Gary Barlettano wrote:Ah, again Neil, some capitalist exploiters are indeed smart and invest in legislation. Although it depends upon the specific state of the U.S.A., under federal law tipped service personnel do not have to receive minimum wage. The U.S. Department of Labor tells us that tipped employees are those who customarily and regularly receive more than $30.00 a month in tips (divided by the generally applicable 4.3 weeks in a month, this equates to $6.98 a week). The employer may consider tips as part of wages, but the employer must pay at least $2.13 an hour in direct wages. So, a 40 hour work week and a minimum tip receipt of $6.98 equals the potential for a whopping $92.18 in gross pay weekly. I believe in my chosen domicile of California even tipped employees enjoy a minimum wage which exceeds federal standards.
But Gary the law states that wage and tip must normally equal $7.25hour. Tipped employees must at least average 5.12 hr in tips to be paid the minimum.
Back to original question. I typically tip 20% in restaurants. I tip on entire bill, but generally do not order expensive bottles of wine- $40-60 is my comfort zone. On very rare occasions I might order a bottle that sells for $100-200, usually because it's a slamming deal at some place like Kittle House. I suppose on those occasions where a single bottle of wine was as much or more than food cost for both Betsy and I, might do the old NYC "double the tax" bit and tip 17% on total- while 20% has become the norm, enough people (older especially) do 15% I wouldn't feel I was screwing waiter. But in general I still feel that if I can afford the wine, I can afford the tip. I will say that if some rich guy spends $200 on food for two, and $500 on a bottle of wine, and tips $90 (20% on food, 10% on wine) the waiter shouldn't complain too hard.
One thing I feel strongly about it is that the flip side is this discussion is a little cheap to tip 20% if management extends some special corkage deal (and winestaff does wine service- if it's an offline type situation where we open/pour/decant our own, then 20% is fine). I don't think one neccessarily has to tip as if you had ordered same wines off a list, but time to go over 20% for sure.