In my quest to use my money more awesomely, it doesn’t always mean saving money every which way. Sometimes that means spending more money to fix a system out there that is broken. This is one of those instances. Introducing the most brilliant system of tipping ever invented!
Restaurant workers are underpaid, can we all agree on that? The NRA (National Restaurant Association, not the other one) has somehow convinced us over the years that tipped workers don’t deserve much money. The federal minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour. Two bucks! States can institute their own minimums over the $2.13, but many don’t. I’m looking at you, deep south!
But the federal government also requires the “normal” minimum wage to be paid to workers who don’t receive over $30 in tips in a month. Oh, how generous! $30 is not a high threshold. That’s $7.50 a week. That means if you work five days a week, and make $1.50 in tips each day (which would be an insanely slow day, by the way) you’re just getting the $2.13 hourly, plus the tips. Per hour, that $1.50 in tips is 19 extra cents per hour.
Doesn’t the person who brought you 8 whole fried fish deserve a living wage?
I know, most tipped workers make much more than that, but hypothetically, you could end up being paid $2.32 an hour, and that’s perfectly legal. Ugh. Nowhere in the country is this enough to pay for shelter, food, and utilities. In other words, most food servers in America would be destitute if not for the kindness of their dear customers, the douchebags, jerkwads, and assholes included. This is a huge problem, but this is the reality of the world with which we’re presented, so it looks like we have to solve it on our own.
I don’t eat out much, but when I do eat out at a diner or somesuch, the bill might be pretty low. Low enough that a 20% tip might be a dollar or two. If you have a few tables like that, waitstaff still might not even crack the federal minimum wage for non-tipped human workers. And what if the restaurant is empty? Forget about it. In the case of small bills, I usually go far over 20%, but it is a frustratingly inexact science.
Since everyone seems to tip as a percentage like this, the problem as I see it is at the low end, at the cheap restaurants. Twenty percent at a steakhouse is much different than twenty percent at a diner. And yet, they’re doing about the same amount of work. You’re getting your order taken, food brought to you. They even re-fill your water glass like you’re some kind of emperor! I don’t eat out at fancy places, but I imagine they’re not putting a bib on you, or cutting up your food for you, extra work that might necessitate a higher tip. Something has to be done to correct for the fact that waitstaff might be tipped too little based on the low cost of the food they’re serving.
Yum. Worth a tip.
So I came up with a plate-based system. It works like this. Consider your entire meal and tip:
$1 for a drink $2 for an appetizer or dessert
$3 for an entrée
This is regardless of the time of day (breakfast vs. lunch vs dinner). And yes, water counts as a drink. Is it less work to put the cup under the water faucet instead of the sody-pop faucet? No.
I differentiate between appetizers and entrees because entrees are more likely to have more than one plate, side dish, etc., where an appetizer is usually just one plate, so the tip amount is higher for the entree. If you apply this system to different restaurant bills, you’ll see cheaper restaurants get much larger tips, while the hoity-toity places’ tips dip dramatically.
Here’s three examples:
| Diner Lunch | Diner Dinner | Expensive Place | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shared appetizer | $5.00 | $11.00 | |
| Entrée | $7.00 | $11.00 | $22.00 |
| Entrée | $8.00 | $12.00 | $21.00 |
| Dessert | $3.00 | $9.00 | |
| Drink | Water | Water | $7.00 |
| Drink | Water | Water | $7.00 |
| Total Bill | $15.00 | $31.00 | $77.00 |
| 20% Tip | 3.00 | 6.80 | 15.40 |
| Tip By Plate | 8.00 | 12.00 | 12.00 |
| Tip By Plate % | 53% | 35% | 16% |
Tipping by plate yields a 53% tip on that cheap lunch, and 35% on the cheap dinner. Nice! (My perception of an “expensive place” might be comically outdated. Do many entrees go for much more than $20? I don’t know.)
Here’s another benefit: For our math averse readers, I think it would be much easier to add up a tip that is plate-based than it is to calculate your desired percentage. You simply count on each plate ordered. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… and then the numbers that come after 9. That’s it!
Thank you for that applause. No really, thank you. You’re too kind. Thank you. I didn’t do this for me, I did it for America. Please, no, I’m just trying to help. Thank you. Thank you…