Good old "tipping" question again

[khonsu]

I was asked recently about tipping in Orlando recently.

I'm interested to know other people's experience based upon my own.

The minimum wage in Florida is $8.56 - but employers can actually apply for tip credit which means the minimum wage can be as low as $5.54. They then use tips to top up the difference and only if it is below $8.56 do they need to pay that back to the employee.

Make sense? Apparently it does in America.

You should reckon on 15-20% tipping by my own experience. Up to you of course! Remember - you're tipping the quality of service, not food. Your waiting staff can't help that!


This statement is in many guides "If you can't afford to tip - you can't afford to go to America."

[sprocket]

and remember if your unhappy with the service, dont not tip. The service staff will just think your rude. If you are unhappy you should leave a very small tip, this shows you understand about tipping but you were unhappy.

I learnt this many years ago when I left a tip like I would in the UK and the waiter actually asked me what did they do wrong.

[dx4100]

I tip 15% - specially at Disney where the cost of the meals is massive.

I might tip 18% (if the service was good) outside of Disney where the cost of the meals is more reasonable.

They reality is the two serving staff work no harder at the Disney restaurant and being a server for Disney is way better than 99% waitress / waiter gigs.

If I don't like how a meal has gone I would call over the manager and explain why I was only leaving 10%.

I think not tipping at all doesn't represent the realties of modern America - I mean the server would have had to taken a poop on the table for that to be okay.

[Shooby doo]

Khonsu another interesting "thing" is that Restaurants do not have to give the server anything, tip wise, for those "Party of+6" tables as they aren't classed as discretionary! It will be interesting to see how this "Minimum wage thing" turns out as the "tip credit" was being removed, this led to some servers going to be worse off!
TBh I'm not sure how they decide the tip %,when we first started going it was 10% so not sure how they then equate to 20% (& we've seen amounts for 25% & 30% on some receipts!)as even at 10% they are getting more than when we first went IYKWIM. Interestingly I saw an economist discussing minimum wage & the proposed $15 would but the US approx $3 higher than the current highest & obviously way higher than the MW in UK!
SD

[sprocket]

In restaurants that offer a free refill, I often base my tip on how good they are at refilling. You have paid a premium for a refill so if you sit there for ages waiting, then the tip clock starts.

[Shooby doo]

Sprocket do you think that they have gotten "worse" at this? I remember when you basically had to fight them to stop!
SD

[Guest]

Originally Posted by khonsu

I was asked recently about tipping in Orlando recently.

I'm interested to know other people's experience based upon my own.

The minimum wage in Florida is $8.56 - but employers can actually apply for tip credit which means the minimum wage can be as low as $5.54. They then use tips to top up the difference and only if it is below $8.56 do they need to pay that back to the employee.

Make sense? Apparently it does in America.

You should reckon on 15-20% tipping by my own experience. Up to you of course! Remember - you're tipping the quality of service, not food. Your waiting staff can't help that!


This statement is in many guides "If you can't afford to tip - you can't afford to go to America."

See more...

I tip based on the pre-tax amount. So i'll leave 15% on that. I do that based on dining out with my american colleagues over the last 4 years and that's what they mostly do as standard. anything above 15% is only for outstanding service.

[josephus_fl]

Many employees in a tipped position are paid server wage which is around $3 an hour less than minimum wage. These people will seldom trigger any wage top up if they aren’t tipped as it’s worked out on the average hourly wage at the end of their shift.

If they work a 5 hour shift they would only need to make $15 in tips to put them at minimum wage and thus be excluded for the wage top up.


If you engage the services of someone in a tipped position who is earning $5 an hour then you really should tip appropriately. The whole not tipping if service is bad doesn’t really fly. Depending on the position, servers often have to split their tips with other $5 workers working behind the scenes who’ll be getting a fixed percentage based upon how much money the guest spent.

You should always tip at least 15%. If you didn’t like the service then don’t return and if it’s really bad speak to a manager. But you still tip the 15%.

It’s also key to remember that most waiting staff in Florida get 0 days vacation and 0 days paid sick. There is also no maternity pay. A friend of mine who is pregnant plans on returning to work 2 weeks after the birth of her child because she simply can’t afford to take any more time off work unpaid.

Don’t be the person that doesn’t tip and stops the person waiting on your table from feeding their family or from paying essential bills.

[Moorlandman]

Originally Posted by josephus_fl

Don’t be the person that doesn’t tip and stops the person waiting on your table from feeding their family or from paying essential bills.

See more...

No one is going to fall for that sob story.

Waiters/waitresses at Disney and Universal are widely earning $80,000 plus in their top performing restaurants.

Might be different at Wendy’s

[Mazbar]

Im happy to pay anything up to 20% tip while there is the pay structure in America. This will change though if they bring in the $15 minimum wage with no exceptions then I will tip a few $ but I expect the prices to go up to pay the wage.