I was originally thinking about delivery (isn’t it basically the same effort to deliver 1 or 2 pizzas?). Shouldn’t delivery tipping be based on distance/effort rather than cost of food?
The same goes for restaurants, of course. If I go with a friend and we have the same meal but I have three glasses of wine, and she has three cokes, I am expected to tip more, but the server’s effort is the same for each of us.
Was it always like this or did it change with time?
Note: I’m only trying to understand this aspect of Us tipping culture. I know that tipping isn’t the norm everywhere.
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It’s the best proximation we have for effort that’s a simple formula… typically a higher bill means means more people served, more items ordered, or higher level of service expected. It’s not perfect, but people have a hard enough time with a universal percentage to apply… can you imagine some sort of complex formula that factors in drinks vs. food, number of items vs. expensive items, etc? It would be chaos and almost certain to hurt servers’ pay.
As for delivery, how do you know the distance from the location? Are you going to calculate that? What if they have different locations or a ghost kitchen and you’re not even sure where it actually came from. Do you tip differently if the driver has a Prius vs. a Tahoe because of fuel consumption? change based on gas prices that day?
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