A few nights ago, I took a couple of business colleagues (who are also friends) to dinner to an upscale Atlanta restaurant. I selected this place because 1) I knew the food was good and, 2) their wine selection had a couple of bottles that I thought my guests would enjoy. (And I was pretty sure I'd enjoy them, too.)

All expectations were met and most were exceeded. My guests had a great time, the food was excellent and the wines were stunning. After dinner, I treated myself to a glass of the Macallan 25 that I enjoyed immensely.

The server brought my check. I looked at it and tipped him 15%. Normally I tip 20%, but for whatever reason (most likely because I was drunk), I just tipped 15%. Then I got to thinking about the matter and said to myself, "Self, why are you tipping 15% of the wine costs too?"

Food cost was about $200; beverages about $300.

What's your tip?

I'm Australian so tipping is still weird for me. I have nothing to offer here except that I would have done the same thing as you.

If I spend more than $30 on a bottle of wine, I do not include the price in a tip. So in your case, I would've just tipped on the food. 20%. I might throw a tip to the sommelier or waiter if they helped with the wine selection.

Every so often someone calls me on it, but it's what my Dad always did so I do it, too. It's absurd to pay a tip on already ridiculously marked up alcohol.

most of my tip is based on the service with the price second.
some say if you can afford the expensive wine you can afford the tip.

I never tip. Ever. It makes these otherwise awkward decisions so much easier for me.

$500 in a nice restaurant with wine and an acceptable level of service? I'd tip $80-$100 depending upon if the server or a wine steward helped in the selection of the wine.

I wouldn't tip too much more than that if I ordered a pricier bottle, I limit out at $50/bottle if the sommelier assisted with the choice. I've only had that problem four times in my life so someone with more experience buying $300+ bottles of wine might chime in.

If this is true then you're a scumbag.

Unless you don't live in America or any other country where people rely on these tips to make a living. Then it's cool.

I hope you don't frequent the same restaurants too often.

Because there will be a higher concentration of saliva and urine than I think most people would enjoy.

I am not OP. And of course I tip - I was being ridiculous. I do not tip 20% on high-priced drinks that don't take a lot of service. I don't really order wine though b/c it's so over-priced but if I do I tip ~10% on the cost of the bottle of wine. 20% on food, rounded down or up.

I used to tip on the total then the OOT regs said you tip on the sub-total, which makes things cheaper. If my bill is low but I got a lot of service or quality service it's normal to go over 20%. Strictly basing it on the total is silly.

About 6 months ago I was at a niceish restaurant with my wife and we went to eat in the grille area which is more low-key. We didn't get served for like at least 8 minutes after being seated and they were super-busy so we asked the hostess if we could instead eat in the fine dining area. We got sat down and our waiter met us and was like "I heard you guys were not served - I apologize" "No problem they were busy over there no big deal". Well we order and service is good and the manager comes by at some point and is like "is everything good?" blah blah they usually do that but I got the vibe he was making sure we weren't mad. We assured him yes and didn't even mention the grille at this point. Anyway he leaves. We finish our meal and the waiter is like "your meal is on us - sorry that you guys had to wait". It was probably $50 (no alcohol) nothing outrageous. I was like "Oh no really we're not looking to get free meal we just wanted to be served somewhere...you don't have to do that" "I insist", etc. Anyway it was very nice of them but I hate getting stuff for free b/c I hate thinking that others think that's what I was out to do. I told him "at least let me tip you, OK?" "Sure." So I left like $20 on the table. Had no idea what to do here. I guess if I was 100% righteous I would have left $50 but then that seems weird that the waiter would profit like that off the restaurant owner. I wonder if he told his manager he got a 40% tip on a $0.00 charge. lol. I still don't know what my play was here but whatever. At the very least we have chosen to go back several times since and I will remember that for a long time that they were courteous and actually cared.

Plus the waiter kinda looked like the guy who says "I'm here for the gangbang." so I thought that was worth at least an extra couple bucks.

Here's a dirty, dirty little secret about American food and beverage.

In most restaurants, at the end of their shift, servers have to tip out as much as 4% of their NET sales to hostesses, expediters, bartenders, sommeliers, bussers and food runners.

So your server maybe netted 11% on your whopping 15% tip.

Regardless if you stiff a server on a $100 check, they have $4 deducted from their total take-home tips.

Welcome to American F&B.

You try to calculate the amount of the bill, or what it would have been, then tip overly generously on that. In other words if the bill would have been about 50, leave at least 20. You did fine. I've gone to places and gotten checks that were zero and left 60 dollars on a bill that would have been 100, but that's a bit much. Up to you, but in these situations you should be overly generous, very often it has nothing to do with the server. Trust me, servers WANT you to be happy. Many negative conditions in restaurants have nothing to do with the server.

Are you sure you meant net sales as far as tip out goes? I've never heard this. I've heard at least 8% of net sales must be reported to the government, I've heard of tip outs on net TIPS, but not tip outs on net sales anywhere.

As far as the original question, I usually don't go nuts on wine, but I tip 20% across the board unless there is an issue, then I'll leave 15%. If I ordered a 500 dollar bottle of wine, I'd back out a tiny bit and maybe bring it down to something like 16-18%.

Either way its almost never a significant amount of money so I just tip it so I don't question myself later. Either way, I think OP did fine. There are many people who don't tip on wine at all.

Yes. As much as 4% of NET sales.

And yes, the IRS announced several years ago that they would not audit servers nationwide as long as they declared 8% of their net sales as tips. But one has nothing to do with the other.

In my previous life, I have been in every position, from the bottom, to top management.

I'm not saying its' wrong, I'm saying I never heard of it - I've also been out of the business for years.

If it truly is 4% of net sales being tipped out, the servers much be making much more than that. We reported 8% of net sales to the government, but we never can close to making that in tips, we almost always made double that or more.

Besides, you can't look at a single tip as "well, they only get XX of that". Even a full bad night of tips won't put a dent into the weekly or monthly tip %.

When I was a server I never cared about tips. I did my job as best I could and was nice to everyone. The money took care of itself.

This is the kind of stuff that pisses me off when I hear it from service industry people. Why is 15%, once the acceptable standard in America, all of a sudden considered nothing? FWIW I don't think I've ever tipped less than 15%, and I'm almost always in the 18-20% range (sometimes more, especially if the service is very good or I'm at a cheaper restaurant), but any time I hear waiters say "Oh poor us" I roll my eyes. I think it's a grueling job, I'd never want to do it, and I respect (and am polite) to the people who do it, but the money blows away any other entry level job, even before what I assume is a massive amount of tax evasion going on.