A Question for People Who Serve in Restaurants

[Thipu1]

This is a small bone of contention among the people with whom I work.  I hope it will be an easy question for people who wait tables. I though this was the best place to go for an authoritative opinion.

We are paying for our meal on a credit card.  Should we add the tip to the charged bill?  Would the waiter be better served if we left the tip in cash?

Please, let us know! 
 

[Chocolate Cake]

Are you wondering if servers prefer cash because, without the written documentation of the credit card charge slip showing what they received for tips, they would have an easier time not claiming all their tips so to avoid having to pay as much in taxes?

[Clara Bow]

Ouch! I was a waitress and I claimed my tips!
To tell you the truth I had no preference. When we rang up credit card orders we were given cash from the till for the tip overage on the slip. So either way you slice it you got your tip. The other nice thing about getting your tip on a credit card was that if there was going to be loose change involved you didn't have to go hunting through the trash on the table to get it. And no wet or sticky bills.
So I never minded either way.

[Rei-chan]

Leave it however you are paying (cash, cc, whatever).

This was mentioned on another thread (maybe the old board ?), and I am not condoning this, just explaining a possible reason for the behavior......

I waited tables for 10 years.  In the myriad of restaurants I worked at, the reason most gave for preferring cash tips was so they could fudge their taxes.  The idea that they "get their money that night if it is in cash, and if credit it takes longer" is usually crap.  In every single place I have ever worked, I got all my money that night regardless of the payment form.  The only time that varies (in general) is when the server is working in a tip out function (IE: a bartender) where said person gets a percentage of the other servers' tips.  This is usually paid the next day after all tip outs have come in.

Credit tips are automatically reported when the check is paid.  Cash tips are put in based on what the server tells the computer when they clock out.  The total is reported in by the workplace.  Most server checks (at least in my part of the world) are generally next to nothing or void checks because of the taxes taken out.  Therefore, servers generally end up owing in April on their returns.  In the higher end places I worked in, some servers would owe somewhere around $600 to $1000 dollars to the government at tax time.

Do what you will when tipping, whatever you are morally comfortable with, but I tip the way I pay.  Cash for cash, credit for credit.  If you want to "serve" the waiter/ress best, then leave at least 20% for great service, and they will appreciate that. 

Hope that wasn't too long winded........

[aloe]

This is probably a silly question, but it's something I've wondered about.  When I leave the tip on the table, the server sees it and connects the tip with me.  If I leave it on a credit card when I pay at the register, when another employee processes the transaction, sometimes I worry about the server seeing nothing on the table and thinking maybe a) I didn't leave a tip or b) he/she won't connect me with the tip I left.  So, I prefer to leave it on the table as cash when I pay for the meal with a credit card.  Does this make any sense? 

I like to pay 20% tips.

[Rei-chan]

This is probably a silly question, but it's something I've wondered about.  When I leave the tip on the table, the server sees it and connects the tip with me.  If I leave it on a credit card when I pay at the register, when another employee processes the transaction, sometimes I worry about the server seeing nothing on the table and thinking maybe a) I didn't leave a tip or b) he/she won't connect me with the tip I left.  So, I prefer to leave it on the table as cash when I pay for the meal with a credit card.  Does this make any sense? 

I like to pay 20% tips.

I wouldn't worry about it aloe.  When I had that happen to me as a server, I went and checked the slip at the cash out, so I knew who tipped and therefore didn't worry about it later.

[Twik]

I don't know if it matters to wait staff. However, I had a friend who was a chambermaid, and she said she'd been told numerous times by customers that "The tip will be on the credit card", but she never saw a dime. They might all have been, um, forgetful, but she assumed that the hotel simply pocketed everything. THerefore, I always leave cash for the chambermaid.

[aloe]

Thanks for your replies.

[Amitisoo]

For me it's all the same. Most people ask if I get to keep my tips when they are put on a cc and I inform them yes. Sometimes I don't like it when they leave a cash tip and pay with a credit card because my boss thinks I didn't get a tip and wonders why.

I do love the people who leave a tip over 20% on credit and I have to get my boss to put in the supervisor password to clear it.  "Oh boss I need you to clear 5 large tips. Wow you must be doing well!"

[VorFemme]

It has been over twenty years since I worked as a waitress (college).

I got cash from the cashier if the tip was left on the credit card.  I got cash off the table if it wasn't (although I have heard stories of customers, kids, or other people at the restaurant picking up all or part of the cash that was "forgotten" on the table).  I don't know if it is true or not - but I have had a few elderly couples (of an age to have gotten married & raised a family during the Great Depression of the 1930s) who would tell me that they left a "big tip" only to find less than a dollar in change on the table.  Prices did go up from the 1930s to the 1970s.  They went up even more since then..........I have noticed over my 31 years of marriage.

I have noticed that a standard tip of 10% with 12% for great service has gone up to 15% for standard service with 18 to 20% for great service.  Ten to 12% is what seems to be expected to be left at a serve-yourself buffet for a "waitress" who keeps your glass filled, picks up the empty plates once in a while, and drops off clean plates as long as your party keeps making trips back to the buffet.

Granted, I don't live in New York City - where I understand the minimum tipping level needed to keep the wait staff's bodies & souls together would run a lot higher in $$$ and %%% than the level needed in the West Texas college town where I learned to wait tables, lo these many moons ago.  But doubling the percentage?  And trying to go to 2.5X of what it was (25% tip is a hefty surcharge - at any price range of restaurant!).

[aloe]

Maybe it's a tad nutty, but I place the money for the tip under a glass or halfway under a plate to discourage someone from easily swiping it before the server gets to it.   

[PoisonIvy]

I used to waitress, and in our establishment, the tip amount on the credit card slip was taken from the till and put straight into the tip jar, then divvied up at the end of each shift.  However, I've heard that it is not unusual for credit card tips to be pocketed by the establishment, and often the servers don't see a dime, or they get a set percentage (which may or may not work out in their favor).  I've heard of this happening in respectable looking places, not just dodgy looking dives.  Therefore I try to tip cash if possible.  A couple of times when tipping by credit card I asked the server (discretely) if the tip money would go to the staff.  It may be a bit shaky ground etiquettewise, but on both occasions the servers seemed to know why I was asking.

[Rei-chan]

I used to waitress, and in our establishment, the tip amount on the credit card slip was taken from the till and put straight into the tip jar, then divvied up at the end of each shift.  However, I've heard that it is not unusual for credit card tips to be pocketed by the establishment, and often the servers don't see a dime, or they get a set percentage (which may or may not work out in their favor).  I've heard of this happening in respectable looking places, not just dodgy looking dives.  Therefore I try to tip cash if possible.  A couple of times when tipping by credit card I asked the server (discretely) if the tip money would go to the staff.  It may be a bit shaky ground etiquettewise, but on both occasions the servers seemed to know why I was asking.

I have never heard of the establishment keeping cc tips....I'm not sure how they could, especially if the server does the cash out as well, instead of a register at the front or something like that.  For us, we had not only the nifty little printout at the end of the shift that listed sales, tips, etc, but we also had the actual cc slips, so we knew how much to turn in and how much to keep.......the whole idea of a restaurant pocketing the cc tips seems impossible to me the way most POS systems are set up......I'll have to look into this with my friends that still serve.....

[Thipu1]

Thanks everybody for your informative posts.  We really hadn't thought about the tax angle.  The question we had was whether the server gets tips more quickly with cash. 

[Sophia]

I had an ex-bf (aka mistake) who would ONLY tip by cash handed directly to the waiter.  so annoying.  Most restaurants give you your tips from the CC's at the end of the night.  The only difference is that management then knows how much ( maybe good, maybe bad), and you get larger bills.