The Jazz Kitchen Bill Cluster Fornication

[Alex]

A story. I'm am of course not accusing anyone there of similar behavior. It just triggered the memory. (But seriously, I blame scaeagles.)

Back in my first year of college a high school friend was at the same school but in a different room. He shared a pod five people and I hung out with them a lot. A pretty nice group of people. Every few weeks we'd all eat out together at table service restaurants.

One of the guys frequently forgot something at the table or would use the bathroom and tell us he'd meet us out front, etc. But we never thought anything of it until one night late in the year another member of the group did forget his sunglasses and went back in just in time to see our fine friend stealing the tip we'd all left. And we realized he'd been doing it all year long.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

My personal rule in groups is to take the raw cost of my food and add 25%. It's the easiest amount to figure, and covers tax as well as a higher than 15% tip, regardless of which county you're in. And then most of the time I'll round up to the nearest dollar.

My personal rule is to take the bottom line total and add 20%. 20% is easier to figure than 25% (IMO - 10% is easiest and just double that) and it keeps things safe. Again, I know not everyone agrees with this, but it is my policy.

Unless on the rare occasion I get bad service, I would rather give too much than too little. This holds true especially in places where I go repeatedly (lunch for example). My regular lunch partner and I have a couple of places we frequent and we can always count on great service and extra perks.

Originally Posted by SzczerbiakManiac

On a side note, have restaurants stopped automatically adding gratuity to large parties? Did something happen to make them change that policy?

As Lisa mentioned, Jazz Kitchen is the oddity that does NOT automatically add the tip to large groups (though will upon request).

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

My personal rule is to take the bottom line total and add 20%. 20% is easier to figure than 25% (IMO - 10% is easiest and just double that) and it keeps things safe. Again, I know not everyone agrees with this, but it is my policy.

Wait wait wait.

That's a 22% tip.

When we're talking #s like $730-$800, a few percent is pretty important.

It's clear that not enough money was left. But based on that, $120 I think is somewhat exaggerated. I just looked more closely at your math above. You did 20% of the nearly $800 AFTER TAX amount, coming up with $160 - the $40 in change.

Well, the before tax amount would have been $730. That would mean a tip of between $109-$146 (15-20% of $730). Figuring that everyone's fudge factors are a little different, $125 would be a reasonable tip assumption. Take away the $40 that was there, and it's $85 of shortage.

That's a fair bit different than $120 and is approaching a range that looks more like collective and bad estimation than incompetence and/or thievery.

Again, it's still egregiously under paid, but it's far from as bad as your decision to leave a more-generous-than-societally-agreed-upon tip makes it seem. I'm not saying that a 22% tip is unreasonable, especially considering the lengths they went to to accomodate us, I'm just saying that it's unlikely that most people had 22% in mind when doing their math.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Did everyone miss this? Emphasis mine.

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Well, the before tax amount would have been $730. That would mean a tip of between $109-$146 (15-20% of $730). Figuring that everyone's fudge factors are a little different, $125 would be a reasonable tip assumption. Take away the $40 that was there, and it's $85 of shortage.

That's a fair bit different than $120 and is approaching a range that looks more like collective and bad estimation than incompetence and/or thievery.

THANK YOU to my husband for figuring this out.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

Did everyone miss this?

Not at all. It's just that now I don't know whether to send Kevy $10 or $6.32.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Alex

One of the guys frequently forgot something at the table or would use the bathroom and tell us he'd meet us out front, etc. But we never thought anything of it until one night late in the year another member of the group did forget his sunglasses and went back in just in time to see our fine friend stealing the tip we'd all left. And we realized he'd been doing it all year long.

C'mon Alex: you're among friends. You can admit that it was you who was going back to pilfer the tips to support your drug addiction.

[Strangler Lewis]

As a former waiter, I'm going to guess that the restaurant's policy not to add a gratuity on is because the park is an international tourist destination and folks from other countries have different views on the matter.

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

As a former waiter, I'm going to guess that the restaurant's policy not to add a gratuity on is because the park is an international tourist destination and folks from other countries have different views on the matter.

Except that all of the other restaurants in DTD DO add gratuity for large parties.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by Strangler Lewis

I'm going to guess that the restaurant's policy not to add a gratuity on is because the park is an international tourist destination and folks from other countries have different views on the matter.

Good enough assumption, but this just happens to be a restaurant with cool policies. For their first year of operation, there were no children allowed. Certainly this had nothing to do with the Disney International Tourist Destination. It was just awesomeness for its own sake.

[mousepod]

I wasn't there, and if you're offended by my attitude, I'm sorry in advance...

After reading close to 100 posts about this dinner, it strikes me that this is precisely why I loathe these kinds of situations.

When I'm out with friends, I find that there's nothing easier than getting one bill, adding the tip, and dividing it by the number of people in attendance. Sure, there might be one person who only ate the bean dip appetizer and another who had 10 mixed drinks, but over time with a group of friends these things tend to balance out. If someone's short on cash, there's generally someone else who will cover for them, and if someone needs to leave before the check arrives, they will leave what their estimated cut is and then will owe or be reimbursed shortly. No headaches, no hassle.