My 2 cents.

When I went to Canada on my honeymoon I read that you should tip 15% so we did. We had a meal in a really expensive restaurant which came to about $300 (US Dollars) just for the two of us. We tipped 15% ($45) - which to me even on its own is a lot of money.

Do you still tip 15 or 20% even when the meal is really expensive (and there are only two of you eating)? I would assume in that sort of restaurant the waiters were paid quite well.

My question really centres on the question of scale. I can understand tipping 15 or 20% where there are four of you and the meal costs $100, but does this still stand when the meal costs a lot more (and there are less of you)?

Yeah, thanks and have a nice day.

Goliano: Oops.

I got stiffed by plenty of people, of all different kinds.

But I guess you’re too busy using that crutch of yours.

Before I begin, I’d like to state that my comments are made only to tipping practices in typical dining and delivery settings inside the United States, and with Reference to African American people mentioned herein, that term is to mean “Black Americans” (presumably) born in this country.

This subject came up at my office recently, and so I did a Google search hoping to find some answers. I will say that in the 6 years that it took me to work my way through college, I delivered Pizza for the same restaurant for 3 of those years. Now granted a small college town in East Texas is a bit of a microcosm, and many of you may think that my observations, which are just that, factual observations, may not be valid, so take them as you will. I delivered alongside a very culturally, sexually(meaning both gender and orientation), and racially diverse group, and we were a very tight crew. We all looked out for each other, and the only true animosity that existed was between this 7 foot tall red-headed guy named Erik (looked like the fat guy off super troopers) and this little short skinny piano-playing guy from turkey with long black hair named Burak (looked like Yani without the mustache). Over 3 years, delivering to parts of a population that was fairly static (natives) and parts that were ever changing (students), it became clear to everyone, because we all talked openly about it, that certain groups (on the whole, not every single member of that group), tended to follow certain trends in their views on gratuity.

We noticed several things, but the most noticeable were the following:
Among Student Patrons:
1. Female patrons tipped male drivers better than they tipped female drivers (harshly so).
2. Male patrons tipped female drivers better than they tipped male drivers, but still tipped male drivers fairly (with the exception of African American male student patrons)
3. African American Male students tipped the least % and also were most likely to not tip at all.
4. African American Female students seemed to tip about the same as female students of other ethnicities.

Among Permanent Townsfolk:
1. African American Patrons, regardless of gender or perceived social status (based on neighborhood and assumed socio-economic standing) tipped the worst % and had the highest % of not tipping at all.
2. Upper middle class to wealthy Caucasians tipped almost as little as African American Patrons, but rarely would abscond entirely on the tip.
3. Middle to lower middle class Caucasian families tipped the best across the board.

These observations were universally agreed and commented upon by all delivery personnel regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender, etc., and remained predictably stable over my 3 years.

I will relay one more set of observations before relaying my conclusions, though I concede they are second hand and from my little brother who worked his way through college waiting tables in a much larger city (Dallas) and 7 years after my college days. My little brother worked at Papadeaux’s for a brief stint, and then 3 forks until he graduated and went on the work in the IT Arena. Papadeaux’s has a very extensive African American Patronage (as it did when my wife worked at a Papadeaux’s in Houston in her early 20’s). They also have an insanely intensive server training program such that if you have worked at a Papadeaux’s and can get a positive reference, you are considered fit to work almost anywhere in the service industry. During his first two weeks, he got his service baptism under fire having tables pawned off on him that other servers did not want, and ended up waiting almost exclusively on African American Patrons. There is not need to wax poetic about how things went, so I’ll cut to the chase and say after two weeks, it was apparent to him that he could not afford to work at this restaurant, so applied and was accepted for a server position at 3 Forks due in part to his brief yet poignant experience at Papadeaux’s. He relayed that almost immediately, he was making some astonishing multiple of what his gratuity income had been at Papadeaux’s, but noted that he still had seemingly well to do African American patrons stiff him on the tip, or tip so little as to be insulting. For those of you who will say “well he was expecting it, so he didn’t try as hard,” don’t bother. My little brother is like the David Copperfield of waiting tables. If you asked for something, he’d be as likely to produce it from behind your ear with a waive of his hand as to take off on a dead sprint to retrieve it. He has an impeccable work ethic, and cannot resist a challenge, and to him, that’s what it was every time he was seated with an African American Patron, couple, or party. He would set out every time to disprove this “myth” which he failed to do all but a scant few times. We talked about it several times. These topics were always fascinating to us because we both grew up in a backwater small Texas town where racism is rampant even if under one’s breath, but our mother made good and damn sure that the local vernacular didn’t take hold with her two sons, and would lay a hand across any child’s mouth in the neighborhood, across whose lips a racial slur erupted. In our conversations, my brother expressed frustration not so much at the fact that it “did” happen, but due to his complete inability to understand “why” it happened.
Once he even commented that it seemed the harder he tried, the worse the gratuity. I am certain that this particular observation was more a product of frustration than unbiased observation, though he did mention that his frustration was no longer tied to his pay as the number of African American patrons was so low as not to adversely affect his pay.

The sad thing is that again, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation, these where occurrences common to, observed by, and commented on by the entire wait staff. They even had a code word for African American patrons. They called them “Canadians,” and until reading this entire thread, I had no idea that Canadians (proper) were such poor tippers. They would even make bets as to whether or not a gratuity would be given.

And not to meander into yet another retelling of yet someone else’s experience, but my wife reluctantly admitted the same having worked in the service industry for more than 15 years, and recounted for me multiple instances, whereby while working at Papadeaux’s in Houston, the Houston Rockets would come in and run up a huge tab. She said that they were rude, unruly, and so cheap that they even tried to walk a huge tab on one occasion. The one occasion that stuck out in her mind as being the worst example or best example of poor gratuity as it were, was a night were she had only the Rockets (as she could scarcely handle any other tables while catering to the demands of an entire sports team), they ran up a several thousand dollar tab and tipped her $20.00. They stayed from the beginning of her shift until closing, and that’s all she made that night.

Needless to say, there are exceptions to every rule, but we are talking about trends and averages, where after something happens enough it begins to emerge as a trend. When a group notices a trend that is, at least on the surface, associated with perceived poor behavior on the part of another group, the group whose undesirable behavior trend is being pointed out seems to pull out the word stereotype to attempt to invalidate the validity of the other groups observations, especially when the groups in question are disparate ethnic groups.

I think that there are several factors at play here, and I think they are difficult for us as a society to talk openly about because there are racists among us and when someone’s race is singled out as being bad about this or that, we become defensive. Since I have already rambled on quite a bit, I will attempt to be brief in describing why I believe a majority of African American People to tip disproportionately low for the level of service received, or not at all. I do not believe that African American people tip the way they do due to economic factors, or that he % that do is so small as not to merit mention. I believe that it can be summed up by one word with many many causes. Attitude. I believe that African American people (again, aggregate and on average, not every single African American Person) have an adverse attitude about tipping for several reasons which I will list here:

1. Adversity to paying more than is explicitly due because they feel they are somehow being duped by a “system” that has wronged them before.
2. Negative association and resentment at the idea of giving a person money out of their pockets for “serving” them, since at one time they were forced into service.
3. A marked lack of social grace due to lack of knowledge brought about by a lack of knowledge resources or role models.
4. The continued perpetuation (by African American Activists and Political figures) of the idea that some reparation or repayment is owed African American people today for the sins our current White America’s ancestors. I believe that this helps to perpetuate a since of entitlement, resentment for that demands of that entitlement not being met, and a lack of motivation in the current generation of young African Americans, while they wait for something external to themselves to change their situation.
5. The almost complete absence of an African American Middle Class, OR at least it’s absence in the media, if that is a perceptual blind on my part, I apologize, but ever since the Cosby show went off the air, there have been almost no beacons of middle class success to guide young African Americans. It seems to the casual observer that African American Children have very few places to look in order to know how to be successful unless you are a talk show host, an athlete, a musician, or a gangster. Those limited career paths are going to leave a lot of people feeling disenfranchised, forgotten, neglected and hopeless. All those things, especially hopelessness, breed poverty, ignorance, and sap the will of a people to have successive generations rise above the accomplishments of the previous generation. The African American community as a whole has stagnated, and for as long as free African American people have lived in the U.S. they still have not fully assimilated or integrated successfully in to American culture, because they reject it, presumably because they were rejected by it early on. Instead of integrating, they have spawned and embraced a fledgling subculture, which to a large extent is extremely unhealthy in it’s stances toward community (even amongst themselves), other ethnic groups, women, education, etc. By embracing the tenants of this subculture, generations of African American people are either knowingly or unwittingly (I have no way of knowing) assuring they they will not be employable due to education, their inability to user proper English in a business setting, their dress, demeanor, and attitude of hopelessness, entitlement, and disenfranchised-ness. The negativity of this subculture is compounded as those who woefully embrace it, also apply incredible pressure on those fringe members that would seek to abandon it in favor of things like an education, seeking out a mentor or role model, or basically doing anything to improve their situation, often times accusing those looking for a way out of “selling out” or not “keeping it real.” It seems to be a vicious cycle of feeling hopelessly locked outside of a system that you despise, yet that if you don’t eventually adopt, you’ll be locked into a pattern of failure that will entirely consume you and any hope of positive change.

I realize that I covered a lot of ground there, but if you really want an answer to the original question in this thread, I think it is important to get below the surface and understand the cause of the issue, not just banter back and forth about whether or not the symptom actually exists. Of course it does. That’s why there have been studies on it. That’s why you can search it on Google and find volumes of pages of comments about this singular subject. Given the pervasiveness of anecdotal evidence on the internet to the contrary, saying that this phenomenon does not exist is like saying that porn doesn’t exist. That part of the conversation is over and those denying are yelling blindly into the ears of a deaf giant. Quit trying to combat the FACT that this phenomenon exists, since doing so is fruitless, and do, if you do anything, what was requested in the original question. Try to address WHY it happens. That’s the hard part. Not sitting here finger pointing trying to tell someone that they don’t know what they know. It’s obviously not a matter of opinion as to whether this happens on a large enough scale to generalize that as an aggregate group, on average that poor tipping by African American patrons does in fact happen. Break a sweat, dig deep into uncomfortable territory, and do as I have done, try to get to the heart of the matter, the cause of the symptom, the answer to the question that was asked. You risk nothing going back and forth debating whether or not this happens. You risk everything when you give your opinion as to why it does. Take some risk, put some skin in the game and answer the question.

I apologize if my answer to this question, or my contribution to this debate has offended anyone, and it is my hope that by contributing, I have helped, if nothing else, to get people thinking and talking, instead of fighting.

I currently work in a place with nightly live music mostly jazz of a variety of favors. The city has a long history in jazz and blues and most of the performers locally are black. Our menu gets called soul food tho I consider it Southern as its the same food I grew up eating with a few plates being something my dad grew up eating like Oxtails.

Thus we see a large number of black guests. For example this past Friday night was slow and I had 8 white people and all the rest were black I would estimate them to total 30 people. It is common to wait a section where all your guests are black. We have on busy nights a 2 hour wait and the food is good enough folks will wait that long.

I first waited tables out in the country in college in a county full of dairy farms and a college so there I waited infrequently on Hispanic families from the dairy farms.

In my experiences the black tables are worse to wait on because they as a general rule tip least, are ruder, messier, the kids run amuck, and try to get something for nothing more often.

This can range from complaining at the drop of a hat to the manager and/or for no legitimate reason. I do this for a living IF I thing a table has a problem with me or the restaurant my manager is already on alert about the situation.

Other example is asking for a bourbon and coke lite ice and expecting more alcohol to replace the ice. Another is expecting wine glasses to be filled to the top. A legal wine pour in Texas in 5 oz on a red wine glass which most places use only, 5 oz is just above the widest point on the glass NOT the top of the glass. A less wide glass used for white wine is filled closer to the top than a red glass. Had this complaint just last night.

That all said I think personally I think some of the problems with black tables comes from a selfulfiling prophecy kinda thing. Servers expect to be tipped for shit. The guest comes in expecting to be treated poorly. Being a server is like working a triage station you devote your efforts on the tables that will gain you the most income we would be fools not to.

THUS the server devotes less of their time and focus on black guest whether its conscious or subconscious. The black guest picks up on the situation and gets aggravated and treat the server poorly. And it just perpetuates the cycle.

Kinda like the argument all guys are dogs and the dogs respond all women are bitches. And the dating games just keep going on and on…