Before I was married I didn’t cook much for myself. I fixed things. I fixed fast and easy things. I wanted to cook, but just didn’t. After I got married I was delighted to cook for my husband. I had subscriptions to a number of cooking magazines and cooked almost everything in them until the new editions arrived. We didn’t go out much because staying home was so much fun. When we started going out we loved to walk to nearby sit-down and takeout restaurants.
I still loved and wanted to know more about cooking. I decided to take culinary classes at one of the area community colleges. I did very well in my first class. I enjoyed the class immensely, although there was no cooking involved. I wanted to continue with the classes but I wasn’t aspiring to a culinary career and the classes weren’t geared to teaching the happy housewife.
One of the things I learned in the class was current restaurant etiquette. I learned that the going tip rate for good service was 20-percent. If service was exceptional, then 25-percent was a good tip. That was good to know since servers earn so little and have to share tips with other restaurant staff.
Now when we go out to eat we are eating with an infant and a toddler. Two little bitty children like that are very messy. I hate leaving behind more mess for the restaurant and try to make up for it in the tip. It’s really all I can do.
How do you decide how much to tip? Do you carry a tip calculator or card to help you figure it out? I downloaded an app to my phone that figures tip based on check total and the percentage I want to tip. It makes tipping a lot easier than mental math.