Posted on 11/30/2009 10:29:46 AM PST by big black dog
You’d think with all their money, celebrities would be good tippers. This isn’t always the case. Certain celebrities are notoriously bad tippers. Check it out:
1. Madonna - Doesn’t always leave a tip, when she does it’s a cheap one.
2. Kelly Presten – Notoriously bad tipper. Most of the time she doesn’t leave a tip at all.
3. Gwyneth Paltrow – Doesn’t leave a decent tip. It’s speculated she has trouble calculating the proper percentage.
4. Barbra Streisand – Doesn’t always tip. When she does it’s $10 for a bill of over $450. She’s very high maintenance and demanding and no one ever wants to wait on her.
5. Tobey Maguire – Doesn’t always leave a tip, and when he does it isn’t generous.
6. Bill Cosby – Once left a $3 tip on a $350 order. He probably thinks the waitstaff needs to stop taking from others and get a real job.
7. Ricki Lake – Once left a tip of $8.00 on a $142.44 bill. This after she let her young son run around the restaurant unattended – and he supposedly made a big mess.
8. Bobby Brown – Rude to wait staff, lets his kids run amuk and left a $10 gratuity on a $250 restaurant tab.
9. Sean Penn - He and three others had New Orleans waiters waiting on them hand and foot. The tip left on a $450 tab? Absolutely nothing. There are lots of instances of Sean Penn stiffing waitstaff. How many people do you think have spit in his food by now?
10. Kirsten Dunst – According to one server she’s whiny and smells bad. Left nothing behind after racking up a $223 bill.
11. Dan Marino – Wouldn’t talk to server directly, had to have a member of his entourage handle it. Tipped $10 on $210.
12. David Lee Roth – Is known to be demanding and send food back. Tips 10%.
13. Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman – He and his wife are considered to be very high maintenance. They expect the VIP treatment and only tip %5. At a TGI Fridays in Waikiki they paid $10 for a $250 tab.
14. Rupert Everett – Listed as one of the worst tippers ever.
15. David Byrne – The Talking Heads frontman is considered one of the worst tippers ever because he doesn’t leave anything, ever.
16. Molly Ringwald – Bar tab was the equivalent of twenty-five cents for each round of drinks her large entourage consumed.
17. Diddy – Left a $40 tip for his meal – a dinner for 15 people.
18. Richard Dreyfuss – Bad tipper and high maintenance “whiny” client.
19. Michael Moore – Once left less than $20 on a bill totally $452.52.
20. Jesse Jackson – Left $20 on a $228 tab.
21. John Kerry – Left $20 on a tab of over $700!
22. Britney Spears – Once tipped a valet by dropping change on the ground and telling him “there’s your tip”. Also paid a $26 tip on a $500 tab.
23. Tiger Woods – Doesn’t tip because he says he doesn’t carry cash.
24. Usher - Never tips and always tries to get someone else to pick up the bill.
25. Rachel Ray – Tipped $1 on a $10 tab. Probably didn’t want to go under her $40 a day allowance.
26. Victoria Beckham and Katie Holmes – Dined together in an upscale restaurant and didn’t leave a tip.
27. Tom Green – Once left $15 on a $175 tab.
28. Paul McCartney – Once left a restaurant too drunk to leave a tip.
29. Regis – Once left cruise staff a $60 tip for an entire week’s worth of personal service. His wife is said to be very high maintenance and the ship’s crew was happy when she left two days early.
30. Marty Stuart – Leaves 7% – his wife is very demanding.
31. Don Henley – Very demanding, keeps staff members on their toes, tips 15%.
32. D’Angelo – Once left $7.00 on a $250 tab. The tab should have been over $500, mind you, but the r&b singer and his entourage nagged until they got a discount . 33. Mariah Carey – Once had her people call ahead to a restaurant to let them know she was arriving with a very large party. The restaurant stayed open late, and Mariah and crew were very diva-ish with their demands. Despite keeping staffers jumping and a high tab, no one left a tip.
34. Marion Jones – Left $3 on a $45 tab.
> You seem to lack faith in the efficacy of ambition.
Yet that is precisely what happens here in New Zealand: the wait staff get at least minimum wage and there is no tipping. Better restaurants attract better clientele, and there is competition for better wait staff so they get paid better.
Tipping is charity. Nothing more and nothing less. Nobody should be in a position of demanding Charity as a right, and certainly not demanding a percentage of the bill, such as 15% or 20%, for doing nothing more than the job that they are already paid to do.
Now THAT is interesting! Especially when you consider that Michelle's job with that Chicago hospital was a sort of 'tip' directed toward her husband -- the oh-so-entitled one. There's probably a lot of grist for a psychological study.
There’s a story that Jackie Gleason came up to the doorman of a hotel in Miami and said “What’s the biggest tip you ever got?” Doorman says, “One hundred dollars.” Gleason pulls a wad of bills out of his pocket the hands the guy two hundred dollar bills. “Who gave you the hundred dollar tip?” he asks. “You did,” the doorman says.
I’ll leave bad tips. I’ve left $2 tips on $30 meals before. I just left a $7 tip on my last $30 trip to Ruby’s because I was happy with the service that time. Depends completely on the service.
I don’t flat give every waiter a 15 or 20% tip. Doesn’t make me stingy.
Right now, most waitstaff makes far less than minimum wage. Why is that fair?
Really good waiters and waitresses do the job because they make good money. The better they are at their job, the better restaurants they can work at, the more money they make.
I agree with you 100%. The restaurants that hire these people should recognize and reward such employees with generous pay and bonuses, just like any other employee working at just about any other employer is similarly rewarded.
And since tips are pooled, good wait staff tend to appreciate each other’s skills and will get a bad waiter fired if they are getting bad tips for bad service.
Is it really fair that your peers have a say in whether or not you'd be working? Shouldn't that be your boss' call? And again, why can't the restaurant do this, after all, it is their employees.
I worked for about 10 total years as a waitress.
There were weeks when I’d take home gobs of money.
Why? I went the extra mile, knew my stuff, was pleasant at all times.
I worked at very high end restaurants and medium end restaurants.
As a tipper I tip 20 for regular good service 25 for exceptional service and 15 for average service. ANd if I tip that 25 I let the person know what he or she did that made me give that extra because it may help them get that extra from others.
LOL.
I agree with that. Since I'm in the US, I pretty much have to tip in order to be a decent human, and I habitually tip 20% or a touch less. I understand that NZ has different expectations, so you're fine leaving no tip. That's what makes the world go round.
I would hazard a guess, however, that some of the people on the list (Sean Penn would be my first guess) are in the US and yet take an attitude that "Tipping is evil. Many people in other countries don't tip. They are so cool. I will be cool too! The restaurant owner is depriving his wait staff, and if I withhold my tip, they will rise up and demand that the Rich Boss give them better pay! By not tipping, I am really helping my waitress have a better life."
I've known plenty of self-serving Liberals here in the US who think like that.
Nonsense. Tipping is an implied contract between customer and server. In this respect, the waiter is an independent contractor, like a hair-stylist.
That's as far from charity as you can get.
I think it's funny reading your thoughts on this, because the restaurant biz, in the US, is one of the few no-holds-barred bastions of true capitalism left.
There are few purer, untainted marketplace relationships than diner/waiter.
Some of those I can believe.
But in some cases, I bet they got poor service and were sending a message.
> LOL.
What part of that’s funny? My commission is a non-negotiable contractual arrangement between me and my employer. I make a sale, I get my commission no ifs, ands or buts.
The customer has no role — at all — in deciding how much commission I get or whether I have “earned” it. That is the role of my employer. Quite rightly, too.
Are we really asking what is fair all of a sudden?
Why is it fair that a textile worker in South Carolina made $18 an hour while a textile worker in Guatemala makes $1.50 an hour?
It’s the same clothing after all.
Wait, that’s why the textile industry collapsed in South Carolina.
Likewise, you change the way restaurants are run... you change and eventually shut down restaurants.
Now you have made it clear that you don’t like to eat at higher end restaurants, and that’s fine. But the way that wait staff is paid in the U.S. means they make more money that most wait staff in other countries.
And guess what? It’s all voluntary. No one is forced to eat at a restaurant that requires a gratuity. No one is forced to enjoy fine dining at all.
But the waiters and waitresses that work at higher end eateries would not be thrilled with your idea of what is “fair”. They would be looking for a new line of work as soon as they could and we would no longer have the best of the best in the wait staff game. Fine dining in the U.S. would suffer, and many restaurants would go out of business as poor service would drive customers away.
Then I guess we could all join you for a nice date at Golden Corral.
If I may stick my massive nose into your conversation, I'd say that "It depends".
If that $300 Bill includes a consultation on a bottle (or two) of wine, appetizer, entree, dessert, and may dawdling over coffee....for 2 or 3 hours at the same table, I'd say that $60 bucks for a tip is pretty cheap. Figure that while you're sitting there...no one else is, so a tipping customer might be lost.
However, if that $300 covers an in-and-out meal and the service is lousy, well, then $6 might be a bit much. :-) Of course, I've not had too many in-and-out $300 meals, with lousy service. Maybe once or twice in NYC on business, that'd be all I could think of.
I find this article hard to believe. Why would anyone rich and famous also want to be known as cheap?
The customer certainly does have a role. If he decides not to pruchase your product/service, your commission, which he pays, is zero.
When we go to a “tip the staff” type establishment, the “tip-o-meter” starting running the minute we walk in the door. We tip based on service and product, not a preconceived percentage. Sometimes we trip great, but there have been times we left nothing..except feedback for the manager.
A very good question, and one that I've wondered about as well. For this reason I sort of tip on a sliding scale starting at about 25% at a diner down to 15% at a good restaurant. And I have a rule to pretty much never leave less than $2.00. OTOH, I don't feel obligated to tip for lousy service, and some of those complaints sounded pret-ty whiny.
In the ‘90s, I worked at a high-end resort in Hawaii where celebreties stay — stars, royalty, etc. Some of them lived like pigs in their suites; a couple were especially disgusting. They didn’t tip Housekeeping staff. (OTOH, some were incredibly generous and kind to everyone.)
> Nonsense. Tipping is an implied contract between customer and server.
Nonsense yourself. If that were so, your waiter would have legal recourse against any customer who did not pay his/her tip. And you would have — spelled out — the terms by which tips were to be paid, and the rate that was to be applied.
Nothing like a contract, implied or otherwise.
> In this respect, the waiter is an independent contractor, like a hair-stylist.
Hardly. I cannot discipline a waiter who serves me poorly, except for docking his tip. I do not get to interview him to see if he is suitable for the job. And I don’t have exclusive claim on his services while he is serving me.
> That’s as far from charity as you can get.
It’s charity. It’s money for free for doing nothing more than what they are already paid to do. Do they get paid less than minimum wage? More the fool them: they need to take that up with their employers. It is not my responsibility to pay an establishment’s staff: that risk belongs to the establishment’s owners.
> I think it’s funny reading your thoughts on this, because the restaurant biz, in the US, is one of the few no-holds-barred bastions of true capitalism left.
In what way is Charity a form of Capitalism?
> There are few purer, untainted marketplace relationships than diner/waiter.
How so? It is an exploitative relationship between the restauranteur and the waiter, and it is a charitable relationship between the diner and the waiter: neither of those are “Capitalism”.
Maybe she tips well?
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