Please answer the following question in the comments section.
“When you think of bad tippers, what brand of car comes to mind?”
List the brand of the car fIrst, followed by your reasons for saying so. This should be interesting!
Please answer the following question in the comments section.
“When you think of bad tippers, what brand of car comes to mind?”
List the brand of the car fIrst, followed by your reasons for saying so. This should be interesting!
Prius.
The people that drive these cars parrot on about how they are ‘saving the planet’ and then, since they have done such a WONDERFUL thing, cut you off in traffic and generally act like complete morons on the road and even walking through a parking lot because they are so self absorbed – just like a crappy tipper.
Hummer, because people who drive hummers are stereotypically pretentious douchebags. Plus who has money to tip when filling up that thing’s gas tank every 2.5 miles?
Cadillac
Lexus
Mercedes
BMW
Those were always the ones I dreaded seeing out the window when I worked food service.
BMW!
I tend to think bad tippers drive great cars. Beemer, Benz, Jag. Maybe it’s holding on to their money that has allowed them to have money, but generally speaking people who have a lot seem stingier than those who have little or nothing. Some of the poorest people can be the most giving.
Instinct – tipping is a recurring issue on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Larry David seems to be a pretty ordinary tipper and he drives a Prius so, there you go.
Of course I mean in the show – I have no idea of what type of tipper he is in real life (or what care he actually drives for that matter).
Lexus and Hummer. It seems to me that those that are most demonstrative of their self-proclaimed “success” and/or “awesomeness” are invariably the most rotten tippers. Those who drive something your average server would drive, a Celica or something, seem to have some idea of the crap that servers go through and seem more sympathetic, and thus tip in line with that.
audi, benzo
Can’t say I would know since working in Manhattan you rarely ever see the car or if they even drove in…
BMW
I have no specific memory to substantiate this, but I stand by my choice.
People with nice cars sometimes tip less because they forget what its like to be a working stiff and hurting for cash.
This sounds like an invitation to ad hominem attacks, since tip receivers may not be in a position to see the vehicles driven by their tormentors.
And, I suspect, tormentors come in many flavors, driven by many different internal demons.
bmw, just seems to have asshat written all over it
COME ON! WE NEED REAL UPDATE. Not this kind of shit!
Audi!
There seems to be some weird logic here that if you drive an expensive car – ie you are rich, then you’ll be cheap with tips. Surely it would be more logical that a “cheap” rich person, would also apply their thriftiness in the type of cars they drive – ie not waste money on an branded luxury car…
Someone who splashes on a luxury car, aren’t they more likely to be looser in the purse strings and not pay attention to the smaller costs….
The Bus!
in the case of my East European country, it is all about big cars. people with Benz, Audi or (especially) BMW are generally low on tips. truth be told, most of these cars are bought second-hand and many of their owners are trying to show a financial situation they actually don’t have.
while, you know, I don’t even have a car and I always apply the 15% tip rule – which by the way is not mandatory here. excepting the cases when the service is bad.
A Toyota. Because karma’s a bitch like that.
Trolling to keep activity on the blog?
Mercedes
During my years in food service I noticed that the people who drove the more expensive or showier cars and wore the expensive designer clothes & jewelry more often than not left really crappy tips. I saw it as an expression of “this is my money that I was given/earned and why should I give it to some foodservice peon.”
Waiter, you’re forgetting your bread and butter. It was this blog that took you out of serving, why are you neglecting it. Post soon. This kind of stuff is boring.
RON is so “write” on: “The bus”. Priceless
BMW 100%
The official car of the pretentious asshat. The Lexus SUV comes in a very close second.
Are bad tippers and turnstyle jumpers the same people?
BMW
Here in the Washington, DC area the drivers most likely to cut you off, drive aggressively, or park across two spaces are in BMWs.
Crown Victoria. Buicks of any kind. and Solaras.
Driven by old-school, hard-core thrify folks who now have retired to Florida to abuse the locals.
Any car with Alabama plates.
Anything with custom rims. Thanks for wasting your cash on those 22″ spinners that are only going to get road grime all over them and not pumping anything into the local economy, douchebag.
Anything with a Puerto Rican or Mexican flag dangling from the rear view mirror. I’m not racist, I’m just sayin’…
Anything that’s painted any bright neon color. So, you’re colorblind AND you can’t do math? Fuck you.
Anything with a gun rack or Confederate flag. Take it back to the trailer park, Jethro. And take your pennies with you, you fucking fuck.
Anything with a Dave Matthews Band bumper sticker. Stop spending so much of your cash on weed. Give me some so I can buy some weed. Oh, and DMB hasn’t been good for like five years now.
Anything with a “W.” bumper sticker. Evidently that asshat didn’t cut taxes for you enough.
Anything with a rainbow bumper sticker. I get it, you’re queer, you’re here, blah blah blah. If you have the disposable income, then dispose of it. Preferably in my direction.
Anything with a “Jesus is Lord” or “Smile God Loves You” bumper sticker or license plate frame. Trust me, true believer – I need your money more than your higher power does.
Someone driving a beater that wears a cap of any kind.
Jesus wins!
I would think people who show a measure of success in the car they drive would be better tippers. I drive a nice car and always tip well for good service delivered by a pleasant person.
Toyota Camry. Oddly.
Any car that has one of those stupid Jesus fish on the back of it. Those are loud and proud church people, so you can be sure their tipping skills are going to be nonexistent.
I would guess that buicks = bad tips because my grandfather (whom I love dearly) drives a buick and thinks 10% is a good tip.
As for nice cars, I drive an Audi and always leave a minimum of 20% tip when I go out – servers are doing a job I could never do and they deserve to be paid for it.
As a true believer, I always tip more than 20% no matter what type of service I get.
Cadillacs filled with seniors on their way to catch the early bird special.
Hummer
Audi
BMW
Jaguar
Mercedes
Five years fast food experience and two years restaurant experience taught me that the nicer the car, the worse the entitlement attitude and/or tip.
Caddy Escalade. These people firmly believe they are the ‘beautiful’ people and they deserve all the slavish adulation they demand. Why should they ‘pay’ for it…they deserve it by virtue of WHO they are.
Definitely the expensive cars—Beemers, Hummers, Mercedes. Strongly suspect it’s because these folks aren’t actually rich, they just want to APPEAR rich, and so are pouring all their cash into a $600/month auto lease…
Hmmm, I drive a used Honda (as does my spouse) and we try to be a good tippers (20% minimum, sometimes more if the service is exceptional). I was thinking that Honda would be first on the list of assumed “bad tippers” b/c of their reputation as economy cars, but I was wrong. The responses proved to be very interesting!
What the fuck!! you got six hundred and sixty seven comments on who’s the worst tipper and now you’re trotting the same pig out again with a new coat of lipstick. This just doesn’t cut it. What’s next, how do lousy tippers dress?
Difficult to see the real value in this sort of posts, to readers at least.
Should’ve been “this sort of post”
Volvo. Volvo. Volvo. Saab. Vespa.
Well at least in my college town.
UGO!!!!!!
BMW!
All you haters saying “BMW” can go to hell. I drive one and always leave 20%. Maybe I should start leaving less so I can live up to your stupid stereotypes.
Okay, I’ll play. I own a Mercedes E55 for business and a Jeep Cherokee for fun (seriously). Do I tip well? This is absolutely stupid.
Public transit riders are the best tippers!
I think the “car” thing is backwards. While I don’t wait, I often split checks. And the ones who go lightest on tips tend to be older people who grew up poor in the 30s and 40s and have a very strong opinion of the way things ought to be. And one of those opinions, no matter how well-heeled they are now, is that nobody deserves more than a ten percent tip, if that. Nobody “gave” them anything, in their mindset, so they’re reluctant to “give” the waiter a tip.
Look for large four-door cars, easy to get in and out of: Crown Vics, large Chrysler cars, Toyota Avalon, and not a few Lexi.
Mercedes-Benz. The car that people with too much money on their hands buy, but that have no idea what the hell to do with said money. They spend extravagantly on useless crap but don’t spend the money where it counts – wise investments, local economies, supporting the Working Man.
That and anyone I’ve ever known that owns a Mercedes is a crap-tipping asshole.
Toyota Avalon. It was the first one to pop into my head. Maybe because I think the people that buy them could probably really only afford the Camry. They blew all their money on the Avalon , and now can’t afford to tip.
I try to tip well and I take public transit or walk.
Meanwhile, I just saw this article that included stuff about waiting tables in France:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8500246.stm
“…In America, your waiter comes to your restaurant table to tell you his name is Joe. Here, your waiter expects to be addressed formally as Monsieur, in exactly the same way he will address you.
“It is made clear from the start that no-one has the upper hand. The strict code of manners in Paris is a deliberate class-leveller.
“Perhaps Parisians are just being honest.
“Our American waiter Joe, after all, only promises to give us ‘good folks a great time’ because he wants a terrific tip but, in Paris, providing quality is a matter of personal pride…”
I see BMW a lot in these comments… I drive a BMW and tip 20-40% every time I dine out (likely in large part from reading this blog, but I always tipped well… even before I knew this was here)
BMW or a Mercedes Benz
Really high class and rich type of cars. Right off the market, you know? 😉 I don’t know, from experience it seems like a lot of the “bad tippers” are really classy-looking (notice how I didn’t say classy-mannered) people.
Buick drivers. They are invariably cranky, middle-aged or elderly, and pasty white folks who are in their own world, driving slow as hell and even cheaper than that when it comes to tipping. They are exceeded in obnoxiousness only by Subaru drivers, who are all of the above, but slightly younger: usually early 30s, and pretentious enviro-weenie twats.
I don’t know about bad tippers.
but bikers are usually the shit…in MOST cases. I’m a biker and a server. so I get both sides. 😉
p.s. all you fuckers who are complaining about waiter’s blog and how boring it is now, stop reading it then. it’s his blog, he can write whatever the hell he wants.
😉
Anything with rims – be it the ghetto Impala or the ricer rims. And hot rodders suck too, we get a lot of them from some local shows and they all suck to wait on.
Lobster Boy
Hummers and old Honda accords.
People who drive Hummers are douche bags to begin with. They are inconsiderate in every way possible. They take up two parking spaces, block out the sun, and cut people off all the time. I haven’t driven next to a Hummer once and NOT been cut off.
As for drivers of old Honda accords, theyre just cheap in general (in my experience anyways).
Caddie or Buick – AKA cars that “Senior Tippers” tend to buy. They’ve watched as tipping went from “To Insure Proper Service” to a standard 10%. They stopped paying attention when it went from 10 to 15 and from 15 to 20, god bless ’em.
Going on 3 months without leaving a tip for anyone. Started my crusade against tipping after I started to read all the complaining on this site. Last night went to dinner with friends. The bill was $543.88. I paid exactly 543.88. The manager thought something was wrong after I refused to tip and wanted to reduce my bill. LOL
@Barack: Congratulations, you just cost the server money in tip-outs and taxes. Don’t you feel like a big man, making some poor sub-minimum wageslave pay for the privilege of playing Stepin Fetchit for you? Ass.
His Bicycle!
I don’t know about the worst but the best tippers are car owners who arrive arrive by cab the reason they take a cab is so they are not worried about driving so they usually go through the full dining experience a few cocktails, several different wines and after dinner drinks, you don’t see them often anymore
@ bob dobbs.
i agree with you,
the “car” thing is backwards.
2000 green dodge dakota. just like mine…
27 and 29. lol So true. No need to say any more.
27 and 29. So true. lol
Please get another job if this career choice is causing so much frustration and misplaced anger. I used to read this blog for the excellent writing and it has unfortunately turned into a hatefest. I’m out — peace.
Hey waiter,
I’m outta here. This is crap. If you continue in the same vein, you’ll lose many more people like me. I mean this is absolute nonsense man. What kind of car? Bullshit. Looks like success has blunted your writing skills.
Unless servers are following bad tippers out to their vehicles and documenting the make and model, this poll is not exactly scientific. Indeed, there seems to be a fair amount of venting directed towards people with nice vehicles based upon little more than stereotypes.
I don’t know that you can classify “bad tippers” by what they drive. However, I know a bad tipper when I see one. It’s a “gut feeling” you learn to trust once you’ve been a Waiter for awhile.
Yugos. Still.
Cadillac
The majority of bad tippers here in the retirement capital of the world, Palm Beach County, FL, drive Cadillac’s. For some reason old people love cars the size of small ships.
Ferrari.
One of the worst tippers at the restaurant drove a yellow Ferrari. The management bent over backwards for that guy–giving him lots of freebies.. For what? A $5 tip–no matter what. His bill was usually $70+ (before the discounts). And guess what? He was a jerk to boot. Imagine that.
Most of these comments are asinine logic and truly laughable.
Waiter, encouraging this judgmental crap against people, cars, etc. is going to come back and bite you in your ass. Bad karma bro.
It all depends where you work I reckon. The Italian joint I worked was a little out of town near a business park. By far and away the worst tippers were the lunch time suited and booted crowd, poor tips and typically poorer manners. You’d think those dinning on expenses would be able to cough up something for a tip. Invariably these folk would drive middle of the road rep mobiles. Think BMW 3 series. Nuff said.
The ones that don’t write what you want to read?
The ones that bitch about “Why don’t you write about…”
It’s like walking into someone else’s house and telling them how it should be decorated.
PK – this poll is a hell of a lot more scientific than the UN’s “climate change” research
I see a blog as a 50/50 relationship. Half of this blog is the Waiter’s. The other half is the people who read it. You cannot have one without the other (actually you can but that is not very effective or fun). So let’s all just read, comment if you would like and enjoy the banter. Please?
I am a shrink, I know about these things…
BMW…. they are all arrogant pricks….
Lousy tippers would probably drive the same, or vehicles similar to, as the posters here who grouse on about a lack of what they image to be meaningful updates. Somewhat similar to those who stiff a waiter because their dinner failed to arrive as quickly as that lunch they picked up at window number 2 earlier that day.
Lincoln Towncar
SUVs made by:
Lexus
Porsche
Mercedes
BMW
Hummer
Land Rover
and of course everyone’s fave, the ‘sclade
My “bad tipping” friend drives a Beemer 3 series, eats out a lot, and has very specific requests for everything she orders. It’s a perfect storm in my book.
FWIW, I drive a BMW and I tip 20%+ as a rule. And I’m in CA, where servers already make minimum wage.
Of course, I bought my car for $1500 and put another $1K of work into it, and it has 242K miles on it. And I wasn’t planning on getting a BMW (I just wanted something that was well-maintained and had a/c) and I hate feeling like people are looking at me when I drive it (even though it’s white and a base model 318ti.)
So yeah, there are exceptions to the rule. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me that the nicer the car the person drives, the lousier the tipper they are.
And Barack (#60), if any “friend” of mine did that when I was eating out with them, it’d be the last time I EVER ate out with them. And I sure as hell wouldn’t date a guy who did that. Ever. There’s absolutely no excuse.
My boss drives a BMW 750. She took me and a few others to lunch yesterday at Fogo de Chão. Doing some rough math, she left approximately a 125% tip in cash and also tipped the valet $100. This is a bi-monthly occurrence. I drive a Mercedes and tip well but not as generously as her.
I really never paid attn. to the vehicles people drove. I was too busy trying to work. I think sometimes you just get stuck with the STDs…( “standard two dollar” tippers)Life isn’t always fair…you just have to suck it up, smile and ask if there is anything else you can get for them….
Since you are probably snowed in like most of us in the mid-Atlantic region are, you should be writing more wonderful blog posts right?
P O N T I A C.
Any expensive car, the pretentiosity of those cars give us norms a shame
Just for the record, I drive BMW and am a bartender and cocktail waitress. I make good money and would never dream of tipping less than 20%. In my experience it has always been the cheap bastards with the shittiest cars that don’t have the class or care to tip appropriately.
I agree with many of the other comments, BMW!
1962 volkswagon beetle
Skoda
– because it looks like a skip (rubbish tip!)
Hummer
Any 4×4 not used for actual off-road work.
Cars w/ Jesus fish or religious bumper-sticker
Cars w/ more than 3 bumper-stickers, unless all are environmental.
Cars that are parked in disabled spaces, without disabled badges.
These cars tend to be owned by people who think that they are special, entitled and/or better than anyone else. They will cut you off in traffic, jump queues, pinch parking spaces, be rude or condescending to service staff, and tip poorly.
Rather than bitch senselessly, I’ll just say that there are many of us who anxiously await your posts and are curious to know what’s going on with your new life. We miss hearing how you’re doing Waiter. Shoot us a line when you have the time.
Ah, the class warfare question.
I see folks are actually biting.
So jealous.
I’m with Erra (with annotations)
Any 4×4 not used for actual off-road work.
Especially those with the 3-foot tall tires!
Cars w/ Jesus fish or religious bumper-sticker
There are fish stickers/decals with “Darwin” – ROFL
Cars w/ more than 3 bumper-stickers, unless all are environmental.
Environmental stickers don’t always equate to environment supporters
Cars that are parked in disabled spaces, without disabled badges.
DEFINITELY!!!! And, I’ve faced off a few of them, because my mother needed a disabled space
Any SUV with decals suggesting the driver is a booster of their child’s/children’s preferred athletic extracurricular activity. Especially, and I don’t know why, and this is just my observation, if it’s the child’s mother. Soccer moms are the worst. For some reason they seem to think that living vicariously through their children, and in so doing make up for their own misspent youth, excuses them from tipping the pizza guy.
I drive a Porsche which I have worked extremely hard to attain as well as every possession I own (including long term investments). I performed most every difficult job one could imagine and made tremendous sacrifices to put myself through college. I give to charities, my church and tip every deserving person very well. I am considered a professional by career standards. Please excuse my language, but fuck all you who are stereotyping.
I don’t monitor this board at all, just post anything you want.
easy there Purist. did you hurt yourself with all that boasting?
Not certain if what Purist is claiming would be classified as boasting. I am currently a server to help with my University expenses and I aspire to be at the level of him/her one day.
The worst tippers seem to be church-goin’ folks who spend all their money on flashy, brightly colored suits, silly hats, fancy canes (walking props), and burned-to-death well-done steaks. Yet they drive old beater Cadillacs with missing hubcaps, demand the world, chastise you for working on Sunday, but wish you the Lord’s blessing!
I have been reading all the responses to this so-called “question” and as much as I love waiterrant, I think this is the silliest post and topic I’ve ever read. There is not ANY correlation between what someone drives and how they tip. But even if you read the question literally, it doesn’t ask what bad tippers typically drive. It asks “When you think of bad tippers, what brand of car comes to mind?” It might have made more sense to ask “Do bad tippers arrive at your restaurant in a particular brand of vehicle?”
But, let’s all be honest here. No waiter is going to say “Oh crap, this table came to the restaurant in a Mercedes, so my tip will be crap”.
Stereotyping is bigotry at its worst.
Bentley, BMW, Mercedes, Lamborgini, Ferarri, Maybach, Bugati and any other ultra luxury cars ive missed. i live in atlanta surrounded by the hip hop, sports athletes from all sports. its a blackman’s playground. have you all seen Real Housewives of Atlanta?….. ive waited on the entire cast at some point in time, as well as several high profile athletes and musicians. they tend to drive those sorts of cars at least in the ATL.
Some funny answers up here! To be boring, and honest, I have never been able to connect a certain type of car and a certain type of tip. For the most part, when I’m busy serving, I’m not about to connect which of my guests is driving what. The times I have been able to, no discernible pattern has emerged. Sorry!
Miss your restaurant stories Waiter! You should get a side job as a waiter again to get back your game. Your blog stood way out among others because of the your experiences in a restaurant and how eloquently they were expressed. At this point you risk losing your originality with these sort of postings.
Lexus. Cheap people have nice stuff. I’m an average 20% tipper and will always drive an average car and have average stuff. Guess who sleeps better at night me or the people who go through life cheating others.
@110, I agree. This site was so good that, even after all this time, I keep coming back and hoping for a “flight (back) to quality.” Not hating, just severely disappointed.
This strikes me as a rather odd question. It would seem that Waiter isn’t really asking anything about actual customers, but rather the mindset of the responders.
In any restaurant sufficiently upscale to incorporate the practice of tipping, the waitstaff is highly unlikely to ever actually know what kind of motor vehicle a particular customer arrived in. Unlike in a fast food outlet, especially one with a drive through where it’s easy to connect a customer and their ride, a typical server will be inside working, unable to see the parking lot.
So what Waiter is asking here isn’t “In your experience, what kind of car do poor tippers drive?” He’s really asking, “In your imagination, based mostly on conjecture, what kind of car do you THINK poor tippers would drive?”
A decidedly odd question.
Minivans and SUVs. I’m a stay at home mom and I’m shocked at some of the bad tipping I see from my friends after our kids have wreaked havoc – we only take them to diners or pizza places 😉 I usually check and if it’s not at least 20% I add to the tip.
Dodge K Car: Because bad tippers should be just as obsolete but are, unfortunately, as ubiquitous.
I, too, am disappointed with this line of questioning. It doesn’t seem to have a purpose. However what the other posters haven’t seemed to figure out is that judging by the writing style of the question itself, I don’t think Waiter is the one who is putting up these odd posts, but rather his editorial staff. And the reason? To keep the blog moving when Waiter hasn’t put anything up for quite a while. It’s just sort of disappointing, because it’s irrelevant and creates a mood of controversy and antipathy.
An Audi. B/C that is what my husband’s ex drives and she is a bitch. Lol.
I’m not sure what type of car bad tippers drive…but we wish that they were Ford Pintos..so they would BLOW UP upon any type of collision.
Yes, if you don’t feel the need to tip..don’t leave your house to eat.
Back when I delivered pizza for a living, I could tell a lot about the tip by looking at the house & car. And I found as a general rule that the extremes (very rich or very poor) were the worst tippers. I can understand the latter, but the former were either stingy or most likely didn’t even think about taking care of the one in the background doing the work.
The best tippers were those in the middle that understand what it was like working for an honest wage and realized that sparing an extra couple bucks would not break their bank but would help make my night. They actually see the person instead of the convenience of having food brought to them. I’m guessing that is why they are still in the middle – too damn nice for their own good.
Although the best were the stoned dudes who forgot they ordered pizza and loved you for showing up with food!
On a side note, I miss the stories. I keep checking back, hoping for more, but instead I get these little questions, or requests for interviews. You are like a crack dealer holding back on us, give us our fix!!
BMW and Audi. Everyone I know who has one of these thinks that they’re smarter than everyone else. That kind of smugness leads directly to tip stiffing.
@76:
the worst posters are the sort of people who try to shove their beliefs on the readers. the best are the people who are willing to tell them to f*** off.
These posts seem dubious. How can a busy waiter actually see the car the customers drive in with? Bet most of it is class envy. Why do people who can’t cut it in life always think successful people are just luckier?
for some reason everytime i see a 90s volvo, i know its a bad tipper. Also any car who doesn’t want to do valet. or any car that shows up for early bird and takes 20 minutes to park
Anything super expensive. So many times I’ve been late to work due to waiting for a Rolls trying to parallel park in just the right spot for all to see, make a scene to get just the right table and spare no expense on their meal until it comes to tipping.
Right on Barack… I also decided to tip less after seeing the attitudes of servers in this blog… and believe it or not, I’ve actually been getting much better service… who knew… tip 20% every time, and you wait 15 minutes to get your coke refilled… tip less than 5%, and your soda gets refilled lickety split… I’m finding out that tipping poorly really does lead to better service…
You’re getting your drink back so fast because we can’t wait to see you gulp down on some select samplings of our saliva.
Attitudes of servers? Please. I bet you have PLENTY about your own job to complain about you ignorant prick.
Did I say ignorant? I meant hypocritical.
Barak and JR…you suck to put it lightly. Not only do we waste our time waiting on you and then LOSE about 5% of your bill to tip out and also pay taxes on your bill because the IRS assumes people aren’t douchebags like yourselves, but we have also lost the income we would have made if we had a normal standard tipping table in place of you. Maybe you’re getting faster service so you get the fuck out faster JR. Go out for fast food…it’s fast and you don’t have to tip or waste our time. It sucks to depend on others generosity for your income and people like you are always there to remind us. Thanks to the many people who understand that tips really are our only pay (our checks often say THIS IS NOT A CHECK after taxes are taken out) and of that tip we only get to take home 66 – 75% and continue to tip generously.
Toyota or Honda, and probably old. When I went to college, a number of my fellow students were bad tippers until it was their turn to wait tables for a living. Then they were born again tipping fundamentalists. So the worst and best tippers drive the same car, eventually.
gmc made boats with lousy gas mileage
spendin’ all that $$$ on petro so you can’t afford to tip the waiter on the entree you split with your girlfriend and tried to pay for with a buy one get one free coupon.
@121 and anyone else wondering… if the place is nice they have valet services. im always in good terms with the valet guys. they have their share of stories to tell too. i might not know EVERY car my customers arrived in, but towards the end of the evening it slows down enough to chat and compare.
and also, its not class envy. i worked at a very nice restaurant where most of the servers themselves drove either a lexus or a benz. we just know how to treat people better. that restaurant had very little to no turnover in staff to say the least.
You can’t really judge the bad tippers by what they drive ,if they stingy they drive in any cars be it bmw or cadillac. I been in a restaurant business for 15 years in many states and i seen it all. There are some senior people who can leave you a nice tip and than there are more financially well people who wont leave you a pennie. Its all depends on a service and a person. As for me i was always nice and pleasant to my customers so i always made my money
Mate, this blog is not for you, or me.
I bought your last book and loved it, however, I feel that we, as your bloggers are writing your next book for you without any input from you AT ALL. Your posts are too far apart and you don’t engage us at all!! Step Up or Step Off!!
Yugo
I don’t need to explain nothing
Lexus, because the bigger they are the smaller they tip, generally speaking.
As a long time fan I have to agree with some of the other posters. You have gone so far off track and offended so many people with this question I just don’t know what you’re thinking.
What waiter who’s doing her/his job would ever see what kind of care someone was driving. That is assuming the patron drove a car to the restaurant!
Steve get back to the basics or this book will be your “last” book.
I don’t tip. Why do I have to tip, anyway?
It’s pretty tough to predict your tip by the type of car. I don’t agree with everyone saying that BMW drivers are the worst tippers. In my experience they tend to be the best tippers. There are a few cars that make me cringe when I see them pulling up into my restaurant. Big SUV’s or lifted Trucks = Rednecks who don’t tip well at all. Also it annoys the hell out of me when cowboys don’t take their obnoxious hats off indoors. The other one is any typical Grandpa car like a Crown Victoria as older people tend to tip pretty poorly.
Buicks. It’s not intentional; they just honestly believe tipping is optional or 10% at best.
Definitely people who drive BMW’s!!
And my proof to go along with this comment is a few days into this very new years I had the displeasure of serving a pretentious dick and his what I can only imagine was his lady lover who both happened to drive BMW’s. I know because after a couple bottles of wine they both asked if i would valet park their cars as they both were in no shape to be driving.
Being that i don’t drive I asked a co-worker whether he could do this which he agreed to do. As they ate I watched from the window as my co-worker parked each BMW into the parking lot.
They drank and dined in the the restaurant for almost four hours before asking for the bill – the whole entire time gloating about their successes and their various business ventures blah blah blah –
worst part was even after i went above and beyond what I as a waiter should ever have to do they still talked down to me which i loathe vehemently.
Finally after what felt like an eternity they asked for the bill and stated that they wanted me to call them taxi’s – which I did – I couldn’t wait to see them both stumble out the front door and leave me be to wrap up the night’s work.
The pretentious dick paid the bill which totalled $400 – he paid debit and failed to leave a gratuity – not one copper penny!!
I inquired as to whether the service was good ( which i knew it was exceptional and above what typical good service would be considered) he slurred ya ‘everything was fine’ –
I pointed out to him and even gave him a chance to save face by letting him know that he may have possibly overlooked the fact that he had failed to enter a tip when he paid.
The pretentious dick didn’t say a word, merely hung his head down in shame and embarrassment that I had the gall and nerve to say this in front of his friend – i left the table hoping that out of embarrassment he’d cough up some cash or that atleast his lady lover would handle the tip since even she was aware that I had not been taken care of.
The taxi arrives they leave – he almost trips out the door on his way out.
i go to clean up the table and to my utter disappointment even after I had called him out on the zero cent tip there was still absolutely nothing there for me other than their mess.
i was livid and quite pissed off to say the least when to my utter delight I remembered that both of their precious BMW’s that had been parked earlier in the evening for them were both sitting in the parking lot across the street.
My anger as I closed the restaurant continued to swell over the inconsiderate actions of this couple.
I knew I wouldn’t sleep unless I stood up for this unjustice and I can claim the actions I took next were not just for me but for every other poor server out there who has had to serve another similar pretentious BMW driving prick who’s cheated them on the tip.
I dug deep into my pocket retrieved my house keys crossed the street, looked around to make sure there was no one around and began using my key as a pencil and sketched all over the pretentious pricks BMW like a kid colouring in kindergarden!
I’m not going to lie it felt INCREDBLE!!! All my pent up anger and frustration from the events of the night were released through the stroke of my hand as the key ripped through his paint job.
In the back of my mind I wanted to inscribe “I can afford to drive this car because I don’t know how to tip!” knowing this would totally incriminate me I settled for doing my best interpretation of a Jackson Pollock splatter painting all over side of his precious little commodity.
Did I feel guilty? oh hell no – i felt redemption!! and I figure after hearing the gloating of how successful this guy was this would just be a mere inconvienance.
Hopefully deep down inside the next time the pretentious prick decides to go out he’ll maybe reflect on that night and maybe just maybe leave the next server a tip or atleast leave his BMW at home!
I’m a pizza guy in suburban Minneapolis, and I honestly can’t say I’ve noticed any truly definitive correlations of this kind (car or otherwise).
Now, I’ve seen a few general trends (e.g. $700,000 house = good tips because they can spare a couple of bucks; $400,000 = crap tips because the occupants are over-mortgaged; $200,000 = so-so, they’re not “cheap” but they can’t remember what it was like to live on 23 grand a year; trailer = usually pretty decent because the occupant often works in customer service herself). But neighborhoods and housing types are the ONLY such trends I’ve seen, and even these trends have far too many exceptions to qualify as rules (no matter for how off-hand and informal a purpose, e.g. blog comments).
Incidentally, I drive a Buick, but I’m anything but slow or cheap; I eat a lot of cheap food (e.g. Denny’s, Domino’s), which reuslts in a two-pronged rule of thumb (minimum $4 or 25%, whichever is greater). But at the same time, I’m not going to get offended at the stereotype – in fact, I think it’s kind of funny, because it’s at least somewhat rooted in reality. (Just drive around Shakopee, MN once; at least half the people doing 29 in a 40 zone are in a Buick. Sorry, it’s true!)
Anyway, both the premise of this post (that one’s choice of vehicle somehow indexes to one’s generosity), and the act of taking extreme umbrage and offense to that premise (as some comments have done), are ultimately pretty silly. But it’s still a fun topic for idle discussion. 🙂
Datsun Cherry, Nuff said!
Any expensive car that is 5 years or older. Usually they are strategically placed in a less crowded area of the parking lot. This allows the driver to diagonally park in two parking spots, thus keeping any of us idiots from dinging their car.
That just screams DOUCHEBAG. Whenever I see that I want to take my keys and etch racing stripes on their car..
JR says: tip less than 5%, and your soda gets refilled lickety split…
Aw, poor JR….you’re confused. Tip 5% and your sodas get refilled with lickety spit.
And any place that refills sodas is called a fast food restaurant. When you grow up, you might try eating real food.