Tipping for Carryout?

[tinytink]

Woof.

that is pretty offensive. What are you trying to imply????

 

[Califgirl]

That being said, even the little amount of "service" you recieve will be greatly improved with leaving even a $1-$2 tip

?? How will my service be improved after the fact, if I slip a buck or two into a tip jar??

I can see how tips from carry out might make your night, but I fail to see how they do anything to improve service for the customer.

 

[BethR]

that is pretty offensive. What are you trying to imply????

From the OP:

For our local chinese place, I tip ... but they give us a TON of free food. I don't know how they stay in business.

Woof.

I am not the OP, but my guess is that it was an answer to how the local Chinese place stays in business. Not the nicest thing to imply. But I would hope that it was in jest.

 

[reginaastralis]

that is pretty offensive. What are you trying to imply????

I was offended as well. I went to high school with the owner's daughter, so I "know" the family, they are hard working people who support a large number of family back home.

 

[goodeats]

If it's a place like Cheesecake Factory (a sitdown restaurant that's typical business is not carryout), I will tip around 10%. They took the time to box up all the food, including putting dressings/bread/butter/seasonings in separate containers. They put in utensils and extra napkins. While they don't provide full service they are certainly putting a lot of effort into it. I'm not sure if it's a regular waiter/ress doing it or a hostess, but I don't think 10% is too much for the extra services.

Now if I'm picking up a pizza for carryout I won't tip. I suppose I should tip if picking up chinese for carryout based on the assumptions above, but I don't.

 

[wishtdream]

From the OP:

I am not the OP, but my guess is that it was an answer to how the local Chinese place stays in business. Maybe you have never heard this, but some people will say (teasingly, I'm sure) that some Asian restaurants get their meat from the local pet population.

Many years ago when I lived in Matawan the health dept. shut down a Chinese place for this.

To the op as I have been a server and worked in the business I do tip and here is why, servers at full service or sit down restaurants in NJ (I don't know about where you live) usually are paid the federally mandated minimum wage for tipped employee's which is $2.13 per hour and has been since 1976. They are taxed as if they make at least regular minimum wage rate of $7.15 per hour weather or not they do and some of your chains that use computerized registers actually tax them on a set percentage usually about 15% of their sales
Often the Server prepping the to go orders (they often make your salad, ladle your soup, plate your dessert and make sure you have the correct entrée, side dish, condiments and utensils for your order) is rewarded (punished) for doing that job by receiving a short section of only one or two tables that they may or may not be able to attend to properly depending on how busy they are with to-go's. IMHO and that of most servers I know personally to-go's are usually but not always a thankless job.

 

[ComplicatedPink]

?? How will my service be improved after the fact, if I slip a buck or two into a tip jar??

I can see how tips from carry out might make your night, but I fail to see how they do anything to improve service for the customer.

I'm not sure if this is true of most sit down restaurants with carryout or just mine, but most of the time when the customer arrives the food isn't ready. I was implying that if the bill is paid for before the food comes out, you are more likely to be offered a free drink or other freebie. I feel that if i recieve a tip I should make sure the even the "little" service I do provide to the customer is the best that I can give. However, not all payment situations happen in this order so the level of service that can be provided is not always as high. But regaurdless of tip or no tip, I'm still going to wish you a good rest of your day and hope you enjoy your food.

 

[SharkyGoddess]

I dont tip on carryout orders (its costing me gas to go pick it up) and that is their job. They are doing what they were hired for- cook the food and package it and ring it up. I also dont tip when there are jars on the counter
How hard is it to make a cup of coffee and hand it to the customer, or scoop an ice cream cone and hand it over the counter? People do this everyday at fast food places without expecting a tip in a jar. Kind of makes me crazy to see tip jars.

DITTO

 

[Babboo]

Tipping for carryout??? Certainly not!

I started working in restaurants @ 12 (yes had a signed letter from my mommy and everything) and I have managed restaurants too.

Tipping someone just for doing their job is rediculous. There was no "service" involved. Do you get a bonus @ your job just for doing your expected duties?

Tips for wait-staff who actually service the table (this does exclude buffet - bringing a drink does not merit a 10% tip) then there is a tip based on the service and quality. Yes, the kitchen can have an off-night but it's the wait's responsibility to check before bringing the plate to the table (it's called QC). So if the food's not cooked properly - if the order is wrong - you bet it reflects in the tip.

Tipping the drive-thru / counter person just for handing me a bag of X - rediculous. I wish I had run into those who do.

 

[TruBlu]

When there is a seperate section for take-out do those people make a higher salary? Our local seafood restaurant has dedicated employees for take-out. They have a tip jar at the register and a tip line prints out on the credit card slip. I never know how much to tip them.

 

[cinamin27]

In my opinion, I am paying the "service fee" for anyone preparing my food AND boxing/bagging it in the fee set by the purchase price of the meal I am paying for.

If a restaurant is supposed to hire (as a previous poster said) a person to handle take outs & has not yet done so & is making the wait staff handle that, then they need to take that up with management, not by expecting their customers know that their management hasnt hired someone to do it yet.

Most all take out I do is handled by the cashier or hostess, both make more per hour than a wait staff person so I dont feel a tip is necessary. Most of the time the food is already boxed up by the kitchen, all they are doing is dropping it in a bag, and asking me if I need utencils or condiments.

 

[GraysMom]

About the "tip line" on the receipt, I think most major restaurant chains just have their receipt printers set up with the tip line automatically coming up for all orders (carry out, eat in, curb side, gift certificate). I know when I bought a GC at Ruby Tuesday's the other day that the tip line was on the receipt. BTW, I didn't tip since it took all of 2 minutes to complete the whole transaction, and their wasn't any gathering of food/condiments/utensils.

 

[dameodie]

I don't tip when I order carryout food. If I wanted to pay for sit-down service, I would have sat in the dining room!

I'd tip in a tip jar if I was a regular, but otherwise forget it.

 

[PghLybrt]

? for those of you in the industry.

I know my mom gets taxed for her tips. They assume a certain percentage of sales equals a certain amount of $ in tips. So if you ring up half of your nightly sales in carry out do you have to pay taxes for tips never received?

 

[Babboo]

? for those of you in the industry.

I know my mom gets taxed for her tips. They assume a certain percentage of sales equals a certain amount of $ in tips. So if you ring up half of your nightly sales in carry out do you have to pay taxes for tips never received?

That would depend on how the registers are set up. All the places I've worked the bar/cashier handled all the togo. Even if a wait handled the order it didn't go against their sales.

And for the record, waits are only taxed on a presumed amount of tips (8% of total sales) by the IRS, not counting for state taxes. Every place I've ever worked NO ONE ever reported full tips unless they wanted to cause problems.

 

[fun4me]

We don't carry out a lot except for pizza. We don't tip the person at the counter for our pizza. On Friday we did do takeout at a family owned business. When dh paid the waitress for our food he told her to keep the change--I am not sure how much it was though since I wasn't with him. Then she asked him if we wanted some extra dinner rolls and she went to the back and brought out two more take out boxes full of dinner rolls!!! I doubt she would have offered the extra rolls if dh didn't tip her. She already had our boxes sacked up and ready to go.

 

[PghLybrt]

That would depend on how the registers are set up. All the places I've worked the bar/cashier handled all the togo. Even if a wait handled the order it didn't go against their sales.

And for the record, waits are only taxed on a presumed amount of tips (8% of total sales) by the IRS, not counting for state taxes. Every place I've ever worked NO ONE ever reported full tips unless they wanted to cause problems.

Thanks! I was wondering.
Where my mom works, very old school. They report everything! (they do not have carry out though).

 

[mom2my3kids]

In my opinion, I am paying the "service fee" for anyone preparing my food AND boxing/bagging it in the fee set by the purchase price of the meal I am paying for.

If a restaurant is supposed to hire (as a previous poster said) a person to handle take outs & has not yet done so & is making the wait staff handle that, then they need to take that up with management, not by expecting their customers know that their management hasnt hired someone to do it yet.

Most all take out I do is handled by the cashier or hostess, both make more per hour than a wait staff person so I dont feel a tip is necessary. Most of the time the food is already boxed up by the kitchen, all they are doing is dropping it in a bag, and asking me if I need utencils or condiments.

This is why when I am busy I don't answer the phone..

 

[bumbershoot]

This is why when I am busy I don't answer the phone..

I understand being busy, but if answering that phone is one of your duties, then you aren't even doing all of your job. Not doing all of your job = don't deserve a tip. Nasty little cycle there.

And at my wait/kitchen/barmaid job, the ONE time we didn't answer that phone, it was ALWAYS the owner or one of his low-tipping cronies who expected the earth to be moved for them, and we would get in trouble for not answering the phone.

Not sure that's going to happen at an IHOP (where DH did tip the one time we got take out, which is a ridiculous thing to get b/c cold pancakes are awful), but it could.



About the Chinese restaurant thing...DH's family, when in Taiwan (dad was in shipping which is why they were there), got their very first dog, a standard poodle, b/c they saw it in back of the restaurant penned up with many other dogs. DH's mom saw it and offered quite a bit of money to buy it (the owners thought she was nuts for wanting it as a pet)... Might not happen in America all that often, but people are kidding themselves if they think it doesn't happen in the world. DH even tried that meat, unknowingly, in a soup when working in Singapore at 19. Didn't like it much, and his friend was very amused to have gotten him to try it. Speaking as a LONG-time vegetarian...animals are animals, and one culture's pet is another culture's food source.

 

[Mkrop]

It is funny bc I have been thinking of posting this for awhile now. Ok so if I got to say Applebees or Outback and I order curbside takeout, is that person a regular server who waits tables as well or is this person only hired for curbside duties? When I got it always seems to be the same young girl handling the stuff so if she is making the sane as the wait staff then i would probably tip but if this is her only job and she is paid more then I wouldnt. I guess I am still confused as to tip or not!