I Owned a Restaurant — and I Know How Much You Tip
Do men tip better than women? The truth is more complicated
I used to own a restaurant, and one night I got a call from one of my regular customers. It was 9:50 p.m.
“I know you’re about to close,” he said, “but I just landed at the airport, and I am craving one of your calzones. I could be there in an hour.”
“Um… sure. Just bang on the door when you get here.” My fiancé and I would still be at work anyway, cleaning and prepping. “You want your usual: broccoli, Kalamata olives, and sun-dried tomatoes?”
As I hung up the phone, my fiancé quit sweeping the floor to ask what was up.
“Tonight,” I told him, “I’m finally going to get that guy to tip.”
A new study on the tipping habits of Uber riders released data from 40 million rides in 2017, revealing most Uber riders — 60 percent — never tip. Only 1 percent always tip.
But the headline I keep seeing is, “men tip better than women,” because in the Uber study, men tipped their drivers 17 percent of the time, while women tipped 14 percent of the time.
Most of these stories link back to this CreditCards.com survey, which leads by declaring men are better tippers, then actually presents data showing…
