I usually tip 20 of the post-tax amount, rounded up to the nearest half-dollar. I'll go higher if I feel I was a pain in the neck, or left a messy table. Very rarely will I go lower, but if the service is espicially bad I might.

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In Ontario, Canada, our taxes add up to 15%. That's considered sort of a baseline for tipping. If you've had good service, you go higher, usually to about 20-25%.

Canadians apparently tip very well. Here it's a sign of what a nice person you are, as opposed to anything that is related to service directly. To be seen being stingy on a tip can make you a social pariah pretty darn quick. ;)

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I tip about 18%, but I strongly resent the entire tipping paradigm. I just ate! I don't want to do math!

Tipping's just another tiny aggravation that almost imperceptibly adds to the stress of modern-day life.

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I tip 20%. More if the service is excellent or my children were very messy, and I tip only 15% if the service was bad.

Calculating 20% is very easy. Take the amount of the bill, move the decimal one place to the left, and double it. Much easier than calculating 18% :-)

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i tip 20-25% in regular to nice restaurants. i ADORE tipping like 30+ % at the waffle house or diners. it makes more of a difference to someone who sees $1 and $2 tips all day to get a $5 tip for eggs and coffee, than it does to get a $20+ tip for someone who is selling chateaubriand.

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I tip 20% in whole dollar amounts. Depending on the size and cost of the meal, therefore, I usually end up actually tipping somewhere between 19% and 25%. I'll go to 30% for great service.

Tipping is not something I skimp on, having been a tipped busboy in the past.

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I worked in many restaurants growing up. I tip at least 20% (usually rounded up to the next dollar) unless the service was horrible. And the decimal trick mentioned earlier is how I taught my sister to tip. It's always good to remember that most waitresses make about $2.15 hourly wage and if you can't afford the tip, you can't afford the restaurant!

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for me deciding how much to tip is always an issue. first of all as a broke college student i can't afford to pay too much more than the price of my meal, and second of all as a former waitress i know how it feels to work hard and get a tiny tip.
in the end i end up tipping about 2 dollars per person if we were a small group or about 1.50 a perso if we were a large (but clean) group. since my friends and i usually wipe down the table and pile the plates anyway we hardly ever end up leaving a table messy. the percentage we tip maybe less than 15 or twenty percent but we also make less work for the worker.

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as a former server (both hubby and me) we tend to tip well. the nicer the restaurant the more we tip, cause when we ar feeloing poor-er we don't go to higher end restaurants. we start at about 20% and go up or down depending on service, and usually throw in the change. we don't have tax, so 20 is an easier percentage to calculate. we also like to go to the same places, so we get to know hte servers and feel like if we tip well, we will get better service the next time.

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I'm in NY and always do 20% of the bill, pre-tax. I also round, and will round lower if I felt the service was especially bad.

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I always have a problem with tipping. The problem is when I get bad service or bad food, I wish there is way to tip either just for the service or food or both. Sometimes when the food is bad and service is horrible, I wish I don't need to tip.

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my boyfriend and i tend to tip well, at least 20 percent, though he'll go up to 30 on occasion. last night, for example, our bill at an upscale casual oyster bar/bistro just outside of NYC was about $78. He left $22 for our waiter. i have no problem being exceptionally generous. it's good karma.

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I never tip. They should just increase the price of the service to adequately compensate servers. Tipping just decreases customer guilt more than provide an incentive for good service. You should only tip when service was excellent. Leaving a tip when service is poor is the worst thing to ever do, it encourages poor service in the future.

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Usually, on my own, I tip 20% (for the aforementioned ease of calculation)
With friends, all sharing the bill, the table winds up tipping a little more than 15% - There's always a stickler for a strict 15% tip in any group.

I have left 0% once - our waitress forgot about our table for 40 minutes while the food cooled on a cart, she served us the cooled-off (and incorrectly prepared) food without apology, and took so long to bring us our (no compensation offered) bill that we missed our show.

I have also left more than 50% on rare occasions when the staff's attention to detail creates a transcendant dining experience.

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Tipping should be outlawed! Restaurants should raise their prices so that they can pay their wait staff a decent salary. Why should I, the customer, pay a restaurant employee to do their job? 2 to 3 dollars an hour is BS!

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In Washington, DC our tax on restaurant tabs is 10%, I usually double that and round up to the dollar. I was a bartender in college and remeber how impiortant tips were to me. However, I recently had horrible service at one of my favorite places. I left a 10% tip- I really felt horrible, but the service was really bad.

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I agree with these last blogs, particularly 11, though untill the reform, I've been tipping about 15-20%.

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Well, I live and work as a server in Columbus, Ohio, and I would say that the average tip is certainly NOT 15%. My average tip is 20%; if I receive 15%, I usually think I did something wrong, or was just mediocre. This rarely happens, which, while I'd like to think of it as meaning I am exceptionally talented as a server, I think it means the standard tip is 20%. And that is after tax. And I agree with what someone said above, it's easier to figure 20% than 15.

I always tip 20%, after tax, and round up to the nearest dollar or so. If it is a restaurant where we are regulars, it's usually 25%, which is typically what I receive from my regulars at the restaurant where I work. If the service is very bad, I tip 15%. I won't even comment on people who say they don't tip.

So, I would say to the author of this article, I think you should rethink your tipping practices, especially if you want to be a food writer. You will be labled as the writer who doesn't tip - calling into question your qualifications, as it will be clear you haven't worked in the US restaurant industry.

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Lisa the Waitress: just because the author of this article tips 2-4% below your standard does not mean that she should have a reputation as the writer who doesn't tip. The fact is that 15% is still the standard and it's rather rude of you to judge someone for actually tipping above that.

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I usually tip 20% if the service was good, lower if it was bad.

When I get food at a substantial discount (police friendly places) I will usually tip up to the amount the meal would have been without the discount. For instance, say my normal bill would be $10 and this particular restaurant gives it to us for $5 I will then leave $5 bucks as a tip. I am still coming out ahead, as I would have left $2 on a $10 bill, and that way I don't feel bad about getting a police discount.

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