I used to be a waiter back in the day, so I’m pretty sensitive to this. But I just enjoyed a delicious meal at one of those joints where you go up and get your own food and bring it back to the table… meaning I had to already do half the work. The server still brought drinks and some side items.

So, what do you tip in that situation?

I know some states auto-calc that a server will collect 15% tips based on his/her receipts for the night. So you wanna be careful about not taking money away from someone unless they were simply horrendous (by tipping less than 15%).

And sure, a lot of folks just tip 20% regardless. But I happen to like rewarding people with my hard-earned cash by putting some thought and criteria to the tipping situation.

Topics: restaurants, gratuity, tipping, cheapskate, waiters, fat cat, working hard for the money, waitresses, waitstaff