When to tip?
 

Hi, we are going to NS in two weeks time. I understand the custom of tipping is more widely used in North America so when do we tip and how much and when do we not?
Jason

Re: When to tip?
 

15% in all bars and restaurants. Some people make it 15% of the original, pre-tax price, but that seems niggardly to me. Tip more if thrilled.

Cab drivers, porters, removal men, hairdressers also need tipping.

Re: When to tip?
 

And if you don't enjoy the service then don't tip.

What they going to do ban you?

I don't do the % of the bill as the cost of a burger is way different than a steak. But the service provided is just the same.
Some one cooked it, someone delivered it, someone clean it away - I didn't give them grief and I don't pay for others behaviour.

Re: When to tip?
 

I suppose tipping twenty bucks per plate regardless of the food cost works but it does seem rather generous.

Re: When to tip?
 

well by 15% requirement $20 isn't going to cover the cost at some resturants once you add in drinks and deserts.
But I get your drift.

Re: When to tip?
 

That could be because the nice taxman had already worked out what 15% of the original was.

I generally take the tax amount and round it up a couple of bux. Unless the service warranted more.

Re: When to tip?
 

As said, if someone brings the food or drink to your table then 15% of the total bill is normal. 20% if the service is excellent. Hospitality workers can't pay their bills on minimum wage. If there is something wrong with the experience that isn't the server's fault you can express your displeasure by tipping 10%. To leave no, or a minimal, tip is extremely discourteous as well as mean unless the server really does not deserve it.

Re: When to tip?
 

Two of my daughters are working this summer in restaurants and they depend on their tips. Unfortunately the Brits have a bad reputation for not tipping. Understandable because we don't expect to in the UK, but in Canada and North America generally the 15% - 20% tip is the norm.

One of my daughters says there is a regular customer who is British and never tips at all. The servers don't want to serve him and all hope he sits in someone else's section.

My rule is to double the GST amount on the bill as a rough guide to the minimum tip. Good service deserves more. However generous I am I suspect the reputation of mean Brits will live on.

Warmly,

Frank

Re: When to tip?
 

$14.27 for advice given on the forum.

Re: When to tip?
 

im a waitress and i just wanted to add that i understand not wanting to give money to poor service, but occasionally it will happen to me that there is something wrong with the food, and not the service, but yet they will leave no tip. i dont think people realize that alot of resturants have to tip out to the kitchen on every bill. my restuarant gives 3% of every bill to the kitchen which may not seem like much but this means when i dont get tipped i pay some money out of my pocket to the kitchen to make up for it, and it tends to add up on a day when the kitchen is especially slow.

Re: When to tip?
 

Good point. That's true for my daughters too. One waitress had a table of 12 who kept her busy all night and didn't tip anything at all (not Brits this time) but the waitress ended up paying out of her other tips. :ohmy:
Warmly,

Frank

Re: When to tip?
 

That seems fair enough. Not tipping or tipping miserably is not something one should risk if there's any chance of returning to the restaurant. Read Anthony Bourdain on the content of cream sauces delivered to bad customers.

Re: When to tip?
 

Tipping isn't all about 'good service'... it's about customers paying for labour costs. I waited tables for about eight years while in high school and university and rarely did I get paid much more than minimum wage (though my tips were often four to five times my wage). And this is the norm.

If a restaurant owner were to suddenly have to pay waitstaff 30/hr (which was about what I made 15 years ago in tips + wage) that burger and fries is going to be a wee bit more expensive. Generally, eating out is relatively cheap in Canada because of competition and tipping from customers helping to keep labour costs down.

There is an element of the 'good service' bit though. I remembered regulars who tipped well and those who did not and responded accordingly. But the best tips were nice notes and little pressies people left... except the perv who left a key to his hotel room. :ohmy:

Re: When to tip?
 

How much would you tip a mover?

Re: When to tip?
 

Depends how far they went for you. ;) Last lot of two men and a boy got $120 plus a flat of beer. They were very happy.

Re: When to tip?
 

$100 between them + plus a couple of beers offered in the bottle. One should buy the sort of beer they might know and like, something local.

Re: When to tip?
 

Ok - to clarify...............

How much am I expected to tip a Hairdresser? A taxi driver? A Pizza delivery person?

Who else might I need to tip? I so dont want to offend anyone, but it is so foreign to me - its a fine line isnt it.

Re: When to tip?
 

I tip my hairdresser here in UK £5, taxi driver £2-£5 depending on how far i've travelled and pizza man £1-£2 ( usually the change left from a £20 note!)

When i eventually get to Canada ( visa's PLEASE hurry!) i will no doubt work on the equivalent amounts and hope thats along the right amounts!:confused:

I think we have only about twice not tipped at all and that was purely down to the staff service, if there is something wrong with the food i'll say so! ( although i do always worry that something untoward may have happened to it afterwards - i didn't look at the link above but i have a horrible feeling it was along my suspicions....!:sneaky:) if the waiting on staff are good - they deserve to be rewarded. we tend to be creatures of habit and do go back to good restaurants too and always hope they will go the extra mile for us.

Kind regards,
Tina:)

Re: When to tip?
 

Did you tip after they picked up or delivered? I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a truck with my stuff in it heading for the Rockies with alcohol involved.

Re: When to tip?
 

Once they delivered. I settled the bill for cash and tipped them while paying it.

Re: When to tip?
 

Hairdressers, taxis, porters, delivery men (food) etc are based on their performance how much you tip. If the hairdresser does an average job on your hair, basing this on just a wash/cut/set for women (long hair) I was normally tipping roughly 10% of the bill for a good job, usually was between $5-$10 CDN.... taxis is roughly the same, it depends on the distance driven (top tip, you can ask the taxi service for a quote on how much it will cost from point a to point b which will be a flat fee less the tip for their drivers to base your ride on) I rarely ever tipped over $5CDN unless they provided exceptional service... porters, depends on how posh the hotel is your staying at but normally a $5 is considered a decent tip if they've carried all your luggage up to your room etc. Delivery & restaurants serving food to your table is normally about 10%-15% (15% being exceptional service, 10% being decent/ok service) but if its food delivery from a franchise or small restaurant, they normally dont expect more the $5 tip for arriving on time... this is what I was told by my brother who worked in Montreal as a delivery man for a pizza joint. You'll find that most delivery places have a service boundary (where they deliver to) which pretty much excludes areas too far away that the delivery person will not make enough of a tip to cover the expense of driving there (alot of deliveries make their staff use their own car) so it's relatively safe.

So I guess the basics are, if your in a fancy/rich place recieving fancy/rich products and services, you'll be expected to shell out more by the service staff. If your in a bog standard middle classish establishment, you're not usually expected to tip more then $5-$10 and that is based on your satisfaction with the service provided.

Don't worry though, Canadians usually make alot of allowances and are quite forgiving of internationals/tourists, just put on your accent to make it evident your not from Canada... its the Yanks and/or locals they get annoyed at for not tipping correctly for services. :sneaky: :lol:

Re: When to tip?
 

In Toronto it's very unlikely that the person you'll be tipping is an unhyphenated Canadian and it's doubly unlikely that a waiter would be able to differentiate unhyphenated Canadians from Americans. An immigrant is not going to forgive another immigrant's meanness just because the latter is English.

Re: When to tip?
 

$20 each for removal guys.

Bars and restaurants, it's usually the combined tax, rounded up if the service has been above average. It's a good idea to tip properly in places you go to lots. I always tipped well in my local in Oakville. As a result, I got plenty of free drinks (not to mentional occasional off-sales - highly illegal).

This "you scratch mine..." policy works well with neighbours too. I've told the bloke next door to help himself to the raspberries, tomatoes and cucumbers I have growing up the side of my house. The plants are producing far more than we can eat. The guy is a hunter. He kills more than he can eat. My freezer contains moose and venison that didn't come from Loblaws.

Re: When to tip?
 

LOL!! You are being quite pessimistic today DB... well on the 3 times my British partner visited Canada with me, he was given ALOT of allowances for being foreign. There's a difference between intentional cruelty and ignorance of customs, I like to think that most people hyphonated or not, tend to make allowances for this. It's not an invite to purposfully insult or rip off service workers, just re-assurance that most will be forgiving of these little mist-steps.:p

Re: When to tip?
 

That's not pessimism. The best thing about Toronto is that no one here is from here.

Re: When to tip?
 

I think I disagree, Peas... I consider it like this: when I go to a restaurant the cost of the dish on the menu reflects the costs of running the place, including overheads and profit, and what the owner pays his staff. Granted, that isn't a living wage for the waiting staff, but I am paying for the whole meal from buying the ingredients to the preparation and cooking and delivery to my table. To avoid the labour costs I could theoretically make the same meal myself at home.

Don't get me wrong, I usually tip around 15% or so, rounded up to the nearest convenient sum - but I always consider this as a discretionary payment that I could withold if the service has been crap (note, the service, not the food - if the food's crap I will have complained; if my server deals with my complaint well then the tip is likely to go up rather than down). I am explicitly paying extra for good service, not for what is already included on the menu price.

Re: When to tip?
 

OK, find me a restaurant where the waitstaff are paid 50/hr as a wage and let me know how much a typical meal is. I'm sure such a restaurant exists but it is not the norm.

As an individual experience, people might think their tips are about service but open the books of most restaurants and they could not survive paying staff that nor would most people who wait tables do that job for just for minimum, or just above, wage.

FWIW, I don't tip if the food/service/entire experience was crap. I have even just walked out and not paid, full stop.

Re: When to tip?
 

Ah... ok. Thanks.

Re: When to tip?
 

Another question, especially for those who know the hospitality industry here... in the UK I tried to leave a tip in cash, even if the bill was settled on a card - that way the waiting staff get to sort out what they do with it rather than disappearing into some black hole of a cash register. From what's been said in this thread the whole setup of tipping out to the kitchen etc is pretty formalised here, so is there still an advantage from the waiting staff's point of view to being tipped in cash?

Re: When to tip?
 

I did that at Captain John's, a seafood restaurant in a boat moored at the bottom of Yonge St. The waiter, wine steward, and two men in white clothes ran after us shouting "you stealing the money". We rode off in a rickshaw and they gave up after a block or so.

Re: When to tip?
 

Surely it can only be good. That way the person waiting can decide whether or not to share the tip with other staff or with the tax man.

Re: When to tip?
 

I always write "cash" in the tip space on the credit card bill. I've seen too many people who weren't waiting my table swoop when we leave, and I never know if my server got their tip or not. At least that way the appropriate person will know that one was left, regardless of who got their hands on it.

Re: When to tip?
 

Its prefered to be tipped in cash as I think some service persons dont delcare income from tips on taxes & therefore get a break... not sure if its legal or not (probably not) but I rarely ever tipped via cards (and only credit cards where I wrote in the amount for tip/grauities on the bill I signed)

Re: When to tip?
 

What a great idea. I'll do that in future.

Re: When to tip?
 

It's not formalized at all. Restaurants vary a great deal on their tipping policies. One place I worked at had various policies, depending on who was working X shift.

Cash = immediate and no official record = :thumbup:

Re: When to tip?
 

Most people declare some of their tips (usually just enough not to bumped them into a higher tax bracket) because for future loan, mortgage, etc purposes, tips are not considered income unless they are declared on your income tax.

Re: When to tip?
 

Thats very true, income tax is one of the major criteria for money lenders as its the only official GOVT statement of income for workers... good point!

Re: When to tip?
 

I learned it the hard way! :D

Re: When to tip?
 

Same here.

Re: When to tip?
 

What about drive-throughs etc? I tipped regularly in places without waiting staff all over Quebec but as soon as we pulled into a Swedish Chicken (?) or whatever it's called in Ontario the guy at the till looked at me like I was from another planet when I told him to keep the change; it was only a few dollars...