Good news for drunk taxi passengers (or just riders with bad math skills) is less good for taxi drivers. After this week the auto-suggested tips for rides under $15 in taxi cabs with VeriFone Taxi TVs will stop being $2, $3 and $4 options and instead resort to the standard 20, 25 and 30 percent defaults already available in the Creative Mobile Technologies Taxi TVs. Hurrah! more ›

Proper tipping etiquette (20%, 90% of the time) can be enforced by the angry stares of your tablemates and the shame that gnaws at your soul when you look a competent, friendly server in the eye and tip them 15%. But who's keeping you in line when you summon chimichangas to your apartment on a rainy night? Visual.ly takes 3.5 million Seamless orders and creates a nifty chart showing the most popular foods ordered on the service and the average percentage of tips left on them. What neighborhood is the stingiest? The Financial District, with an average tip of 12.31% Way to put those company credit cards to use! more ›

Avert your gaze from the rabble on Wall Street to the real victims of the modern economy: highly successful restaurateurs. It's really difficult to manage a restaurant empire when you're getting sued for back pay and lost tips by your staff, says Joe Bastianich, who co-owns Eataly, Babbo, and Del Posto. "Money-hungry lawyers, through frivolous lawsuits, are shaking down the very foundation of Manhattan's restaurant industry," the money-hungry businessman tells the Post. "Someone in Albany needs to understand the agenda, what this is really costing the greatest restaurant city in the world." Despite this harshest of anti-business climates, restaurants in New York City grew by 42% in the last decade. more ›

Since the recession we've heard more and more about restaurants adding automatic gratuity for parties much smaller than six but an automatic gratuity for brown people? At an Indian restaurant? That's new to us. But that is exactly what a new lawsuit is claiming the Forest Hills outpost of the chain Baluchi's does. In papers filed in Brooklyn yesterday [PDF] Abe Shah and Hemang Virani, who are of Pakistani and Indian descent respectively, claim that on May 12 they were charged an 18 percent gratuity without their permission. When they complained to a manager they were told that the restaurant routinely adds on the extra money to "Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi customers" bills because "they never tip." And then things got violent! more ›

Normally when we spill ink on one of Steve Cuozzo's adorable columns in the NY Post, it's to point out that he is the Mayor of Wrongville, a loner afraid of change who sits in the corner of his hovel surrounded by jars of urine, rocking back and forth on his heels whilst murmuring things about "pedestrian plazas." Maybe not! Today, Cuozzo is the champion of service employees everywhere in advocating for a mandatory, built-in 20 percent tip in New York establishments. "A mandatory service charge democratizes the restaurant experience for both customers and staff," Cuozzo writes. more ›

Certain websites aside, we always thought New York was actually a pretty good town for getting tips, what with all the big spenders here and the many professionals whose livelihood depends on tips. And we are! But you know who apparently tips better? New Hampshireites. And Alaskans. And Wisconsinites. Also? People from Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, Hawaii, Vermont, and Alabama. According to research from Marketplace, they beat us on when it comes to average tips given on $20 sit-down meals. more ›

We receive a lot of e-mail. Most of these missives are carefully read, discussed at length among the editors, and courteously replied to in a timely fashion—except for the ones that are so bizarre and irrelevant that we're simply afraid to engage the sender. Instead, we'll share them with you. Behold, the eccentric underbelly of the Gothamist inbox: more ›

When we first reported on part-time delivery guy Larry Fox, he was gleefully outing bad tippers with impunity on his Tumblr, exposing all those jerks for whom tipping is "optional." The Post caught up with Fox this weekend, and although he was fired from his delivery job after they were threatened with a lawsuit by Delivery.com, Fox says that his website is booming: "I get about 100 submissions a day…I don't have time to go through all of them. I'm thinking about hiring an intern." That's right diners: tip, or else you'll create another blogger! more ›

After Thanksgiving BrickUnderground ran a not-un-useful guide to holiday tipping—certainly it was more helpful than the Times' anecdotal take (we don't have a car let alone a car to tip away!)—and as part of the guide they ran an informal survey to find out what people are tipping. A month later, survey says... most people this year topped out their tips at $500 or less. Granted, the survey didn't take into account the number of staff in a person's building, so you can take the results with a '91 Honda Accord full of salt. And remember, by custom you have until the end of the year to give holiday tips. more ›

We're well into the holiday tipping season—custom gives you till the end of the year to give 'em—and today the Times offers an informal comparison between the suggested tips we wrote about last month and what doormen around town were reporting they got. And while it sounds like you are safe giving what you can—especially if you write a personalized note!—if you really want to give a doozy of a gift the bar has been set: one doorman at the Langston, a 186-unit condo in Harlem, was offered a car for the holidays. more ›

Thanksgiving is past and the holiday deluge is upon us, which means in addition to braving Black Fridays, Cyber Mondays, holiday shopping villages and Salvation Army santas, the tipping season is nigh. But lo, with it comes that age-old question: who to tip and how much? Not everyone can live in a no-tip co-op. And New York being as expensive as it is, national advice on the matter often comes across as almost quaint. Luckily for the curious, the Internet has answers. more ›

Grub Street recently got an advance copy of tip jar advocate Steve Dublanica's new book "Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper’s Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity," which is chock full of rules for how to tip. Besides splitting tips for sushi chefs and tipping on buffets, Dublanica takes a look barista tipping trends. At Starbucks, one barista says a 50 cent tip is "really generous," while at Portland’s Ristretto, baristas expect to be tipped $1 a drink like a bartender. Unless they sneak Irish Coffee into that carboard cup, we'll stick to leaving our extra change. more ›

Watch out everyone, because according to the Post, tip jar madness is taking over the city! That's right, many workers have the audacity to passively ask for tips by putting out a jar, often emblazoned with offensive sayings like "Tipping isn't a city in China," or "We need money for college!" Many New Yorkers just won't stand for this type of behavior; one woman at Citi Field said, "I laugh to myself that those workers think that people are actually going to put money in it." more ›

If it's November, it's time to start dreading the Holiday tipping ritual. How much do you give the super or the doorman or—no joke—the sanitation worker? Well, if you're the board of directors at a tony co-op, the solution is simple: Nothing. A thread on the Urban Baby message board has sparked a vigorous debate about noblesse oblige during a recession, beginning thus:

SANTA CLAUS CAME EARLY!!! Just got a notice from our co-op board: "In response to past complaints about favoritism, and in light of the current recession that has dealt a significant blow to many of our shareholders, the board of directors of (XYZ Building) has implemented a strict "no tipping" policy for the building staff." THANK YOU SANTA!!!

Over the last six months, we've learned that Alex Rodriguez has been given the nicknames A-Roid, A-Fraud and A-SWF. Now we're told of nickname for the slugger back in 2005..."Bitch Tits." According to the upcoming biography that first broke the news he had tested positive for steroids, A-Rod was called that by fellow Yankees who noticed some extra cuppage on the third baseman, a sign to some that he was using HGH. A-Rod has denied using steroids during his tenure with the Yankees, but the book talks to players and management who say that many in the organization suspected that he was and it quotes one major leaguer who accuses him of using HGH with former Yankee Kevin Brown in 2004. Other new revelations in the book include allegations that A-Rod used steroids as early as high school, tipped off pitches to friends on opposing teams and, most heinous of all, only tips 15% when he eats at Hooters. more ›

Over at Fork in the Road, journeyman Robert Sietsema has done a bang up job surveying the city’s burgeoning landscape of tip jars, which are no longer only found at cafes with counter service. They’re everywhere, Sietsema reports— from the coffee shop receptacle that implores “Karma is a boomerang,” to the mamma-said “Take a penny, leave a dollar.” It would seem that the current Thunderdome-style match-up of recession vs. New Yorkers has resulted in a new economy of tip jars that simultaneously allow business owners to broadcast their quirks as well as their woes, such as the “Tip $, because $4 a gallon is killing us!” price-of-milk themed message Sietsema found at a bakery. And Frank Bruni of Times puts in his two cents, imploring everyone to tip at restaurants, no matter how bad the service was: “It’s not some bold stand against fat-cat restaurant operators lining their pockets,” he writes, not to tip. more ›

As mentioned earlier, holiday tipping is taking a hit these days. But some building staffs still have expectations. One shop steward tells Page Six Magazine, "Anything under $50 is considered a bad tip. Some tenants give $20, a few give $400 and some don't give at all—and I can tell you the staff treats [the nongivers] differently. If a bad-tipping tenant calls down for help, the doormen make them wait a little longer. The biggest tippers get the best service." Other doormen put it this way: If you're a good tipper, they'll help you with "moving parked cars to abide by the city's alternate side parking rules, fixing TVs and computers, taking dogs for walks and conveniently 'forgetting' comely visitors to the apartments of adulterers." [Via Curbed] more ›

It's that time of year again when everybody's looking for a handout, and those of us with means are expected to dole out extra cash to the help as thanks for simply doing their jobs. And just because this sucker's going down, that doesn't mean you're off the hook when it comes to holiday tipping, or so says the rich liberal elitist media. Despite citing surveys that at least 30% of respondents plan on tipping less (or zilch) because of the recession, the latte sippers at WABC insist "you've got to do your best to give something, particularly cash." more ›

Think paying $8 for a beer is outrageous? Then steer clear of ordering the Baladine Xyauyù at Park Slope's Beer Table, the 17-oz. bottle will set you back 95 bucks (but to be fair, would be the perfect accompaniment to the $175 hamburger). more ›

Do certain band's fans tip better than others? Sasha Frere-Jones does an uncontrolled study at Bowery Ballroom -- and Chromeo fans, you're busted.

“When Chromeo played, their crowd drank house vodka and Budweiser. Didn’t tip. Some of them did what I’ll call the slide-backs. They put a dollar down on the bar, wait until you turn your back, then palm their buck and walk away. Classy. When your night starts out with “What’s your cheapest drink?” that’s also not good.”