20% is definitely the NYC norm.

I am really weirded out by the fact that the antibiotic I am taking (clarithromycin) smells like vanilla pudding mix. And it is a pill.

My dad is a pain in the ass tipper. He's not cheap, he's got it stuck in his head it should be 10%. My mother tries to take the bill, but if he shells out (yeah, both their money, but it depends on who has the cash on hand) she always supplements. I see this a lot when they visit, because usually dad carries the cash for various reasons I don't get and we heckle him, he looks confused and affronted and we drop extra cash. It bugs my mom because they're paying and she doesn't want me to pay tip, but there's my dad, being clueless and I'm often faster than her or have the cash on me.

I really don't get it. I feel bad for his servers when he's travelling alone. OTOH, when travelling abroad, he's overly generous. He's got a blind spot for waiting wages US, I guess.

Oh, and I think 15 % is standard in Rochester. I usually tip a bit more because I double the tax (8%) and then round up so that it is even or everyone in the party can pay their share without using coins.

20% is definitely the NYC norm.

SF, too. (Notsomuch South San Francisco, which is where I wait tables. A source of frustration at times, it is.)

20% is easier on my head than 15%. DH and I both have worked for tips before so we tend to over tip. When I eat out alone, particularly at a cheaper meal like breakfast it is a much higher percentage because I can't leave $1 when someone has saved me the trouble of making my own breakfast. I only worked waiting tables for 2 weeks, decades ago, but it was the hardest work I ever did.

Tennis this morning was awesome. Then we had the outside picnic festivities that we couldn't do yesterday because of the awful weather. Calling the day a win.

My dad used to tip only 10% or so, and when I saw him do it, I mentioned that 15-20% was standard, and so now he always tips, like, 30%. Servers love him.

Tipping etiquette makes my head hurt. Is 20% the norm now? I've been doing 15%.

I tend to do 20% if I'm paying with credit/debit, and if I'm paying cash, as close to 20% as I can get, going over if necessary.

And they get paid such a shit wage, I feel like a heel if I leave too much less than 20%.

My father will tip 15% for good enough service (like, all the plates arrived with pretty close to the correct food on them), and 18% for very good service. We've sometimes tried to get him to go up to 20% for really exceptional service, but 18% is his limit. (And what he calls 18% is actually 17.5%, rounded up to the nearest nickel, because 17.5% is easier to calculate.)

Here is something I've never really known: is it 20% of the total with or without tax? I've always tipped on the tax because it was easier, but it feels weird to tip on the tax. Of course, it already feels weird to tip on the cost of your food, as if the cost of your food has any relation to how much trouble your server had to endure to give it to you.

20% is the default in NYC unless it's automatically calculated by the restaurant (for large parties, in which case it's usuall 18%).

If you tip less than 20% your server will likely assume you're an ignorant tourist or a bigwig in the Republican party. (Tips when the RNC was in town a few years back were, by all accounts, offensively low. Because, you know, nothing says "I have three mansions and a Senate seat" like handing your waitress $5 on a $100 meal and calling her "sweetheart.")