Pre-Tipping at Restaurants

I went out to dinner with a friend of mine a few nights ago and he "pre-tipped" the wait staff before our meal had started. I have never seen anyone do this before, and must say that it surprised me a little bit.

My friend, who also enjoys going to Vegas, equated it to dealers and table games. He stated that if you walk up to the craps table and start tipping right away, you will receive better service from the dealers and have a better overall experience at the tables. If you wait until you have finished playing and have colored up before you throw down a tip, you don't benefit from better service while you were playing.

So his idea is to "pre-tip" about 10% of the estimated cost of the meal up front. He stands up and walks away from the table and shakes the hand of the waiter or waitress with cash in his hand. He then says, "Please take really good care of me and my friends tonight. We are having a special evening, birthday, anniversary, etc." After the meal, he will tip another 7% to 10% (or a total of 17% to 20%). In otherwords, he does not tip any more then he would normally. He just splits it up into a pre-meal and post-meal tip.

I will have to say service at this restaurant was excellent and the wait staff was very attentive. Yes, it was a very nice place to begin with, so perhaps service would have been great anyway. Then again, the wait staff may have thought they would be getting a huge tip after the meal was over.

Your thoughts about pre-tipping at meals or pre-tipping in general.

Quote: Juyemura

Your thoughts about pre-tipping at meals or pre-tipping in general.

Definitely a dirty trick to wind up only tipping approximately the usual amount. Since some people do 20% anyway, I think that would be the least to do.

Of course, if you know you are never coming back, you'll get away with it [I tend to tip less if I know I am never to be seen again]

Yeah, he's pretty much tricking them into giving better service.

They probably think they will be getting a regular tip after the meal, and the beginning tip is just extra.

Two things:

I have a friend of a friend who starts by placing 20 $1 bills in plain view of the table and tells the server that is his/her tip, but if the service sucks, he will slowly take the dollar bills away. I find it akward to see the servers in this situation. They either don't care, and give him terrible service once he starts taking bills away, or they are constantly around make sure no more bills leave the table. I am not a fan of it.


I also worked at a restaurant growing up and found that people who are on vacation are sometimes terrible tippers. The thought process is, I am not going to be here again, and even if I am, it is going to be a while, so screw the server I ain't tipping!

I was not a fan of this type of behavior when I was a server, but now that I am the vacationer, if the server treats me like a tourist who isn't going to tip, I will make their reality, actual reality. I will always leave something, like say a $1, because I want them to know I didn't forget about them...

Pre-tipping is pretty common with parking valets, it seems to work well with them. Gets the car real quick when you come back out.

Quote: bw

Pre-tipping is pretty common with parking valets, it seems to work well with them. Gets the car real quick when you come back out.

Yup. Thats why it cracks me up that all these people
who say they hate waiting, love the self parking garage.
They hate tipping, not waiting. Also, when you pull
up and valet says the lot is full, just whip out an Abe
Lincoln and say 'I'm in room number 5' and it always
works like a charm.

Quote: EvenBob

Yup. Thats why it cracks me up that all these people
who say they hate waiting, love the self parking garage.
They hate tipping, not waiting. Also, when you pull
up and valet says the lot is full, just whip out an Abe
Lincoln and say 'I'm in room number 5' and it always
works like a charm.

True, I have never been turned away from a "full" lot when presenting a tip.

Quote: Maverick17

Two things:

I have a friend of a friend who starts by placing 20 $1 bills in plain view of the table and tells the server that is his/her tip, but if the service sucks, he will slowly take the dollar bills away.

Your friend sounds like a jerk.

My thought? Low class move unless you still plan leave another 20 percent at the end if everything was what you expected.

I have a granddaughter named BELLE STARR. Guess who named her LOL

And she is 13. Last week her and 2 of her classmates had grilled cheese sandwhiches, fries, soda and a $14 check.
But they had been in a booth 2 hours. Slow time, but still. She made the other girls chip in and left a $20
tip. Pretty KEWL Kid.

I also think the split tip without adequate explanation seems a little off and kind of "slimy".

If you really want to go this "pre-tip" route, give them the whole 20% expected tip up front knowing roughly what your tab will be and tell the staff this is your whole tip, we like to give it to you up front so you know that you are going to be properly compensated for great service.

Then you have to trust that they will earn what they have been given......my guess is that this would result in a great experience 90+% of the time. Most servers want to do a good job for those that appreciate good service. I may have to try that some time just to see what happens.

I have about ten years of waiting tables and tending bar under my belt. If someone was to pre-tip me 10% i would definitely still expect 20% at the end, and if I still worked at a place where I had to care about tip %, I would feel like I was tricked if the person only left 7% more. Also, if someone pre-tips they better be planning to spend some money, because if I was handed $5 at the beginning of a meal it would probably have an opposite effect. The only time I pre-tip is if I'm eating with people that I know are going to be a pain in the ass, and when I do it has no bearing on the tip at the end.

The dollar bill thing is just terrible. If it was me, the person may as well take the money and put it all away because the service received will be crap. Talking about tips to your waiter is not ok, joking about reduction of tips is not ok, saying I'll hook you up at the end, or I'll get you next time is not ok. Do it or don't, don't talk about it. It would be like if your boss decided to take some money out of your paycheck every time expectations were not met, it would be a good incentive to work hard, but very annoying to have someone hold over your head all the time.

One place that pre-tipping works really well, I hear, is the strip club. I've had several stripper friends tell me that if someone tips at the beginning of a private dance, it relaxes the girl because she is no longer worried about if she'll be tipped or not and gives a better dance.

On a side note, and I shouldn't be telling y'all this, spitting in food never happens, well, almost never. It's just a scare tactic to keep people from treating servers too badly. I've never seen it happen and only heard of it a couple times, and those times it had everything to do with something that happened outside of the restaurant, or a really terrible regular.

Quote: Miles1

The dollar bill thing is just terrible.

An article Experiments in Pre-Tipping .
The author also does the dollar bill thing, and after three experiments concludes that it doesn't increase the quality of service.

Frankly, I think the stack of dollar bills is ugly behavior.

I do like the idea of tipping an estimated 10% before hand. The waiter should not necessarily expect more than 20% overall, but at least he knows he is not going to get majorly stiffed.

Another reason is that if the service is truly awful, you can just walk away. The question of what to do with truly terrible service where the waiter doesn't even come to the table for 30 minutes at a time is a puzzle. I was convinced at one time to leave a nickel. The idea was that if you left a small tip people just think you are cheap. But if you leave a nickel, it is very clear what you mean. The waiter just followed me out the door and whipped the nickel at my head. In this case it is much clearer if you walk away leaving only the initial 10% pre tip.

A friend of mine had a father in law who was a food critic of the old school kind. He was completely imperious. He would summon the wait staff of a fine restaurant before the meal, and tell them that who he was and what he expected. If they met his expectations, he would give them a huge tip. If not they would receive a bare bones tip.