How To Tip In A British Restaurant

Ideas of percentage are what the problem is, I feel. I'll give a few quid to a waiter (I hardly eat upper-class anyway, so it's fairly good proportionally) if it's a good service. The 'Don't tip, don't eat there again' makes a fair bit of sense, though to be fair sometimes it's an individual person's fault (a bad waiter, perhaps), and not representative of the establishment. Particularly given society's apparent fear of criticising anyone in particular (bad service? Say something!), the least we can do is not tip a bad service. As an aside, 'teehee' at the To Insure Promptness, and its wrongness. Though it is nice to think that one of society's most honoured customs comes from bribing people. But good god, America is screwed up, if only in that regard. It's like stealing someone's car because they have feet.

Not tipping is a sure sign of poor breeding. I would be embarraced to leave a restaurant having tipped less than 10%.

Who paid for this video - some association of British Waiters? In Britain we not routinely tip as service is included in the price. Why pay twice? We only tip for exceptional service - not the day-to-day stuff. So please, visitors to Britain, don't get ripped off by spoof videos like this. This truly is bunkum!

Fair enough if waiters have to live off of the tips in the USA, but in the UK tipping should be optional regardless, you shouldnt be expected to give extra money if the resturant was below average, even if it isn't the waiters fault. Many different reasons for not tipping could include: waiting a prolonged amount of time to actually get a table, crap food, over priced food that could easily be matched from a ready meal at Tesco's (therefore its crappy, again), bad service, prolonged waits for food/drinks/orders... basically any kind of mess up you could possibly think of.

Depends where you live. In America a 20% tip is the average as waiters have to live off tips. In the UK waiters get wages appropriate to their skill so the tips are generally lower. Non british readers might be interested to learn that in the UK, at bars/pubs, it is a courtesy to offer the barman a drink if his/her service has been kind and punctual. The barman may then accept the drink (which he will have after hours) or take cash as an alternative (adding the cost of the drink to the bill). Bottom line, tipping is expected if you don't then you are a miser and likely to be poorly treated if you return to that establishment. As the text/vid says, "if you doN't tip don't go back to that place". To Oclarus: Yes, tipping is optional in the UK but I would NEVER not tip and then expect the same level of service the next time I returned to that restaurant. Tipping IS a way of showing your gratitude for good service and showing gratitude for a service received is the height of good manners and central to what it means to be British. You SIr, if you do not tip are a bad example of a British person. Shame on you. Also check out Waiterrant if you believe that 20% is not the normal USA tip level.

To the people that think TIP used to stand for 'To Insure Promptness'. Suggest you look up 'insure' and 'ensure' in the dictionary.

No, nakorafree, you're wrong, the average tip here is 15%, 20% is a higher tip. And in the US, you can leave tips with cash, you don't have to just use credit cards.

I agree with the guy below. Food is cheaper in america so they can afford to tip waiters. and because waiters get paid minimum wage (which i assume is more that what US waiters get), they shouldnt be tipped as much. People shouldn't feel pressured to tip, and they deffienetly shouldn't be told how much to tip. They should just tip anything they want... whether thats nothing or a large amount, i thank you...