Hi! I live in Australia and tipping is not expected as the price of an acceptable standard of service is ‘built in’ to the price of what you are purchasing. If you get exceptional service you can tip by choice but this is voluntary. The size of your tip would depend on the depth of your pocket, the overall price of the service and your generosity. I like it this way! Sue
NOTE: There is a BIG question at the bottom of this post that I would love for you to answer. Looking forward to your response :)
So, yesterday Lisa (my fiance) and I decided to go for what ended up to be a rather lengthy walk along the water throughout the Davis Islands district of Tampa Bay. Some nice houses back there, including the nearly finished skeleton of Derek Jeter’s new 30,875 square foot mansion.
It’s the one on the right. More on Derek in just a minute.
As the walk went on, we realized 1) I was hungry and wanted Mexican food, 2) Lisa was hungry and didn’t care and 3) we both needed a break as we’d been walking way longer than anticipated.
So we stopped off at Estella’s, the supposed “go to” restaurant on Davis Islands. We even saw Derek and his fiance Minka Kelly (best known from the NBC television show Friday Night Lights – if you don’t know about it, know about it…one of the best shows on TV) sitting outside dining there as we passed by a few weeks ago.
So, we figured it was probably pretty good. I mean, we heard good things, and hot chicks dine there…Lisa would fit right in.
Wrong.
Place. Was. Awful.
From the service to the food. Bleh. Worst of all, I sat through my entire “meal” (if you even want to call it that) with no beverage, only to have the waiter bring me my requested Corona Light after I was finished eating.
Screw up my food, okay. Screw up my beer…that just landed you a ——— through the tip line of the check. And that’s coming from someone who usually leaves a generous 20+ percent. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time I didn’t tip…had to be when I was a broke college kid and by total accident.
But this was deliberate, and I hope they got the el message. People want their beer with their meal.
Soooooo…this morning I was still in the mood for Mexican (because that place certainly did NOT hit the spot), leaving me to turn to my old staple “simple” Mexican Omelet Recipe.
Enjoy:
The Easiest Mexican Omelet in the World
Ingredients:
3 eggs
2 slices of organic pepper-jack cheese
3-4 tbsp salsa
You can probably figure out what to do with that, but I’ll still include directions:
Directions:
Pre-heat an omelet pan on medium heat. Whip the eggs in a small bowl. Transfer eggs to the omelet pan. Allow eggs to cook, lifting the edge of the omelet throughout to allow any uncooked egg to run under.
Once mostly cooked, flip the omelet shell. Lay the two slices of jack on one side an fold the omelet over. Transfer to a plate and top with salsa. If you want to get really fancy, add some sliced avocado on the side. That’s what I did. It was delicioso.
Alright, so here’s my question? Did you ever NOT leave a tip? What was the service like that caused you to make that bold move? Share your experience below! I’m really curious.
Looking forward to the responses!
Joel
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Hi Joel,
Living in New Zealand we very rarely tip at all. Wages are supposed to cover that however if you do get reallly outstanding service then you may leave the waitress or waiter something small like NZ$5-10. Not really common practise though. New Zealanders really struggle with the whole tipping when they go overseas especially when the service is not good. Just a whole different eating out culture I guess!!
Generally I request to speak to the manager and voice my complaint to him. Depending on whether it was the food or service and a combination, I usually do one of the following, threaten to not recommend this place to other people and leave a very small tip. Sometimes no tip at all if the problem is very rotten service until I get to the cashier who gets a tip from me. Believe me, the last thing truck stop managers want is for people to bad mouth their place to fellow truckers.
Bear
Joel,
I live here in Tampa so thanks for the heads up on that resturant. If I’m in the mood for mexican I always go to Miguels….it’s fantastic imo. Now I can understand if a server is very busy & has a ton of tables to take care of but not when its slow. My uncle was a very good tipper but if his drink was empty for an extended period of time he would not tip. Kinda stuck with me. I have been in a situation at a Hooters where our server was to busy flirting with a table of drunk guys(probably running game for a nice tip) that it seemed that she totally forgot about us. So no I didn’t leave a tip. My GF thought it was wrong & I had to hear about it on the way home but I stuck to my guns.
P.S Joel if your looking for a great cheat meal go to Da Kine Hawaiian Cafe on south Dale Mabry(google them). Great food with authentic Hawaiian style local favs. The sweet ribs are amazing & the hamburger steak is awesome to. Oh before I forget what was that pizza joint in Downtown Tampa that you have mentioned before….I’m in need of a good slice on my next cheat day.
Thanks,
Benjamin
Wow – this has been very interesting reading all of these comments! I personally would feel really bad if I didn’t leave a tip, no matter how bad the service. I would leave 15% on bad service and 20%+ on really good service.
Like Leslie above – It really irks me when they automatically put on an 18% gratuity for large parties. Especially because I DO know how hard they work, and I personally would have given them a bigger tip than 18%…but since they saw to it themselves as to what they wanted, they get LESS than what I would have given normally. Sad for them.
Anyway – that’s my $.02.
Super bad service at a Chinese resturant in San Francisco. . . . We had to flag down the waitress and waiter just to order, get water, get more napkins, get our check and doggy bags. When they brought out our very hot food, they placed in front of our 17 month old baby. Hello . . . . show some common sense people!!!
I was done with their horrible service. When it came time to pay the bill, I forgot my card in the bill holder. Lady came out to give it to me while I was getting the kids in the car and she states I didn’t leave a tip. I told her that their service was horrilbe. She states they did everything I asked for. I told her that was the problem. I had to ask for everything. No one EVER came to check in on my table. If I never said anything, I would be waiting forever. She made a nasty racial comment and stated that is what “You people” do!!! Never again will I eat there.
I also live in Australia where tipping is not the norm. On occasions when i have been blown away by the food or the service that i or our group have received, i will always leave a tip but request that it goes to the person that saw to our every need whilst we were dining out in there establisment.
Thank Goodness there have been only a couple of times when we did not leave a tip. One time we waited and waited for our food and she finally got it out and the order was wrong. She forgot to put in the correct order and still didn’t comp our meal so she got no tip.
Another time the food was late, cold, and we didn’t find our waitress for a long time. We were asking other wait staff for the needed items and I guess she went on a break forgetting all about us. So it was a little tip.
I was at a restaurant and bit into a hamburger and got a mouthful of black hair. I sent it back and said I would still like a burger. The second time there was a cigarrette butt in it. We left without paying for our beverages or salads.
They called the police as we were leaving so we waited and I gave the hamburger to the police officer, no charges were pressed.
The place is closed now but I am very reluctant to send food back at any restaurant!
There was this time when my friend and I were in France at “the” place to be. Dinner served along with a floor show. The food was pretty good, the floor show great but I kept asking for water and was ignored. I don’t drink alcohol at all and it was flowing from patron to patron, believe me. The part that got me stewed up was the men who asked for water got it and I got nothing. That place was hotter (temperature wise) as the evening went on and I was sweating something fierce. I needed water, I knew I needed water and everytime I asked I was told “just a minute.” Well, two hours later, they got the tiniest tip from me I could give, the french version of a nickel. I’ve heard it is better to leave a tiny tip so the waiter knows you did not forget and that you meant the service was lousy.
I always tip but the amount or percentage of the tip will indicate my level of satisfaction regarding the service. If the service and/or food is not up to expectations I leave a minimum tip but always ask to speak to the manager. Without sounding too critical, I try to convey my disappointment in a professional manner. Usually we get (my wife and I) a free round of drinks. Sometimes, and this has happened on more than one occasion, we get a free gift certificate for a future meal for two.
@ Christina:
I would not allow any manager to demand a tip if the service was bad dueto the waitress then she didn’t deserve one. if the food was bad then blame the cooks.
I like the idea of tipping the busboy if he deserves it and the wait staff does not. I also like writing the reason for the lack of tip on the back of the receipt. Both are excellent ideas that I hope to never need to use.
There’s only been one time I’ve ever been upset enough that I didn’t want to tip. In high school, a group of my friends went to Disneyland to celebrate a birthday, and went to a local Mexican restaurant that my family loves when we left the park for dinner. The waitress saw a group of teenagers that was large enough to trigger the mandatory gratuity, and was literally awful. She was rude, she ignored us, and she was careless, nearly spilling an entree onto someone’s lap and getting upset *at him* for it.
What she didn’t realize was that the birthday girl’s parents were sitting in a booth nearby and saw everything. When we got our bill with the tip already on it, we were outraged and so were they. They went to the manager and complained on our behalf. He was very apologetic, and I believe he voided the charge.
I’ve never not left a tip. (Was a waitress for a short time). I have, however, left a nickel tip. Figured that got the message across.
Haha. Nice blog babe. You forgot that my food was cold. We would have complained had we ever seen our waiter. It wasn’t bad service. It was more like no service. Oh well. Food wasn’t worth the 3 hour walk, but the company was. :)
Joel, I now expect bad or poor service when i go out, it is a curse that follows me where ever I go. my wife comments on that fact all the time. when she goes out she gets great service, however when we go out together i get the worst service, wrong order arriving, wait staff never comes back etc. I never send my food back as i often hear horror stories of what the cooks can and do do to meals that come back, but i have had several conversations with managers, often with the waiter or waitress standing thee ti try to explain themselves. I’ll take their discount or zero bill, but no gift certificate, as i usually don’t go back.
Always speak to the manager when your visit is lackluster, good managers understand that word of mouth is their best / worst advertisement.
Michelle wrote:
Definitely have not left a tip before. Tips are suppose to be for good service and if you don’t receive it they don’t deserve it. Good for u!
Here in Australia its not necessary to tip at all. The price of the food is sometimes more than enough. But as for not this story, I wouldn’t have left a tip either.
A large group of us went out for dinner and drinks. Not only was the waitress inattentive, she actually told me that she wouldn’t bring me a glass of water because it didn’t cost anything. Everyone at the table was shocked and needless to say that glass of water cost her more than she knows as not one person at our table left her a tip after that.
Yep, I’ve also been so mad that I did not leave a tip. Me and my husband were dining out ay Chevys,and we make it through the whole meal with pretty good service. When we get ready to pay the bill our waiter and another waiter get into a little shoving match, and the drinks the waiter was caring landed on us. Both waiters started laughing, so NO TIP. My husband wrote them a nasty note on the check
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Hey, it’s Joel! So you want to know a little more about me, huh? Well, I’d be happy to oblige :-)
I guess it all started back in 2001 (my freshman year of college) when I was just a “skinny fat” 19-year old kid. At the time, I was spending close to 2 hours a day in the gym (now my workouts last about 30 minutes), and despite my efforts, you’d probably never guess I worked out a day in my life by looking at me...