The Tipping Point: Just How Much Should You Tip at Restaurants?
One of the greatest compliments I’ve ever received from a restaurant date is over 20 years old, back when I was busy trying to make it in the real world by faking it (still working on it). It was made more memorable because it was given at the end of the meal, like a little dessert, just as I was pulling out the last two twenty-peso bills in my wallet to place them on the tray: “You’re really a great tipper.”
Since then, I’ve been convinced that I am one of the best tippers I know. But I caution the reader that being a good tipper does not mean being a crude (interchangeable with wealthy) overtipper, or a crude (interchangeable with poor) undertipper. It means you know where that sweet spot is, that intersection between what is decent and what is appropriate.
If you haven’t been to enough quiz nights yet, the word “tip” is popularly thought to be an acronym for To Insure Promptness. It is clear, though, that nowadays this piece of trivia is useless at restaurant dates (unless your restaurant date happens during quiz night), because tips are given after the service, and are meant to be a form of reward.
For the more worldly-wise person, pre-tipping still exists in mass gatherings of dining and entertainment. When you’re at some function or a club, it sometimes pays to zero in on the headwaiter or on the most hardboiled-looking staff and slip them a bill in a handshake, thus ensuring that your glass will never be empty.
It’s not illegal and it’s not crude—in fact, it cleaves most closely to the original meaning of the tip. And thanks to Republic Act 11360, or the “service charge law,” all tips must be distributed fully and equally among all eligible members of the establishment, and every one of the staff benefits from your contribution. Let’s roll our eyes collectively as we hope that hardboiled barman isn’t that hardboiled.
Having to legislate the equal distribution of service charge is one of those milestones that could not have been reached had many restaurants not begun to apply a ten percent service charge to the check. Yes, I’m aware of establishments that take the effort to stamp “NO SERVICE CHARGE” on their bill, but it only makes me work out ten percent of the total.
Compare it to the United States, where there’s no service charge, and where tipping is not just encouraged, but often demanded with some kind of toxic expectation, at least to this postcolonial subject. Not to disparage a tipping culture, which I am sure has its advantages, but I do prefer my bill without three helpfully pre-calculated options ranging from 10 to 30 percent, as if I were being handed a survey on how cool I want to look.
I was not aware of how our service charge became a thing in the Philippines, but to me, this is one of the most beautiful things our restaurant industry has cooked up in its kitchens. All of a sudden, we are excused from the psychological and financial burden of figuring out exactly how much to tip. And because we are relieved of the ability to morally argue against the idea of a tip, we can’t proceed so easily to mentally arguing about the size of it. It is suddenly there, as a line item on the bill.
This is a good thing—not just for people with unsturdy morals, but for everyone involved: the tippee, the tipper, and the tipper’s audience. Now the date (or compulsory family gathering) can take place as it should be, patterned after the way humans can lead better lives: begin with a short period of anxiety while you calculate 110 percent on every item you are thinking of ordering, and end with a beautiful, relaxing flourish as you scoop up your card, or every last coin of your change from the tray when it returns.
These days, placing an additional something-something for the staff’s especially kind attention or demeanor means a little something-something more than just trying to impress your date or “doing something right.” It means one person’s work has been recognized, and given value.
In practical terms, it also means they’ll smile at you in front of your date the next time you’re there, call you by your name, and ask you if you want “the usual.” Told you I was a great tipper!
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