What's the rule for tipping if order a much higher than usual priced menu item?

jzmtl wrote: ↑ Wondering what you guys would do in a situation like this.

A restaurant is mostly priced between $20 and 30, however we would like to try a specialty item from their menu which could be more than $200. It seems would be ridiculous that I would still tip the regular 15~20%, which would end up more than many actual food menu.

Would you still do the percentage or scale it down proportionally?

Stuff like this is one of the reasons I just don't eat out much anymore. Don't like being guilt tripped because of our dumb tipping culture. Not to mention the prompts for 18/20/25 on tax and higher menu prices. Eating out is so much more enjoyable with a set price like they do in many other countries.

Think that covers tipping without answering your question! Lol. If I did what you're saying I'd probably scale it back a bit.

You tip a %...dont like it? don't order the $200 item

xxxray wrote: ↑ You tip a %...dont like it? don't order the $200 item

Please stop making it seem like tipping is some law or rule. It's a social norm that is VOLUNTARY and is supposed to be based on good SERVICE, not based on the food you order. The amount one tips is also voluntary (should they choose to).

Tip what you want or don't - why ask strangers who are all going to have different opinions. There's tons of threads on this topic - not sure why OP thinks he needs to start another one.

I always tip 10% of the AFTER TAX total, as long as everything is good.
Unless I am in one of those force tip restaurants. Then I just pay what I see and rarely return.

can you do takeout of this ? win-win

booblehead wrote: ↑ can you do takeout of this ? win-win

Wish I could lol, it's something I really don't care for but wife wants to try.

Anyway, it's just curiosity about what others would do in this particular situation, since I can't stand up in the restaurant and poll people.

I wondered about this too. It takes the server as much effort to bring me a $10 burger as it does a $50 steak. Why does the tip go up just because the food costs more?

At a mid end restaurant, it's basically hi here's a menu, your drink, your app, your entree, how are things, here's the bill, and you're gone. 15-20% is "expected"

There's AYCE where they bring you plates (ie Sushi/Hot Pot) where you order 80 different plates and they're at your table 3x as much clearing etc and 10% is "normal" because it's Asian.

Then as with OP, it's no more effort bringing you a $10 appetizer over a $200 whatever. It's (probably) more work for the kitchen, but they get a pittance of the tip so it's not even worth tipping more for that. If anything, tip your normal amount without the high end dish, then buy the kitchen a round of beer.

At least nowadays the rest of the service staff get a share. Back in my day it was FOH only. BOH got squat.

death_hawk wrote: ↑
At least nowadays the rest of the service staff get a share. Back in my day it was FOH only. BOH got squat.

Haha, back when I worked in a pizza place as a teen, we hated those orders that split a single pizza to two completely different orders down to the sauce.

If I am going to a high end restaurant, then I account for the additional tip for more expensive items. I generally do 18-20% for most restaurants high end or not. I figure if they are higher in price, they get a higher dollar value anyways. Though I went to a top restaurant recently, the food was great, but I was a little off put that they flipped their tips % on the machine. The top button was 30% and I had to look for the 20% or the % button. I was a little annoyed because the bill was already $500 and asking for 30% was a little much.

As others said, tipping is just a social norm. I also will not go out with dinner with people that try to rip off tips.

jzmtl wrote: ↑ Wish I could lol, it's something I really don't care for but wife wants to try.

Anyway, it's just curiosity about what others would do in this particular situation, since I can't stand up in the restaurant and poll people.

I'll try to shorten this story for you.
A lifetime ago I worked as a room service waiter in a fancy downtown hotel.
A couple ordered 2 steaks and a btle of red wine, total bill was like $100. They gave me a $30 tip.
The next night the same couple ordered the same 2 steaks, but ordered a $750 btle of wine. Total bill was $830 ish (give or take). The tip was again $30.
My fellow waiters thought I was cheated out of a big tip and although I would have loved to have gotten the 15% or so, I also looked at it as I did the exact same amount of work for both orders, just the second night the bottle was much more expensive. I did the same presentation as the $30-$40 btl the night before and I was happy at the 30% ish that I got the night before.

If the $200 item isn't going to be something that the server will have to kill themselves over to make then I would tip a bit extra (many restaurants still have a tipout which comes out based on the total of the bill but don't go crazy on it.

UrbanPoet wrote: ↑ Yeah. But just imagine this. Start tipping $0 @ all your restaurant visits.
Now tell all your friends, co-workers and boss that you looooove tipping $0.00 @ sit down restaurants and that you do it all the time. How tipping is just a social custom. Its not illegal to not tip. And you have the right too. Thus you exercise that right.
Make sure too tell people in real life. People you know in flesh and blood.
Tell your gf/wife this. Or if youre single… make sure you do this on all dates and tell your prospective dates.

See what happens.
You’ll be shunned and ostracized!

Honestly, this is such poorly formed argument that I wasn't even going to bother responding. At any rate, it's your choice to live your life based on fear of what others might think and say rather than based on your values and principles - to each their own.

Tip if you want, what you want or don't tip or don't eat out. Point is - do it because you want to not out of obligation. It's not that complicated.

oh good, another RFD tipping thread!

This should go well.

Tipping is based on percentage. Whether the meal is $10 or $10,000, the tip is still the percentage of the total. You can decide how much to tip depending on level of service, tipping is way over-rated.

carmaster wrote: ↑ Tipping is based on percentage. Whether the meal is $10 or $10,000, the tip is still the percentage of the total.

That's kind of the point of the post though.

Take @sherman51's story above.

2 steaks and a $30 bottle of wine then 2 steaks and a $700 bottle of wine.
In terms of labor for literally everyone involved it's identical. The ONLY difference is that the restaurant (which sees none of the tip) has to carry a more expensive inventory item.
The cook is cooking the same steak, sherman is prepping the same service cart/opening the wine/pouring it/etc, and is doing the exact same thing in both situations.

It doesn't make a lick of sense to me that sherman should get $240 for doing the exact same job as the $30 job.
I could *maybe* argue that if the guest had questions about the wine, but he made it sound like they ordered off the menu and he was there to dispatch it.
Even then... that's a $200 question. He'd better be the top wine expert in the world for answering anything for $200.

It'd be different if the $800 check had 2 steaks, wine, dessert, apps, another wine, a couple drinks, 12 waters, and an under table handy, but doing the exact same thing for 2 WILDLY different payments is just... weird.

Social custom (and his coworkers) for some reason dictates otherwise though.