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How to Make More Tips as a Server: What the Research Says

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Quick answer: In restaurant studies, servers got bigger tips by introducing themselves by name (15% to 23% of the bill), squatting next to the table (15% to 18%), writing “thank you” on the check (16% to 18%), complimenting what guests ordered (16% to 19%) and offering a second mint with the check (19% to 23%). Each result comes from a small study, so try one change at a time and track your tips for a few weeks to see what works for you.

Most advice about tips is somebody's opinion. This isn't. For more than thirty years, Michael Lynn, a professor at Cornell's hotel school, has studied what makes restaurant guests tip more, and in 2011 he gathered the experiments into a short guide for servers, Mega Tips 2. In those studies, a server tried something on some tables and not on others, picked at random, and compared the tips.

Two things to know before the list. First, the biggest driver of a tip is the size of the bill: most people tip a percentage. Second, the quality of the service matters less than you'd hope. Across 24 tests in 21 restaurants, the link between how guests rated the service and what they tipped was weak, and going from average to excellent service raised the typical tip by less than 3% of the bill. So the small things below, the ones that make guests feel looked after, are where a server has the most room to move.

What the studies found

Paired bar chart of the average tip as a percent of the bill without and with each change, from restaurant studies: introducing yourself by name, 15% without and 23% with; a smiley face on the check (a waitress; a waiter's tips didn't rise), 28% and 33%; a credit-card logo on the tip tray, 16% and 20%; a mint with the check, then offering a second, 19% and 23%; a good weather forecast on the check, 19% and 22%; complimenting their order, 16% and 19%; squatting down next to the table, 15% and 18%; and “thank you” written on the check, 16% and 18%.
Each pair is one study, usually with one or two servers in one restaurant. Treat the numbers as what's possible, not a promise.

At the table

On the check

Sell a little more

Because most guests tip a percentage, a bigger check means a bigger tip. In an older study, a waitress who suggested a second drink, an appetizer and dessert raised her average check by about a quarter. On a slow night that's free money. On a packed night it can cost you a table turn, so read the room.

What we'd skip

Studies also found that a light touch on the shoulder raised tips. We'd leave that one out: plenty of guests don't want to be touched, and it isn't worth the risk to you. The same goes for anything that feels like a trick. Every item above works because it makes guests feel noticed, and that only works when it's real.

Why tracking your tips matters

An iPhone standing on a marble bar top beside brass cocktail shakers, showing Tip’d's Week screen for the week of September 8: You made $1,050 over 20 hours and 3 shifts, $52.50 an hour, with a day-by-day chart of $250 on Wednesday, $350 on Thursday and $450 on Saturday.
Tip’d's Week screen on the bar: $1,050 over three shifts, $52.50 an hour.

Here's the catch with every result above: they're averages from someone else's restaurant. Yours may differ, and tips swing so much from one table, shift and month to the next that a single great Friday proves nothing. Lynn's own advice is to test a technique on your own shifts before you trust it.

That's why tracking your tips matters, and not only for experiments. When you write down every shift's tips and hours, you can:

Tip’d does this on your iPhone. Log a shift in a few seconds (cash, card, tip-outs and hours, and a note like “tried the second mint”), and Tip’d shows what you really made an hour, your week day by day, and, in Trends, what you average by position, shift type and day of the week. Logging shifts is free, with no ads and no account.

A simple four-week test

  1. Pick one change from the list, the one that feels most like you.
  2. Do it on every table on alternating shifts, and not on the shifts in between.
  3. Log every shift, with a note saying whether you used the change.
  4. After four weeks, compare your average tips per hour on the two kinds of shifts, lunch against lunch and dinner against dinner.
  5. Keep what works, drop what doesn't, and try the next one.

Sources