tipping in the DR

[jrhartley]

its my culture not to tip.

 

[LaLouve]

My husband and I usually tip 10-15% and if service is good more. When service is great and food is great, it is only fair. As someone wrote before, it won't break our budget, but will surely show them our appreciation.

 

[catcherintherye]

"its my culture not to tip."

jr

And then give a bad review.

 

[AlterEgo]

Usually, I tip the 5-10%

That being said I don't think it is a good idea to ask the customer to pay the wages for the workers, meanwhile pocketing the 10% mandatory, on top of the restaurant bill, because you know a worker needs to be paid a minimum salary of RD$ 5.575 a month.

its my culture not to tip.

To jr, 'when in Rome'. You live in DR now, get with the culture....

Re MD's post. In the US we have a minimum wage like DR, but it does NOT apply to waiters/waitresses - they make only a couple of dollars an hour and their TIPS are their wages. Does anyone know if it is the same in DR, or do the servers get the same minimum wage as anyone else??

AE

 

[MerengueDutchie]

servers are workers and subject to minimum wages officially... from my understanding they are invariably paid a little above that

 

[Bernard Jean-Pierre]

A very good point, Blackrainbow!
I fully agree. I always tip myself because being from a poor family I compassion with poor honest guys. But I have a kinda issue with Sosua business owners who force local waiters to work for free - like slaves, making them literaly beggars, whose bread depends on a good heart and mood of the eater. It is disgrace and humiliation for workers. While owners enjoy the life in the chair with coffee or beer taking an afternoon nap. Expecting the customers to pay their waiters, cooks, cleaners, etc. Something is not right here.
I may be wrong. But I see the problem lies not with greedy nontipping tourists, but with smth else.

Nothing personal, just an observation.

I completely agree with most of that. I don't really feel that tips should be only for extremely good service. Even if the service is bad I still leave a tip (not a large one mind you) but then I take my complaint to the Manager. In my mind its not 'rewarding' bad service, because if the service is REALLY that bad, and consistently so they will not be a server for long. So most of the time it is a result of the Server simply having a bad day, being sat with way too many tables at once, etc. Many Servers live directly off the tips they make and virtually nothing esle. But as mentioned above its the owners and operators who are to blame more so than anyone else. They sneakily mention to the patrons to tip, trying to tap into their clients morals of justice and fairness, but yet never mention that the tip does NOT go to the Server. There should really be something put in place to prevent that from happening in so many places.

 

[bienamor]

From what I have observed the tips are parceled out among the servers, dishwashers, cooks, etc. They are normally but into a box and parceled out at the end of the shift.