Ok, obviously I’m about to get railed on for being racist… I am not. I have zero problems with anyone due to skin color…. until they get sat at one of my tables.
Ok, so I’ve been in the restaurant industry as a server for about 5 Years. Black people, fairly consistently are the worst tippers. Worse than foreigners, worse than old people, worse than teenagers.
As an example… Saturday night, about 30minutes before closing a younger black couple comes in. They are very nice and polite. They order their drinks, their dinner, and while they’re eating (now about 10 minutes until closing) they tell me two of their friends are meeting them there, but they doubt they are eating. The other couple shows up right at closing time, another Young black couple. They do order food. They are there until an hour after closing and the only people in the restaurant. When they pay their bill, they are grateful telling me thank you multiple times and even told me they’d ask for me next time. They get up and leave, I pick up the check book…. $4 on $63. Wow, that was worth being at work an extra hour!
This is not an isolated incident. This is all too common… on top of that, I’ve noticed nothing seems to be good enough. I Work at a regular restaurant, a cheap, casual chain, similar to an applebees. This isn’t 5star dining and yet it seems that is what most of them expect. All to tip less than 10%.
Now, I Will say this… I treat black people and other bad tipping stereotypes just as well as everyone else because I’ve been surprised before.
I’m just wondering if it’s some cultural thing I’m unaware of? Why is it that black people are just such bad tippers? Even the black servers I Work with hate waiting on black people!
I get it, this isn’t politically correct… I don’t care, it’s truth. It happens everyday. Talk to a server… black, White, or anything else and you’ll hear the same.
So…. why?
✅ Answers
Answerer 1
I am black. LOL. My dad always was a good tipper ( 20% or sometimes more) and so we(the children) are good tippers now as adults. I didn’t know that black people and their poor tipping was even an issue until I was in college and a friend told me about “Black Sunday.”
I think it has more to do with the family than culture as a whole. Some people don’t realize servers don’t even make minimum wage, while others think 10% is okay for excellent service, and maybe they can’t wrap their minds around the fact that the food and the service are two different things and you have to pay for both. I really think they just don’t know.
Source(s):
I’ve been black all my life.
Answerer 2
Welcome to reality.
Answerer 3
Idk where you from but I used to work in the cafeteria at the hospital in my town and one day a young black guy gave me a 20$ bill after he paid for his ****. Either he was really nice or I was correct when I could have sworn I saw him looking at my butt lmao either way idk but I still got 20$ out of it! Lol!
Answerer 4
Fantasy answer: Get your management to agree to add a 15% “service charge” to all checks. This will be accepted as normal by most people who would tip anyway. It might even drive away the kind of customers who stiff the wait staff.
This is actually common in France and some other countries, where they have a lot of tourists and other foreigners who don’t know the drill and don’t care.
Answerer 5
I waited tables for a long time putting myself through school. I have noticed this trend as well. They are higher maintenance and lower tippers. They will also complain if you start vacuuming around them. All you can do is to hope it averages out at the end of the night. And put mop water in their drinks if they ask for refills after closing time.