always put cash in hand of the person that served me on the way out.

Google for articles re tips / revenue at Bills, Cote, Le Gavroche for an insight into what really happens in the U.K. Very different to the US or SA.

Strange one here. After being over the Canada where tipping is just the done thing, the service over here always seems so impersonal, and not really worth a tip. If a server is really great, I’ll tip, but we have reasonable minimum wage here (compared to the states) and it’s not such a “I survive on tips” situation. Servers often don’t seem to try/care. Having previously worked as service staff, I was never too bothered about tips, they’re nice, but I took the job expecting the wage, anything else was a bonus.

It winds me up when service is included in the bill though. Mrs A and me were desperate and hangry after climbing late one night so any-port-in-a-stormed into a Girraffe on a retail park. We had a burger each, were in there for about 25 minutes total, saw the server 3 times, order, food, bill. I noticed service was included in the bill and when I asked for it to be removed, the poor girl had to go find a manager and faff about for ages. My problem is, when it’s included in the bill, that you can never be sure if the money is, in fact, going to the service staff or not. I felt bad for all the messing about she had to do so handed her personally a tip after.

Who gets the tips?

Not been back to Bills since I read about the tip situation.

I always leave a tip.

3.10 @ Kempton Park – Dusty Carpet (never been beaten).

Or 4.20 @ Lingfield – Dripping Tap (keeps on running).

I had a friend who was a bookmaker, always carried a few charity lottery cards in his pocket for tipping – brilliant solution to the problem.

We always tip unless the service has been mediocre to poor and I explain this to the waiting staff: “I would normally leave a decent tip but your service tonight hasn’t been great.”

If they don’t like it, I don’t give a shit. They’re in the service industry – even if it’s only a summer job.

I generally tip in cash (though rarely cary cash these days, so always ask to make sure the tip will go to the staff).

Waiting on tables isn’t the worst job in the world, but you’re hardly likely to be living the high life (though someone who works in a pub near me is doing it to top up her pitifully low trainee solicitor’s salary*).

I have an approx range of 10-15% in my mind, though have paid more. And sometimes nothing.

As is noted above, service standards in this country are pretty poor.

*Used to be a statutory minimum wage of c16k outside London and c18k inside. Now it’s a recommendation, with the only legal requirement being the statutory minimum wage. Arguably waiting on tables is more remunerative….

Almost never. I expect service to be faultless anyway. Every service should be that so its not above and beyond the norm. Why accept anything else? Tipping is a reward for something special or uncalled for. I won’t tip unless its going into the hand of the person I appreciate.
I find the idea that we should do it to supllement wages irrelevant.

I tip if they service was very good, average I’ll just round up if there was a problem, then nothing.

Always tip at restaurants unless reason not to. As do all.my friends. Never tip in pubs, would tip in cafe it pay at table but not if pay at till.

Thought this had been done before?
(Difference between a service charge and a tip, I mean). Service charge is included in the bill and goes to the restaurant who may or may not share it to all staff. Tip goes to the waiter who may or may not share it with the rest of the staff.
I pretty much always tip as I’m a wimp. Usually in cash, unless I’m on expenses 😉

I’ll usually leave a couple of quid or something in a café. I rarely eat in posh restaurants unless it’s someone’s birthday or some such. Formal meals aren’t much fun for me TBH.

The whole notion of adding x% “service charge” onto a bill is just scalping IMHO, it’s a way of bleeding free money out of you / making their prices appear artificially low. If the price of the food doesn’t cover the cost of someone walking from the kitchen to your table with it, then increase the price so that it does. Sneaking it on at the end of the meal is just dishonest, doubly so given that there’s a chance that folk will feel compelled to tip as well anyway. And as a percentage too, what’s that all about? Do they deserve more of a tip to carry a plate with a premium steak on it than they do to do exactly the same thing with a bowl of onion rings?

Price your food properly and pay your staff properly, then we can choose to tip for exceptional service and not be made to feel guilty if we don’t.

Instead of tipping I give the waiter some wise words of advice, generic but helpful advice, the kind that will hopefully help him/her in furthering a more adventurous future than serving food to tossers like me 😉

We always tip unless the service has been mediocre to poor and I explain this to the waiting staff: “I would normally leave a decent tip but your service tonight hasn’t been great.”

If they don’t like it, I don’t give a shit. They’re in the service industry – even if it’s only a summer job.

🙄

Your friends and wife are miserable B@5*** 😆
HTH
Tip nearly all the time except when particularly poor meal/service.

I always tip – 5 – 15% depending on the service ( less obviously if service charge included) and always in cash on the table so the servers get it – never add your tip to the card amount – it can disappear to the boss without the servers getting it.

I think JC should have promised to abolish tipping in his manifesto, might have just put Labour across the line.

I almost always tip (unless it’s already on the bill).

Your friends and wife are miserable B@5***

+1

Embarrassing when you go for a meal with tightwads who don’t want to tip.

Embarrassing when you go for a meal with tightwads who don’t want to tip.

This. Fair enough if service/food was shite, but generally, tight bastards….

10% normally, often rounded up a bit. Some people I eat with won’t tip at all even in USA (father in law!) but most seem close to me IME.

Usually nothing.

I used to, agonised over it, oh you meant to do this or that – it’s an Americanism.

TBH 90% of the places we go to now add ‘service’ to the bill, tucked away at the bottom of the menu in small print 20% is added to the cost of everything for service, most of them also say it’s passed to the staff in addition to their salary etc. They’ll take it off if you ask but I never have.

I first noticed when we went out with this miserly couple who pulled out the “oh we only had the soup and the chicken” and paid a 3rd of the bill and I wondered why ours was so much more when we had about the same thing.

Always unless the service is actually poor. Even indifferent or average service would still get an average tip, it has to be actually poor for me to not tip.

Normally 10%, sometimes a bit more sometimes a bit less depending on the cost of the actual meal and the simplest number to round to.

Always, unless the service is bad, which is actually pretty rare. I don’t think about “above average”, just good or bad- the average is good but I don’t want to penalise people for doing a good job, just because other people do too.

Waited on tables for six years of my life and I appreciated being tipped.

However, I tend to leave them food vouchers so they can’t spend it on drugs.

GlennQuagmire

Restaurants, 10-25% depending on the place, the service, and the degree of irritation or annoyance my table has offered in terms of special requests. 10% if it’s London and they already added it on to the bill. That 10% annoys me as these ‘auto-tips’ are often creamed-off by the restaurant to form part of the sub-survival wages of the staff. I’d recommend folks working in restaurants like these to move on to a fairer employer as soon as they can.

Bars – very rarely, unless they’ve done some special order for us.

Proper coffee shops – the change that rounds up to the nearest £ or £1-£2 depending on the quality of their work.

Visiting the USA was really confusing when it came to tipping.

Special requests is the only opportunity to earn a tip in my view. If its just ‘standard’ service then no tip – that is the minimum i’d expect. The best tip you can give is repeat business. A job is the best thing people can have so repeat business keeps people coming back and increases the chances of the restaurant remaining a viable business and staying open employing people.

Not sure why the restaurant business earns special treatment for tipping. I don’t see people tipping other shop attendants even though they provide far more assistance and knowledgable service by and large. In fact under normal circumstances we take the service on offer, albeit good or bad, then ask for/demand a discount. Has anyone tipped a car salesman? someone working at a shop selling TV’s when they’ve assisted in choosing a nice TV? an attendant in a shoe shop that may have made multiple trips to the store room to find a size or shoe to fit your abnormal feet (if you have abnormal feet)?

Always tip in restaurants, 10-20% range.