An intro to tipping in the USA
Like many before me, by the time I finished uni I was absolutely hanging to get on a plane and get the heck out of Australia. Not that we don’t love our great suntanned country, but travelling just gets in your blood and makes you want to go…
I decided partway through my last year that I was going to bail over to the USA to do a working holiday. I planned that I would go and work in a bar in the little town of Knoxville, Tennessee, where I had a couple of good drinking buddies that I’d met when they were studying in Oz.
After arriving in Los Angeles on a group flight with about a hundred other Aussies, we were promptly loaded onto buses and taken to a hostel located in Inglewood, one of LA’s main ‘ghetto’ areas. I could tell you lots of stories about that particular stay, but the one that’s most relevant was that it was where I got my first introduction to tipping in the USA.
So here goes….
Americans love to tip. It’s part of the culture and any cultural ‘orientation’ to the country will certainly cover the topic. You can just imagine 100 of us Aussies all crammed into one little hostel in an LA ghetto, too afraid to go outside on the streets, deciding we’d just drink at the hostel bar.
And you can also imagine the sheer pleasure of a bartender, absolutely stoked to be over-tipped by 100 Aussies all wanting to look like they knew what they were doing.
We didn’t and they were, if you get my meaning.
For the uninitiated, tipping in the USA can be a complex, counter-intuitive process, carefully linked to percentages of the bill, quality of the service, type of the establishment and your future intentions.
I worked in a restaurant/bar for 5 months and came to understand the system well, so let me try to explain.
General Rules
Minimum wage in the US in some service industries (waiting, bartending etc) is absolutely crap and these people rely on your tips to make a living.
Here are some of the services you should expect to tip for and an indicative amount:
- Restaurants – 15% tip required
- Bars – Tip of a dollar or two per drink, depending on the cost: More expensive = Higher Tip
- Taxis – Round upwards up to 10% of the fare.
- Hairdressers – Up to 10%
- Anyone carrying your luggage/bags/groceries - $1-2
Remember – the more expensive the establishment, the more you are likely expected to tip (in % terms).
Restaurants
When you go to a restaurant, ‘service’ is not included in the cost of your bill i.e. the waiters basically aren’t being paid by the restaurant but directly by you. You should always tip 15% of the bill to the waiter unless they were genuinely rude, terrible or truly diabolical….and I do mean truly diabolical. Tipping less than 10% will probably see you chased out of the restaurant, so if you do leave less than 10% be sure to make a quick, discrete exit!
If you get great service then consider tipping more – 20% is a good tip, 25% is very generous and 30% is awesome. Tip service accordingly. Yes, it’s painful to begin with but you do get used to it – just bear in mind when you’re ordering that everything on the menu is at least 15% more than what you see.
The easy way to work out 15%? Round the bill to the nearest dollar, divide by 10, then halve that amount and multiply by 3 and round up or down according to taste. Sound stupid?
- $26.80 - Round up to $27
- Divide by 10 = $2.70
- Divide by 2 = $1.35
- Multiply by 3 = $4.05 or rounded to a nice $4 tip
Bars
When I was in New York I met a couple of Aussies who had been out boozing all afternoon and well into the evening. I remember asking them how much they tipped after each drink and they told me,
‘Nah we didn’t do that – we just left a couple of bucks on the bar at the end of the night!’
Tipping in bars can be the most difficult of all, so here’s my advice.
Tip as you go
Unless you are running a tab, you need to tip after each drink. Drinks less than $10 you generally round up to the dollar, or extra dollar.
If it’s busy and you don’t tip, or don’t tip well, you might find it difficult to get your next drink.
Be generous upfront
If you are likely to go to one place many times (i.e. it’s your local bar), be generous! Bartenders will always reward the best tippers with the best service. On a crazy busy Friday night at your local joint this cannot be underestimated!
My favourite tactic when I knew I was going to be drinking in the same bar all evening was to hit the bartender with an awesome tip when I bought my first drink.
I would give them a $10 tip on a $10 round – at which point any bartender would raise their eyebrows when I refused their change. I then would say ‘Keep it, but just keep an eye out for me tonight’. Guaranteed that bartender would spot me even if it was 5 deep at the bar.
You still need to tip on each subsequent drink, but just leaving the standard dollar or two is fine.
It might sound like heaps of cash, but over the course of a long evening, you’ll save plenty of time and hassles at the bar – guaranteed. And if you’re ever back, you’re guaranteed first class service from that bartender.
If you want to play it even smarter, pool with your mates for a great tip at the start of the night with one of the roaming waiters/waitresses that work the floors of busy nightclubs. Tables at bars mean big money for them – tip big at the start of the night and you’ll always be well looked after.
Taxis
I always found tipping taxi drivers the most irritating, since they already do okay from driving and you don’t always get great service. Taxis are one place where if they weren’t a good driver they got a crap tip – let’s be honest, unless it is a very small town you’re in it’s unlikely you’ll ever get that driver again.
Less that $5 – round it up to the nearest $ or 50c.
$5-10 - $1 tip
$10-20 - $2 tip
$20-30 - $2-3 depending on how friendly they were
$30+ leave up to 10%. More if they were really great or if you’ve asked for special assistance (i.e. they had to wait for you, helped you with bags etc).
Final words
Tipping takes a bit of practice and a little bit of maths to get right. Consider it like a tax that’s not written on the menu or meter but that has to be paid – nobody likes a tax cheat and a good tip is the best reward for good service.
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