What would cause you to leave less than 20% tip in a restaurant?

34 comments

1. Intentionally rude service.

   A large portion of the bill is for low or no-effort items; i.e. i have one beer while waiting for a large take-out order.

2. ope – here is the hourly tipping question.

3. Intentionally bad service, or personally being rude to me outside the customer/waiter dynamic.

   Inedible food. (I don’t mean the foodie “they didn’t add the cumin, it’s *literally Inedible*” version I mean actually disgusting)

4. Straight up neglect on the part on the server. A great deal of things are out of the server’s control; food quality and speed, orders being wrong, atmosphere and lighting. But if I ask for a refill or my check and it takes a disproportionately long time to get, that will hurt the tip. That said I don’t go under 10% unless something is abysmally or dangerously wrong ie a serious food allergy request not being followed.

5. I’m not paying 20% period unless it was great service. Normal service is still 15% for me.

6. They’d have to be like openly hostile and antagonistic

7. Visiting a country without a tip culture. In the US, receiving exceptionally or aggressively bad service.

8. 15% normal service 18% good service 20% excellent service. the fuck you guys payin 20% for service?! its always been 15%

9. If there’s something like a 15% or 18% tip that gets added automatically for some reason, then that’s the tip I’m leaving.

   Last time I can remember tipping less than 20% at a full service restaurant our server was spending a ton of time hanging out at another table socializing with them and was neglecting our table. I left him a 10%.

   Getting slow service when I see that my server has more tables than they can handle is one thing, getting slow service while I’m watching my server sitting at a nearby table bullshitting with people is another.

10. A day that ends in Y

11. 15% is normal.

12. I generally leave 15-18%

13. 10-15 percent is normal. I’ll tip 20 if I get something complementary.

14. Very poor service that was not addressed/ rectified when brought to the managers attention. Like the time where our meal got dropped off and we never saw him again. After waiting about 45 minutes from getting our food( nothing wrong with it at all) we had to flag down the other server to ask for the bill.

    We had ordered a bundle where you got dessert, which of course we never did, and the manager said it would beg another 20 minutes to get it to go, but if he removed the dessert and charged us just for the food we consumed, it would be more expensive.

    Yeah, they never got a tip, nor our business again.

15. We got done eating and our waitress forgot about us for an hour. When we waved over another she said she’d tell our waitress we were waiting. It took an hour before she came over. And another half an hour to get our check and pay. The restaurant seated 50, had 6 waitresses working and only had 14 tables filled. I left a penny

16. Since when is 20% the norm?

17. I tip $1 per drink at the bar. It’s fair and reasonable. If you slide me a freebie, I’ll tip 90% of the price of that drink.

18. Intentionally bad service.

    The one and only time I’ve ever not tipped something was because the server was exceptionally rude to us when he did decide to pay attention to us. We should have left right away but it was after a long concert and we were starving before making the 90 minute drive home.

    The guy even wanted to argue with me about not leaving a tip when I paid the bill and I laid into him about why. I was checking my bank statement a couple of days later and there was a second charge for almost the cost of our meal that posted the next day. I called the manager and told them about my experience with the server and this needed to be fixed. The manager called me back later that day and told me that they’d found that the employee had remembered my card info and charged me again for his “tip”. The manager reversed both charges for me and let me know that the guy had been fired for fraud and they were talking to the police about him (from what I remember)

19. My drink being empty.

20. Better question would be what would cause me to leave a 20% tip. Normal is 15%. Bad service is less. Good is more. If the kids made a mess or had some kind of special request might tip even more.

21. Anything. 20 percent is ridiculous.

22. Being British.

    Joke!

23. 15% is normal

24. I left no tip when the proprietor left a spray bottle of cleaner and a dirty rag on my table while I was sitting there.

25. I’m not paying 20% very often. I’ll round up to the nearest $10 or just spot a ten. For bills over ~ $125 maybe a $20. That’s what I’m willing to tip for ~1 hr of being “waited on” – couple of refills relaying info to the kitchen, and bringing it out to the table.

26. If they never come back during the meal at all.

27. I start at 15%

28. 15% is normal, not 20%. But if the service is actually bad than they obviously get no tip

29. Not believing in the tip system

30. 15-18% being what has been considered normal for a long ass time. Y’all need to stop feeding into this tip increase creep. Y’all the reason why everyone feels emboldened to make 25% seem normal and tip fast food places and shit

31. The thing that makes me leave less than 20% is the fact that I tip at restaurants 15%-18%.

32. California and a handful of other states have eliminated “tip-credits,” so instead of being paid primarily through tips, they receive the full minimum wage, which is $15.50 an hour. So in California, I leave a smaller tip, typically 15%.

33. 15% is normal for me. For me to leave a less than 20% tip on a tab that is more than $15, it would be anything less than stellar service.

34. I always leave 0, 2, or 5 dollars for a tips based on service. Not percentage.