According to the U.S. Department of Labor, restaurants are only required to pay their servers minimum wage in seven out of the 50 states in America. The rest are paid less; in an overwhelming 18 states, employers are only enforced to pay $2.13 per hour to each of their waiters and waitresses. Kentucky is included in these 18.
Although common courtesy is the major motivation for customers to tip, it should not be the only reason you do so. Your waiter or waitress’s job only begins with serving your food. They prepare for service, wait on opinionated customers and clean up after you’ve soaked twenty napkins trying to stop a water spill. While this is their job and they should be delivering quality service to each and every diner regardless of the tip the receive, they deserve as much grace as they give you.
Receiving poor service is not acceptable. However, a more effective tactic to address this frustration is by adjusting the amount you tip, as leaving no tip at all might cause someone to assume you forgot instead of communicating that their service was ineffective. According to Washington Post food critic Tom Sietsema, “a gratuity of 15 percent of the bill tends to reward ‘average’ service and is considered a decent starting point for tipping.” In the same article, the Post noted that 20% is a good standard for average service in a full-service restaurant in the city (given the cost of living in D.C.).
After considering a starting point of 15-20%, you can adjust as you feel necessary. For incredible service, 25% is a good way to show your appreciation. For standard, “they did their job well” service, the 15-20% is fine. For poor service, 10-15% will suffice. Based on these amounts, the server will understand and have a more accurate depiction of how well they did their job. Along with this effective form of feedback, the server is not completely deprived of all income.
During our time in university, most of us are pinching pennies anywhere we can. When we aren’t, and decide to go out and treat ourselves to a nice meal, we are not typically considering including tip when adding up the cost of our night out. If you’re not already in the practice of doing so, I strongly suggest you start. Do not take the fact that you are only receiving the minimum wage of $7.25 out on your waiter or waitress, because now you know that they do not even make that. Next time you’re thinking about eating out, first consider whether you can afford the food and the service. In the event that you cannot, perhaps dine at a more affordable restaurant or keep saving and go next week.
