If you're just a regular customer (not a mystery shopper), and you place a carry-out order over the phone, do you tip?

And if you do tip, how much?

(This pertains to a shop I recently did)

This question has two answers for me.

If it's a carry out order where your interactions are with employees that are making minimum wage such as fast food, Starbucks, Pizza or it's a small business and you know the business owners are packing up the order (local chinese resturarnt), then I'd not tip. If your going into a casual dining or better place and your order is being boxed up by the waitstaff causing them to be pulled away from seated tables at the same time, then your being served by people that are paid as little as $3-$4 an hour. In this case you should tip at least 12% as it's about as much work and they also have to do side work like make salads and pack up all the food and condiments and should not get stiffed.

I have dated a waitress who would be rotated into the "take out order" section of a caual diner and they were shorted a full table on the floor to give them the time to handle the to go orders. I always heard about it when she got off work. Much more work and she was always short on tips for having that section.
The prices of a diner are set at the point that your expected to tip the waitstaff.

Then you have the cheap buffet waitstaff. They are bringing you refills, napkins and clearing your dishes. They are without a doubt getting paid $3.20 or whatever your states min. allowance is for paid waitstaff.
They often don't get a tip at all and barely make minimum wage. If they report that thier tips fell under minimum wage and they request additional pay to get to minimum wage from the establishment, they will be replaced. I feel sorry for them and will tip 15-20% if they keep on top of my drinks and clear plates quickly. Those are usually some desperate workers if they take a job at the cheap buffet.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2014 11:27AM by scanman1.

I never have got the hang of the tipping custom in this country. I never know when to tip and when not to tip. My biggest one is when I go through Starbucks drive-thru. Do I tip them or not? What about when the landscaping employees come to my house and clean up the property? Do I tip them?

Scanman, thanks for your post. I had never looked at it that way, but what you said make sense. I will look at things differently next time.

Let me explain the situation a little more....

I did a shop where I was to call a casual chain restaurant and place an order for carry-out. This restaurant is a casual, sit-down restaurant that also does a decent carry-out business; in fact, they have "carry-out only" parking spaces, a carry-out side door and a special carry-out counter.

Anyway, I placed my order over the phone and picked the order up. I paid and didn't even think to leave a tip. It was not a server who put the order together. It was the carry-out cashier. I watched her place the box of food into a bag and then hand it to me.

The msc reprimanded me, stating that I should have left a 15-20% tip and that by not doing so I am "standing out" from a regular customer. Here is my train of thought:

1. The cashier was not a server. She was making at least minimum wage.

2. All she did was put the box of food into a bag and collect payment. Why should I tip her? Should I also be tipping the cook who cooked it and then put it in a box?

3. Carry-out does not require the level of service that an eat-in visit would have. No one needs to give me drink refills, remove dishes, bus the table, etc.

I am also of the school of thought where I don't put money in the Starbucks tip jar. Perhaps I'm just a cheap person. I've worked enough menial jobs when I was in school and I never expected a tip (I was a cashier at these places).

(P.S. When dining in, I always tip 15-20%, and sometimes more, depending on the service I receive. If the service is really good I also will write a note on the receipt telling them.)

I've worked as a server at a casual, sit down restaurant like you are describing. The to-go person may or may not have gotten paid minimum wage. My place rotated the servers through that section and since we were expected to get tips, we still got the same wage (we did not have tables on top of that, our job that night was the carry out counter). Getting that section on a Friday or Saturday night really hurt my earnings. Most people did tip, but definitely not 15-20%, and I wouldn't expect it. But if you don't tip at all at that sort of restaurant, then yea, you would stand out and be memorable. Servers remember people who don't tip, lol. To answer the question of tipping cooks, some people did.. but generally they aren't tipped because they get paid a lot more than servers (over minimum wage, for sure).

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2014 03:06PM by Bellusion.

I just asked 3 people who regularly order from this particular restaurant, and none of them tip.
I hardly think I would stand out!

When I get a delivery order, I always tip, but not usually when I have to pick the order up.

I appreciate what scanman posted, and will give more thought to my tipping decisions. But I want to say something in regards to pickup orders versus eat in because it's not all cut and dried. (BTW, state by state information here: [www.dol.gov])

For one thing, all employees have to receive minimum wage. "Tipped employees" are defined by whether they actually get tips, not by whether the employer thinks they should. If we tip employees at counters, we may force them into a tipped category. When I worked fast food in high school I received exactly 2 tips in 3 1/2 years -- one for 25 cents and one for 50 cents at a time when the minimum wage was about $1.75. My employer paid me the minimum wage, not the customers. Now those jars are everywhere, primarily saving the restaurant money, not helping the employees.

===By putting out those tip jars on counters, the business is trying to get out of having to pay minimum wage out of its pocket, or is trying to have the customers subsidize it. The tip, in these cases, may be benefiting the restaurant, not the counter help. The counter help has to get at least minimum wage, even if the tips don't cover that much.===

So let's say I'm eating in. I'm ordering $20 worth of food and a couple of drinks, call it a $25 tab total. My guest and I are sitting there, taking up that table from the moment we arrive to the moment we leave. While we are at that table, there is one check that table has that might yield a tip, and it's a $25 check. So I tip 20% and the waitperson gets $5 for the hour we tied up that table. Let's say they have four tables (I have no idea what is a normal number of tables for a server). If they all order similarly to me and tip properly, that server makes $20 an hour in tips. And that's in addition to the $3 an hour or whatever they get from the restaurant. In lower priced restaurants, she probably has more tables; higher priced restaurants she probably has fewer but the tabs are higher.

Now let's take the situation of a takeout order. I order the same $20 worth of food, maybe I don't order drinks because I have sodas at home already. I interact with the unfortunate counter person for two minutes, and maybe they spent five minutes getting my to-go salad, filling a cup with dressing, stuffing in napkins and plastic forks, etc. Maybe it's ten minutes total to get that $20 order ready to go, take my payment, and wish me a good day.

Why would I tip her the same 20% I would if she waited on my table? In ten minutes, not an hour, she'll have another customer picking up food. Tipping even 5% would be very generous. I'm picking up food. I am going to be serving it to my guests, getting the drinks, napkins, and silverware, and clearing the table afterward, not her. I'm doing her job. Why should I tip her if I'm doing her job?

If they have a busy take-out service she will serve five or six times the customers in an hour as she would at a table and doesn't have to put up with complaints, redo the salad because she forgot they said no onions, take the entree back because they wanted rare, not medium, have to take time out to sing happy birthday to someone, and get applesauce flung at her by a rambunctious toddler. She doesn't really even have to smile much.

I think that restaurants should be required to raise their prices to whatever they need to to pay a living (not minimum) wage for all their workers, and tipping should be optional for extraordinary service. Or add a "service fee" or "table rent" to the tab for eat-in guests and a "box fee" for takeout orders. I didn't hire that clerk. I shouldn't have to pay their wages.

It's not right to put the burden of paying the employees onto the customer. Restaurants should pay the employees for the work they are required to do. Tipping should be for the smiles and attention. I don't know why the custom ever started. But I think it's silly to expect tipping at a pickup window, even if it's a sit-down restaurant. You've received no service, just food.

And the MSC should state that tipping is required, how much they expect us to tip, and reimburse for it, if they expect us to tip at a carryout or delivery shop.

I know many will argue with this, especially if they have been waiters before, but they should be upset with their employer for not paying them properly, not with the customer for not wanting to participate in their wages. Other countries require waitstaff to receive a living wage. If you tip a Euro after a meal, it's appreciated, not expected. Keep in mind, a lot of customers don't make much more than minimum wage themselves, and nobody is tipping *them.*

I'm going to take a wild guess and say your talking about Bob Evans. You didnt say what the MSC company is. As the take out is seperate staff that is not waiting tables, I'd not tip there myself. They should be paid a living salary.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/10/2014 05:03PM by scanman1.

Waaaaay back when I worked at a Big Boy restaurant, if anyone's reported tips for the week would result in the restaurant being required to adjust their pay in order to meet minimum wage, they simply changed the amount of tips on our paperwork. Illegal? Of course. Did we say anything? Nope. We wanted to keep our jobs.

TIPS is actually an acronym: To Insure Prompt Service...IIRC, they were originally given prior to being served.

Yep. It was Bob Evans.

Here's my thing. If the person is getting paid minimum wage or not is irrelevant. In my opinion a tip is something you pay a person who is hired to do a service that you don't want to do. When you go to a restaurant, you are paying for your food, a tip is paying for a person to deliver that food to you. When I order carry out the person is not delivering the food to me. They are standing at a counter and handing me the food that I came to get. When I go to a Starbucks they do not bring my latte to my table, they call and I go up there and get it, again, I don't tip because they are not delivering the food to me. If someone is getting paid below minimum wage and expected to do work that doesn't get tipped, then that is between the employee and the employer, not the customer and the employee.

The first time I saw that acronym, a box boy had helped me out to my car with groceries. Probably I hadn't even asked him to. He put the groceries in the car and I thanked him. He handed me a note that said:

"To
Insure
Prompt
Service

(the initials mean something)"


I was absolutely flabbergasted that he was actually soliciting a tip for doing his job! I have never tipped package help. I suspect if the store knew he was hitting customers up for tips he would have been fired. And no, I didn't give him one, and if I had, it would have been to tell him, "If you're not getting paid enough, ask for a raise, don't shake down people in the parking lot."

I agree that tipping just seems un-American somehow.

Some restaurants do divide the tips among the workers.

If we are going to have a minimum wage, they should pay it, no matter who they are.

Yes, we tip, but we've always thought of it as for "good" service even though we usually tip everyone.

A family member who used to do taxes encountered cheating from a local restaurant regarding its employees. It seems from what you are describing that it this system encourages cheating by establishments.

If the business has many employees, how are the ones who don't get minimum wage employees?

I've heard that if we didn't have minimum wage, our economy would be more vibrant with more people hiring. What do you think?

Two waitstaff who work for different small restaurants in town were talking where I could hear them. They get about $160 a day in tips from lunch and dinner customers on an ordinary weekday.

The entire tipping thing in this country is a nightmare to me. We have no idea usually how much the staff is earning as it varies so from state to state and establishment to establishment. My daughter worked at one of the highest end restaurants as a server. She needed to split her tips with about 6 people and in that particular place the cooks got a small part, as did the bussers and the host staff and the other 2 servers with three servers per table. She ended up earning only a bit more per hour than the starbucks and some burger joint people earn but with no benefits at all while some of those companies have a health insurance and vacation package. And in high end every tip is on a credit card so it is all reported vs the $5 bills thrown down on a table that get scooped up without reporting often.
Again I think it would help knowing what people earn then we could assess whether or not to tip them since it seems to be our responsibility to pay their wages. Why does a plumber who earns $$ bucks esp if the owner and I cannot tell the owner from the worker sometimes, get a tip.

I need to know what to tip my taxi driver tomorrow for my taxi mshop job...anyone? no luggage. what is the going rate?. I never take taxis anymore.

I never understood tipping a taxi driver either. Ummm. Isn't that what your job is? To drive me? Isn't that why I'm paying you $40 to begin with?

Phoebe70 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> The msc reprimanded me, stating that I should have
> left a 15-20% tip and that by not doing so I am
> "standing out" from a regular customer. Here is
> my train of thought:

I have done several carry-out shops and the guideline stated 10% tip.
If the msc wanted shoppers to add 15-20%, they should have it on the guideline and not leave it for the shoppers to figure out on their own.

I think tipping 15-20% on a carryout order would make you stand out a lot more than not tipping anything at all.

(And all employees, tipped or not, have to get at least minimum wage. If their tips plus the paltry base pay fall short, the employer has to make up the difference, so thinking your tip is necessary to get them to minimum wage is incorrect.)

I sometimes pick up a steak dinner to go from a nearby casual dining steakhouse. The meal runs $20 and I tip about 10% because the waitress is an actual waitress, not a cashier, and she's interrupting her work to get the meal for me (this place does not do takeout on a regular basis so they're not set up for this). But I wouldn't justify tipping 20% because to get that, she would be refilling drinks, checking back to see if everything is all right, removing dishes, offering and then bringing dessert. For putting the meal in the styrofoam boxes and sticking the boxes in a big plastic bag -- 10% is plenty for ten minutes' attention. If I were eating in, I would also be getting a veggie tray and bread with the meal, which I don't get with the to-go order for the same price.

I honestly don't do carry-out orders unless I'm MSing, LOL. Except sushi. Then I tip the sushi chef. If I was dining in at a sushi joint, I'd tip the sushi chef and waitstaff separately, but since it's a carryout order, I only tip the sushi chef.

If I'm doing a MS where the tip is to be covered by the total reimbursement amount, not listed separately as a %... I tip the full amount. For example, if it's a maximum reimbursement of $40.00, and my total came to $28.76... My tip would be $11.24.

I've always heard that Starbucks was a great place to work for in part because they pay a
good hourly salary. No? Something like $15 to start?

Here's my question: Does the server know how well or how poorly you tip if you put it on a
credit card? And if you put cash on the table and the busser picks it up, do they think you
stiffed them?

We rarely tip on a carry out order.

SandiAigo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've always heard that Starbucks was a great place
> to work for in part because they pay a
> good hourly salary. No? Something like $15 to
> start?

I should hope so. They put up with hipsters and people ordering supercalifragilisticexpialidocious drinks ALL. DAY. LONG. I really hope they make more than minimum wage.

the coffee probably costs Starbucks 25 cents a cup and they sell them for $5 ... they can afford to pay a living wage. I will never understand the appeal. But I don't drink coffee.

The $5 cup of coffee has to pay for wages, benefits, water, electricity, rent/cost of building a coffee shop, permits, taxes, business licenses, call center staff, call center buildings, wifi, maintenance, condiments, equipment, cups, lids, sleeves, napkins, stirrers, insurance, uniforms, cost of producing and offering giftcards, app development and management, website development and management, and probably a slew of other things I'm forgetting or if which I'm not even aware.

I love coffee but don't much like Starbucks coffee.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2014 07:19AM by BBird0701.

I recently got take-out from a local bbq chain where we go a lot (not shopped) and opted to go inside to pick it up rather than go to their window so I could keep my debit card. They had a cup on the pick-up counter for tips and a line on the receipt to fill in a tip. I didn't do either but noticed when I got home they charged a dollar more than they do for eat in. I was glad I didn't tip when I saw that.

Everyone else has those expenses, too, but everyone else doesn't charge $5 for a cup of coffee.

Everyone else doesn't pay their employees a living wage plus benefits.

As you said, you are not a coffee drinker. On the other hand, I am particular about the beans and both the grinder and coffee/espresso makers I use at home. That isn't to say I can tell one coffee bean from another. For me it about the roast. Some are good, some are not.

And for the record, Starbucks doesn't charge $5 for a cup of coffee. There is little price difference between what I pay for a tall non-fat cappuccino between Starbucks, Panera and McDonalds. Unlike a huge brewed pot of coffee that may be sitting there for who knows how long, or even worse those gas station cappuccino dispensers, making drinks individually is more labor intensive.

If I were not a coffee lover, I would not pay the prices either. I'm not a soda drinker and often wonder why anyone would pay any price for a beverage filled with artificial colors, artificial flavors, non-nutritive sweetener and high fructose corn syrup.

There is a huge difference between a coffee and an espresso drink.