Written by After working in the ‘gratuity’ business for many of my jobs, I’ve came up with a few simple rules that you should follow…
1) If you are going out for a night on the town, make sure you can afford the whole experience. That means being able to pay for not only your food but also tips for bartender, server, valet, and coat check. Those of you that don’t work in this type of business may not understand. A server gets paid $2.18 (at least something like that at The Brass Elephant) and make all their money through tips. At a minimum, I say leave 15%. That is if your food was average, service was nothing special, etc. If you’re impressed with your meal, leave 20%+. This isn’t Italy where you tip 4% because their wages come from your meal…
2) If you plan on using any sort of discount, from buy 1 get 1 to a percentage off, tip on total without the discount. Let’s do some simple math. Friday nights are half price wine nights at the restaurant, so we see a good amount of customers that day. If your food and drinks first total $200, then you use a 50% discount for wine, tip around $40… not 20% after the discount. Taking this into account shows that you’re in-tune with the restaurant world and you WILL be taken care of next time you return.
3) I personally, as a valet, would rather get stiffed a tip than to receive a poor one. I once delivered a guy’s car and he flipped me a quarter. I handed it back to him and said “Thanks, but no thanks.” (I got a good talking to from my boss as well) By poorly typing, this gentleman showed me that he knows to tip, but is too cheap to do so. In the case of a valet, some people are naive and some people are just cheap. A good type for a valet is $5. $2-4 is average. My biggest tip for valeting was $50 when I delivered a car for The Temptations.
4) Take care of the coat check person too. $1 per coat is generally accepted as average.
5) If you are staying in a hotel, tip the bellman $1.50-2 per bag that he/she helps you with. The range actually depends on the part of the country you’re staying in. NYC it’s closer to $2-3 per bag, while in Ohio it’s $1 per bag. That is something that can be usually found on any tourism website for the region.
If you follow these simple yet important rules, I guarantee you will be taking care of… at least by me.
