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.
We went to a Tex-mex restaurant on Mother’s day a few years back. It was not that crowded, and the service was soooo bad. I had to get my own refills. It took several hours to get our food. People that came after us were served before us. The staff was unapologetic. My husband took care of the bill, but I probably would not have tipped on little bit for that meal.
I’ve also noticed that you get better service when the economy is bad.
Dog the Bounty Hunter is a liberal?
How do you think people stay rich? :)
Not Japan, either (at least not on Okinawa) - they say good service is to be expected.
> The customer certainly does have a role. If he decides not to pruchase your product/service, your commission, which he pays, is zero.
Actually, you’re mistaken.
If somebody decides not to purchase my product/service then he is not a customer.
If there is no customer I have not made a sale. If there is no sale then there is no commission.
Once I have made a sale, I have a customer. My commission is paid by my employer come Hell or High Water, based upon an agreed percentage of margin on that sale. Even if the customer is subsequently unhappy with what he received.
The customer cannot say “I am unhappy, so your salesman does not deserve his margin” — that isn’t how it works. Commission is a part of agreed remuneration: once it has been earned by making a sale, the employer is responsible — by law — to pay it. In full. Or else.
11. Dan Marino – Wouldn’t talk to server directly, had to have a member of his entourage handle it. Tipped $10 on $210.
I have seen this first hand when an ex-girlfriend back in 92 was managing a restaurant that was part of a resort and he was at dinner with his family in Weston with Bernie Kosar and his family as well...Marino never addressed the servers or bussers and he told the server to bill his house account. Well, they couldn’t auto grat under 8 people (they had 7), he left zero dollars and zero cents for a tip.
Also, another HUGE cheap skate is Rashard Lewis from the Orlando Magic and Dwight Howard. My wife used to manage a 5 star restaurant just north of Orlando and the Magic players would come in often. Lewis and Howard would always expect to be comped everything and come in with huge parties and leave like $10.00 tip.
They left a really bad taste in people’s mouths around town because they walked all over staff wherever they go.
How so? The waiter gives me the menu, takes my order, gives me recommendations if I ask, brings me the food, checks up on me to make sure I am happy, and collects my payment. There's no difference between that from one restaurant to another.
I’ve heard that Travolta tips pretty good (and 50% is more than pretty good!), so maybe his wife just doesn’t tip well and he makes sure that his name isn’t on a list like this.
Paul Newman – Servers love him because he’s kind and generous and not high maintenance at all.
I can believe that last bit.
He can't tell if you're a cheapskate, a demanding, unreasonable jerk beforehand either. And if he spends all his time with another table, he might reasonably expect you to give him less.
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.
Wait staff in the US gets half of minimum wage, which used to be $2.13/hr. In addition, the IRS assumes that waiters take in at least 8% of their total sales as tip income and are liable for any income taxes due on that income.
So, the US is not the same as NZ in this respect, apparently.
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”.
The restauranteur provides a "house" in which the waiter plies his trade. He provides enough "wage" to satisfy withholding requirements to keep the IRS off his subcontractors' backs while they hustle to make as much money for themselves, and by extension, their employer, as possible.
Like a hooker, or a hairstylist...
I have trouble leaving a good tip, when the wait staff
doesn’t smile or look directly at you, but when they
put the bill down their smiling and wishing you a happy day
etc. It’s like who do you think your fooling!!
Hmm...yeah, come to think of it he has been awfully quiet since September of last year...
you may only talk to the waiter anywhere you go, but there are many more people involved in fine dining establishments and they all get a piece of the tipping pie.
my point is, if you can't afford to tip 15-20% of any restaurant you walk into, don't go there. lord knows i only go to upscale NYC steakhouses on very special occasions.
How do you reach that conclusion? If this was true, why do not see more people make careers out of waiting, which seems to be prevalent in other countries as well?
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.
Then perhaps their employers should consider paying them more money, which is how it works in other jobs.
Fine dining in the U.S. would suffer, and many restaurants would go out of business as poor service would drive customers away.
This is a silly conclusion. As other posters have pointed out, there are plenty of fine restaurants in countries which do not practice tipping and they seem to be doing just fine.
I know he's a lib, but I this one kind of surprised me...is this a one time incident, or part of a pattern? During my drinking days, I left a bar so drunk the next morning I couldn't remember if I'd walked out without settling my tab entirely, much less left a tip (I was a regular at the place, so it's conceivable they'd have left me stumble out without paying). I went back the next day to settle up my account, but was told I must have taken care of it before I left...
If McCartney left a restaurant drunk once and forgot to leave a tip, but is otherwise a decent tipper, I don't think he should be included on this list.
I am NOT a Beatles apologist, but the evidence cited in his case seems kind of thin.
How is that different from someone splitting an entree with their companion and having a couple of ice waters?
If the waiter doesn't make the sale, he doesn't get paid. Heck, sometimes he makes the sale and still gets screwed, which seems like something awfully unlike "charity."
Secondly, work is rewarded for results and efforts. So what if that 6 bucks = 2%? If the work is the same 6 bucks is 6 bucks.
Now what's all this about "deserve the ire" of the wait staff? Again such moralistic phrasing. The wait staff are not my moral judges, merely employees paid to serve me. Try to remember - "serve" is the root word of servant. They're servants, not judge, jury and executioner.
Because it's a high-energy business, with late hours that make it difficult to have normal family life. Ask me how I know.
As for other countries, yes it's nice to see older men, in nice uniforms, clustered around the kitchen door. When they do decide to serve you, it's often with a deliberate professionalism that can say "unhurried competence" or "studied indifference," depending on your perspective (I base this impression on numerous fine dining experiences throughout Europe, specifically).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.