Quick Tip: 20%.

Tipping culture in the United States is broken, absolutely, but leaving a 5% tip — or no tip at all — won’t fix the system. From SUBWAY® to small bakeries, deli and bagel shops, cafés where regulars are called by name and their order is prepared before they even get to the front of the line, to catering, bartending, bussing, hosting, serving, prepping food and running (your sole job is to expedite the food from the cook line to the tables: all. night. long.), I’ve done a lot and seen a lot of what goes on across the industry. I’ve been working in food service since I was old enough to legally hold a job.

Some places don’t allow tipping. Others include the gratuity for you. Still others only add the tip to parties larger than 6, or 10, or whenever the server feels that the party won’t tip well on their own (super problematic for other reasons…).

Certain restaurant owners pay their staff the regular minimum wage of $7.25/hour, allowing tip jars to supplement this *livable* income that everyone working in the US is at least required to be paid (federal minimum wage), but most pay their tipped staff — servers, bartenders etc. — only $2.13/hour, which is legal, and expect them to make up the difference ($5.12) from their customers’ tips.

To put in perspective just how much your tip matters to servers: working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks of the year at the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour falls ten thousand dollars shy of the poverty line for someone supporting a family of four.

Women make better tips than men. They make even better tips if they wear a flower or barrette in their hair. Whites make better tips than people of color. Clothing choice, hairstyle, visible tattoos — cleavage — and piercings, among other things will all affect the tips you make, too.

It’s fair to say that tipping etiquette is a contentious issue, and it’s certainly not simple or obvious what to do and what is ‘right’. I can empathize with customers who have never worked in food service and just don’t know the difference it makes in their server’s livelihood when they leave a tip of 20% rather than 4%, a phone number, or rude comment about getting a “real job”. It doesn’t affect their livelihood directly, so why should they care? The tipping system is broken and leads to more corruption, and you aren’t expected to tip (in the same way) in any other country in the world, so why tip in America?

From the many conversations I’ve had, friends and family I’ve gone out to eat with, and articles I’ve read recently, I’m starting to wonder if people just don’t understand how the system really works (or doesn’t) in America. So here are a few insider thoughts I hope will make you think twice next time you’re confronted with these three little letters followed by a colon and a blank line awaiting your response:

1. The tip isn’t an overall evaluation of the restaurant. That’s what comment cards are for. And Yelp reviews. When you decide how to tip at the end of a meal, separate your feelings about the food/how fast you got it from the server, and tip based on how your server took care of you. Almost always you’ll realize they were working hard to ensure you had a pleasant experience. Tip: 20%.
2. Not tipping isn’t a cheap alternative to restaurant dining, it’s a low move and you’re server is the one who suffers. Because there is no guarantee that a customer will tip, there is limited stability in the wages that a server makes on any given day. Oh, and because our base pay is so low, the average paycheck we get for a 40 hour work week after taxes is somewhere between $20-$30. Tip: 20%.
3. Serving is a job, just like working in a lab or being a lawyer. When you leave your job after a day of obnoxious clients and decide to treat yourself to a meal out, don’t forget that you are stepping into the role of “client” of the servers and restaurant where you’re dining. Our team is cooking what you want to eat and cleaning up after you so you can enjoy a stress-free evening. Every day isn’t perfect, and we can hate our jobs just like you. At the end of the day, we’ve got to pay our bills and feed our families like every other working citizen in the United States and deserve to be treated with dignity and respect while doing our job. Tip: 20%.
4. Servers pay taxes on their tips, so we don’t actually pass go and collect $200 like many people think. Oh, and we also tip out the busser, host, bartender, dishwasher, and everyone else who was working that shift about 30% of what we made during the night, because they helped us (we are grateful), and that’s what management tells us to do (so glad you’re getting paid a real wage)… even though they are making at least three times as much as a server per hour. Tip: 20%.
5. Serving doesn’t require a college education, but it’s not an easy job. Servers internalize the menu, specials, and drinks list and the tastes, looks, textures, ingredients, and their own preferences toward each individual item on the menu so we can tell you what’s good when you ask, because you will. We have to know every vegan and gluten-free item offered, and what ingredients can be removed or replaced in every dish if asked because of an allergy. The server knows when food is coming out for table 8, the drink order from table 4 that needs to be placed with the bartender, and when it’s appropriate to go back to table 9 to take their order. On a busy night, servers can have sections of 6–8 tables, so if it takes us 3 minutes to notice that you ran out of ginger ale, know that we’re doing our best and haven’t abandoned you. Tip: 20%.

A few weeks ago, I was working a busy shift when a group of 10 people walked in to the restaurant without a reservation, hoping to sit down and eat. With no tables available, the hosts glanced around the restaurant and gave them an estimated wait time of 30–40 minutes. The party was gracious and wandered into an empty corner of the lobby to wait until a table became available. Meanwhile, the hosts set to work creating plans A, B, and C for how to accommodate the walk-in as quickly as possible depending on which tables finished eating first.

The restaurant I work at is small, with a capacity of 100–150 people depending on the season (there’s outdoor seating in the summer), so it can be challenging to find space for larger groups without reservations, but we do our best to meet the needs of our customers. Finally we were able to pull something together for the group of 10 and showed them to the table. It was a little cramped, but they were all seated together. I brought them their drinks while juggling the six other tables in my section, and placed their food order immediately, knowing they were probably extra hungry after waiting for so long to get a table.

Sometimes though, things take a while to cook. I checked in with the kitchen after placing the party’s order to find that there were more than a dozen food slips already in front of mine. While tending to my other tables, I kept an eye on the party, making sure they had the drinks they needed and everyone was at least as happy as you can be when you’re hungry. I apologized that the food was taking a while to come.

“It’s OK. We know you’re busy” is the reply I got from the table.

It’s small, but that statement comes with the acknowledgement that I am human and everyone in the restaurant is doing all we could to make sure they had a pleasant experience. Their food came out without incident, despite the long wait. They asked for a few extra things: napkins, olive oil and Parmesan cheese of which I happily provided them. That’s part of my job. Halfway through the meal the group ordered more drinks, but the bar had run out of out of the draft beer that some of them were drinking and they had to order something else. Not a big deal, but definitely an inconvenience. When the bill came, they tipped 20%.