Tipping with a tab??
 

How are you supposed to tip when you have a tab?

Tip every round or wait 'til the end?

I have never had a tab before, usually someone else is paying, so I am not sure of the rules. The other night a friend and I went to play some pool and we opened a tab. I didn't tip the waitress 'til the very end, but then realized the reason why she really didn't come back around much while we had an open tab was probably because we weren't tipping her. :confused:

Re: Tipping with a tab??
 

Traditionally, when it comes to drinks on the tab, you tip a small amount when served. I usually round up the cost of the drink to the nearest dollar. You could also tip at the end of the evening when you close out the tab.

When my meals and drinks are more expensive I pay more. When their meals and drinks are more expensive I divide the check evenly.

Oddly enough no one ever complains either way :p sigh . . .

I have a couple good friends that just divide the check in half, and there are a couple people i know that just wouldn't squabble over a few dollars either way.

Some of it depends on how stingy you are. You can tell the people that parting with money really bothers, its in the painful expression on their faces.

Well, the whole dividing evenly thing depends on the situation. No, I don't mind putting in a little more than I really should, 5-10 bucks I guess. But once I went out with a friend for her birthday and we joined a group of her friend's friends. They ordered pitchers of drinks and plates of appetizers - none of us had any of that. They ordered 3 bottles of Port after dinner - none of us had any of that. The bill came, they split it evenly - $70 a person! My total meal w/tip was about $40! I'm sorry, I don't need to pay an additional $30 for crap you ordered without even asking me! :mad: :rolleyes:

Also, normally I am a great tipper. I have never served myself, but I am in the arts and most of my friends do wait tables. We were at the bar once in college and my drink was $4.50. I gave her a five and actually intended on giving her an extra dollar PLUS the 50 cents change. Well, she gave me my drink and didn't even ask if I wanted the change, just walked off. So I made a stink to my friends. Suddenly, a hand comes over my shoulder and slams the 50 cents on the table! So, I proceeded to rack up a bill and at the end of the night, I left her the 50 cents...and nothing else. Mean, yes. But she was a b*tch...

Ugh...this is one of my pet peeves! I can NOT stand it when a group of people won't just split the check evenly, but rather, whip out the calculators. Yes, I've seen it happen! Mr RedRose has some acquaintances that do this, and it makes going out with them a rather unpleasant experience! Tacky, tacky, tacky.

We always just check out the bill, figure out what everyone orderd (or ate if someone ordered a big appetizer that I didn't eat) then round the prices of everyones individual items up to cover tax. That should cover the bill portion. THen we take the total, figure out what is 20%, and divide that among everyone there. This usually takes care of the people who ordered really expensive items, next to the person who had a side salad and water. Did anyone see the Friends episode that revolved around this very topic?? Good stuff.

:eek:

I think that is kind of unfair.

The person who only ordered a side salad w/ water and the other person who ordered a freaking feast probably did so because of a reason...whether they can afford it or not.

I would be pissed if I ordered a soda and ate some bread and have to increase my tip for someone who ordered $25 worth of food.

And, I would feel guilty if I ordered $25 worth of food and people who barely ate anything would have to increase their tip money.

I usually always tip at least 20%. Many waiters/waitresses are college students who need this money to pay for their education.

I will tip more (like 50%) if the waiter/waitress hooks us up. For instance, if they give us our drinks for free or give a discount.

I will tip 15% if I'm not impressed by the service.

There has only been once where I've tipped under 15%. I was at Friday's and the waitress was really rude to us. There was a table of guys next to us who were giving her a really hard time. Unfortunately, this put her in a bad mood but this does not entitle her to take it out on other customers. She was snotty, the food took forever (and was cold when she brought it to us), and she rolled her eyes back when my friend asked for more sour cream. On a $30 bill, we tipped her a quarter and we wrote on the bill "Check your attitude!".

A friend of my husband's actually has an application on his Palm Pilot that will split a check... you can enter the total of the check, tax, the percentage you want to tip, and the number of people, and it will split the check evenly, or if you want to be really anal, you can enter the prices of everyone's food and drinks, and it will prorate the tax and tip accordingly. :rolleyes:

There's nothing like watching a bunch of drunk MIT students haggling over a bill... it makes bid matching look like simple addition :D

That is too funny! It reminds me of Seinfeld when Jerry gives his father in Florida a wizard calculator thing. He kept figuring out the tip on this thing. Funny stuff! :)

My friends (not hte cheapskates who caused me to start this thread) and I tip at the end of the tab... it works just fine.

As for splitting the bill all evenly, I am for it as long as people got somewhat comparable items. Or, if you didn't get comparable items but you hang out together every weekend... sometimes someone gets a little more, but the others make up for it next time. It all evens out in the end. I had a few sorority sisters were one of us was constantly "owing" the other $5 or so just because we would take turns treating each other... but by the time we graduated, I am sure that we were even.

Now that I've graduated... treating each other is picking up a $100+ bar tab... I've got to quit doing that!

*bump*

Random tip question:

My husband and I recently went out to dinner with another couple. We had a more expensive appetizer than they, and we had a bottle of wine that we drank most of (one of them had just been sick and therefore didn't want to drink), so when the check came we ended up owing about $50 more than the other couple. The tip also came to around $50, so we decided to split the check across our two credit cards, then put the entire tip on mine.

Would the waiter have understood what we were trying to do? In retrospect, I think it kind of made the other couple look cheap and us look really generous. Would it have been better to just tip $25 on each card and give them $25 cash?

aephi,
I was a server and had to do stuff like that before. I never gave it a second thought as to who was leaving the tip, and who was being "cheap" or whatever. As long as I got the money to cover the cost of the bill, and whatever tip someone left me, I was happy. Except for the one time this guy was a total ass to me, I gave him outstanding service(as I had a tendancy to do anyhow, because I liked making the good $$) and he left me a .01 tip...jacka--. The other people in his group had the bill split up and they even told him he was being a d--k the whole night.

On that note, my BF and I have decided that when we go out with his bros (because some are notoriously cheap, we're talking you buy a sixer for him and he says well I only want three beers so here is the money for three) we are getting seperate bills from now on. Reason being that at one of the guys birthdays recently, we went to a Steakhouse type restaurant with the bro and some of his siblings, and some of the fraternity brothers and their various significant others. My BF and I got stuck throwing down about 120 between the two of us to cover all the cheap bastards that didn't throw down except for themselves...and the guy whose birthday it was--his fiance didn't throw down ANYTHING! So we ended up having to pay for her meal...which I think was SUPER cheesey, I mean, come on! :mad: Some people have no concept of manners or proper etiquette...:rolleyes:

Two people I always like to tip well:

those who fix my food

those who cut my hair

because revenge is a dish best served cold

Whenever me and my boyfriend go out with our friends, his brothers, or my sisters, we get separate checks now. He seems to always be the one to cover for everyone else. When we all went to Margaritaville for my 21st, we had a bill of something like 500 bucks between 20 people. My boyfriend paid 150 of that, because people either completely did not pay for their meal, their drinks, or shorted him. He was expecting maybe 60 bucks to pay for both meals and part of the drinks. Needless to say he was not happy.

I don't think it's tacky to give what you owe instead of splitting a bill evenly. Many times we hit up Friday's or Chili's and someone will get a side of fries while one of the guys gets a steak dinner. Is it fair for the fry guy (who is only ordering that because he can't afford more than that) pays as much as the guy with the steak dinner or the girl who had 4 drinks? I don't think so. Dionsys is right in that the person who is ordering something very small is either doing so because they are not hungry, or can't afford to buy anything else. This may just apply to my school, but Florida Tech is extremely expensive... we have many people leave because they lose their scholarships or they can't handle all the loans and the debt. Some of my friends do nothing but mooch or sit at home and watch movies because they can't afford it. I'm not going to make a friend who is already 1000 bucks into credit card debt split a bill evenly with me if they only ordered a soda or french fries.