Tipping is an important part of restaurant etiquette and is certainly a sensitive topic. Tipping behavior can be confusing to recent immigrants or the very young. This page presents guidelines you can follow or ignore, but by reading it, you will at least understand more about the local business and consumer perspectives. Many food service professionals in the Yuba-Sutter area rely on tips for their livelihood.
General Principles
The rule of thumb here is that one should give a minimum tip of 15%, which is approximately double the tax. Some feel it should be less for poor service and more for excellent service. Be aware that many establishments have all the workers pool their tips and then divide them evenly. Some industries (restaurants, hotel staff, etc.) have grown to expect tips, while other industries rarely receive tips. Some think this is unfair.
The state of California provides a number of tipping related legal guidelines. Independent of tips, all workers must receive minimum wage. Many (especially those who work in service industries) like this system because some can make a substantial income from tips.
Flat 15% vs. Service Quality
Variable argument: This may encourage the server to provide better service. Fixed argument: Perhaps the server is working as hard as they can, but just aren't any good. Their living costs are fixed (they can't pay less to their landlord for crappy service, can they?), so they should get the same regardless.
Mandatory Service Charges For Large Groups
Fixed gratuities for parties of 8 or more are sometimes used (usually only at upscale restaurants) because quite often a waiter will be servicing only one table if there are 8 or more people at it. No tip or a small tip could mean that's all the waiter receives for the entire night. Also, tips are often taken into account when calculating how much a waiter makes in salary.
Note (6) that these are considered the employer's property and not the employee's property. The employer may give the workers 10%, 5%, or nothing at all if they choose.
Tipping on Discounted Items
Happy hours are happy for the customers, but sad for servers. During happy hour, customers tend to order twice as much food, work the servers twice as hard, and innocently tip based on the discounted food. That means the server is getting one-fourth the tip they would for doing the same work at a sad-hour. Make sure to tip based on the normal price of the food, and do the same when using coupons.
Tipping for Delivered Food
The delivery charge is generally intended to cover the driver's gasoline expenses, not to substitute for a tip. You should tip as usual.
Tipping an Owner
Don't assume that because someone owns a business or doesn't hire other servers, they don't really need the money from tips. Most of the company's fixed costs (such as rent, utilities, equipment, and supplies) are still present despite the lack of employees. If an owner performs the duties of a server, the owner should be tipped accordingly.
Adapted from the Tipping page on the Davis Wiki.