The restaurant tip is important because it pays the employee who is handling your service at your table. It, also, may be paying the other employees with tip pooling. This could include the busperson, bartender, and even the cooking staff.
How would you decide how much to tip your server?
When deciding how much to tip your server after your meal, think of how they did. If they were pleasant to communicate with and gave you your meal the way you asked for it, gave you beverages when you needed them, did not make mistakes, or explained how something that went wrong happened and made it feel OK, afterward, you should usually give them at least a 15 percent tip. More and more people are giving 20 percent tips for normal service. You need to look over your tab to be certain that a gratuity was not automatically added to it. This, usually, can be done when there are six or more customers, or even as few as one customer, depending on the restaurant. If you go in a group smaller than six, you will need to bring cash for your part of the bill and tip, if they do not add a gratuity automatically.
To get cash for your tip before you go to the restaurant, it could help you to use an app banking service like Current which has more than 40,000 in-network ATM machines that have no fee for current customers.
To figure your tip amount, you can use the pre-tax amount of the items you got, because this is customary for the tipping process. If the cost of the meal and beverage you got is $30 and the tax is $2, you would tip using the $30 amount. However, using the total including tax could be the amount that is expected by the server, and the amount people have been using if they do not know about using the pre-tax amount.
Is tipping your server required?
Leaving a tip for a restaurant server is not required legally, but usually, their pay rate is much lower than minimum wage, and their employer hopes that you will pay them with your tip. Six percent of customers of restaurants do not tip at all, according to a survey by the restaurant technology company Popmenu.
If you do not tip the server, the restaurant legally has to pay them minimum wage. It is a custom in the United States to reward great service with a better tip. However, some Americans do not like the tipping process.
