Tipping in some situations is common sense. But at the coffee shop and some other places, the rule tends to be: Leave a gratuity if the service warrants it.
MICAH MERTES / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 7:00 pm
It sits on the counter in front of the barista: that confusing, confounding, anxiety-generating tip jar. Sometimes it has money in it. Sometimes not.
And after you buy your $3.85-plus-tax venti triple chocolate espresso surprise, you’re left to confront the jar. What do you do?
Do I tip a dollar? Geez, that’s like 25 percent. Too much.
What about 15 percent? That’s only 50-something cents. No, that would just be condescending. Better nothing than such a low amount.
Wait a second, I just spent $4 on a cup of coffee. That’s ridiculous! I’m leaving. No tip.
Uhhh. Now I feel guilty.
It’s a question we ask ourselves at the coffee shop, or the many other businesses that have jars looming on the counter: To tip or not to tip? And if so, how much?
“Tipping’s a cultural phenomenon,” said Jon Ferguson, owner and manager of Cultiva Coffee Co., 1501 South St. “It differs drastically from one block to another, from one business to the next.”
Ferguson’s worked at a handful of coffee shops before owning Cultiva. At one venue, tips would bring him up to $20 an hour on a good day. But at other shops, he’s made, well, much less than that.
“I don’t want to make anyone feel obligated to tip when they come into the store,” Ferguson said. “Tip if you want to tip. Don’t if you don’t. But tipping’s nice, sure.”
Few of us question tipping a bartender or waiter, but baristas are a trickier breed of server. They typically make more money per hour than bartenders or waiters, who often get paid a “server’s wage” — that is, less than minimum wage.
But baristas still don’t make much. In some cases their pay’s not much better than minimum wage. So every extra nickel helps.
“We’re glad for whatever anybody puts in the jar,” said Jacob Grier, cowriter of coffee blog SmellingtheCoffee.com. Grier’s worked as a barista at several coffee shops, and he usually tips fellow baristas a dollar per drink.
“At a high-volume coffee shop, the tips, even the small ones, add up over the course of a day.”
So it’s not condescending for me to put, say, my leftover change in the jar?
Grier: “No.”
Ultimately, Grier said, tipping creates a good rapport between you and your barista. If you’re a regular, the rapport can ensure solid repeat service and drinks.
“Baristas are like any other kind of bartender,” said Jason Anderson, manager, owner and sole barista of Coffee Emergency, 2723 N. 48th St. “They deserve to be tipped when they make something properly. There’s a skill, an art to being a good barista.”
Now, Anderson said, that doesn’t mean you need to tip someone who just gives you a cup to pour your own coffee.
“You don’t need to tip a barista for everything,” he said, “but the amount of skill it takes to make a really well-executed cappuccino; something like that deserves a tip.”
“It just depends,” said Teresa Blackstone, who was spotted sipping coffee at Crescent Moon Coffee, 816 P St. “It depends on what your order is and how much work they have to do, if they have to bring it out for you."
In response to a question about tipping baristas, CHOW.com food columnist Helena Echlin wrote that it’s important to note not all coffeehouses are equal in attention to latte craft. Some chains have automated the process of making coffee drinks so much that all some baristas have to do is push a few buttons, hand you your cup and take your money, she said.
In those cases, a tip doesn’t really make sense.
But, she said, “When it comes to the person who makes your coffee, I say use the same rule of thumb you should use for any food-service counter worker: If you feel he or she has gone beyond the industry norms, made you laugh, given you something extra she needn’t have, in some way noticeably improved your life, if only for a moment, tip her.”
Eric Norby, 19, has worked at all kinds of coffee shops (five in Lincoln), some of which only required button-pushing and some of which required bona fide barista skills. Now he’s working at Crescent Moon, where the tips are relatively good, he said.
He’s found a few strategies in how to get better tips throughout the day.
“When I’m wearing this shirt (it displays a cutesy train that says I Choo Choo Choose You), I get better tips than when I’m not. It doesn’t really make sense, but I get better tips when I wear certain shirts, usually ones that tend to be warmer colors.”
And for all the burgeoning baristas out there, here are a few other tips on getting tips:
- “Count back change,” Norby said. “Customers like that.”
- Put your own money in the tip jar at the beginning of your shift. “If I have $5 in there and the customer sees that, they’re going to be thinking, ‘This guy must be good,’” Norby said. But this can be risky because some people will be more likely to tip you if your tip jar is empty, out of sympathy. It’s a tossup, Norby said.
- Know as much about coffee as you can. “If you have a knowledge of coffee,” Norby said, “it shows through to the customer.”
And they’ll hopefully tip you accordingly.
Reach Micah Mertes at 473-7395 or mmertes@journalstar.com.