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I'm usually a 15-20% tipper--more in the winter here when there is serious lake effect snow going on. But this thread got me thinking about an essay from NPR's series "This I Believe." The essay is "Be Cool to the Pizza Delivery Dude." Here's the link:
http://www.thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=23&lastname=Adams&firstname=Sarah&yval=0&start=0

I deliver food by bike in NYC. I am paid $5/ hr and am uninsured. I spend over 40 hours a week in the midst of city traffic, enduring bad weather, bike breakdowns and theft, collisions, slow elevators and, oddly, pedestrians who love to leap in front of me when I have the right of way. I am always happy to arrive at your place safely and with your food hot and intact. But too often, I leave feeling like shit because you treated me like I'm not even human. You don't look at me, you make me wait, complain about delays after I rode over in a sleet storm, etc. But worst of all, your bad tips show complete disrespect for the service we provide. When ordering, think about putting on your shoes and coat and schlepping to the shop and back, and consider how much more it's worth to you to stay in. If it's not worth at least 15% of the cost of the meal, put your shoes on. In NYC, $2 and change just doesn't cut it anymore. To be honest, it's humiliating. Shame on you. And yes, we know who you are, and every restaurant has a blacklist, as well as a bunch of known favorites who get preferred service.

Ok, so the fact that most these folks have to pay for their own gas and insurance doesn't factor into the tip?

I'm not sure where I fit in as a Stabucks customer. In a perfect world, where I had lots of time, I doubt I would ever set foot in a Starbucks. I prefer making good coffee at home and I rarely drink coffee after 3:00pm.

Yes, you can get better coffee, but Starbucks is predictable and extremely convenient to my work office. Their "Frankenfood Egg Sandwiches" are pretty terrible, but guess what? They are also very convenient for people on the move and quickly get some grease, calories and sodium into your system. I think there are basically two types of Starbucks customers, corporate slaves like me, who just need a strong coffee fix during the day, don't care too much about the prices, don't care that "Mo's Coffee has ten times better coffee," but it is 12 blocks away, and just care about speed, caffeine, and convenience.

The other type Starbucks customer, seems to have all the time in the world, they sit there, read papers, play with laptops, chat with friends, etc..

My guess is there reasons for patronizing Starbucks is much the same though, convenience and predictability.

PS. They dont as sh1ty as it does in that pic above.

The best I can tell, the people dissing the Starbucks breakfast sandwiches have not actually eaten one. I had my first in Philadelphia last weekend. It was really good. It was not an Egg McMuffin (which I appreciate for being the healthiest widely available breakfast sandwich, but the spongy muffin and American "cheese" are far from good). I had the ham, egg and cheese version. The Black Forest ham and cheddar cheese were both really good, as was the slightly oversized English muffin. There was nothing special about the egg part, but neither was their anything objectionable about it. It was by far the best breakfast fast food offering I've ever had of the bread/egg/meat/cheese variety.

The people who complain about appearance of the sandwiches remind me of the time a friend of mine was invited to judge the baked goods competition at the state fair. A number of the people on the panel with her wanted to hand out ribbons based on appearance alone without actually tasting the baked goods. Same concept.

Starbucks was in need of more non-sweet breakfast selections. They hit this one out of the ball park. I can't wait until they're in all locations.

Frankly, I'd be happy not to run into any of the grousers in Starbucks.

I suppose it would be helpful if I mentioned that these rules of thumb are specific to New York City, where deliveries are made by foot or bicycle.

I think 20% is a good baseline. My father worked on a case involving a pay dispute with Chinese takeout workers, and their pay is incredibly bad. Many of them get no base pay, and any returned orders (because it is wrong/broken, etc) are taken out of their money. Also, they have to pay the restaurant what the restaurant is owed out of what you give them (if you watch in NY -- you can see the delivery people paying the cashier before they take the orders), and even if you assume each order takes 15 minutes to and from, then that's only 4 orders/hour. If each person gave $3, that would be $12/hour, before the problems of people who can't find the right change, who try to send the food back etc. There's also no overtime, and in other cities (SF etc) where deliveries are made by car parking tickets are the responsibility of the server, which can often be hudnreds of dollars.

I don't feel liberal guilt. I don't think that I'm priviliged etc etc to get food delivery--to me, a job is a job. And you get paid to do your job. And honestly, often, I can't afford the tip, so I eat my canned soup or I go walk the three blocks to pick up my $4.50 stir-fry. But often you are their only paycheck, and so you should pay up.

I also think that restaurants should state a delivery charge. But they should also provide insurance, so good luck with that.

I tend to use 20% as a baseline. Sure, the person isn't delivering plates to my table, but really, the person's delivering plates to my house. They're not refilling my glasses, but they're making sure everything gets there together and that it's the right temperature. I figure I'm paying for the convenience of someone else going to get the food for me, and if I don't want to pay for it, then I go and do pick-up, not delivery. Of course, the 20% is also variable based on quality of service and difficulty of conditions. Interestingly, I've been at a couple large parties where we ordered so much food I found I did have an upper limit -- about $50.

Also, megnut's got a good point. I've not worked in the restaurant industry, but I grew up in Vegas, and you learn a thing or two about minimum wage and living off tips there.

what difference does it make to your delivery guy what the total amount of your bill was

Well depending on how much the difference is, it could mean he's carrying more stuff, heavier stuff, more of a pain, more packages, etc.

I am in NYC, and I guess I feel like it's a real privilege to sit on my lazy ass watching TV and have someone bring me food to my door. Someone who's probably making minimum wage, (who knows, maybe even less if he's illegal and delivering for a sketchy place, many restaurants underpay their kitchen staff, so I've assumed the same could be true for delivery people) busting his hump to get me my food while it's still hot, often when it's too cold or rainy for me to be bothered to go out my door to get something to eat. And I guess I feel like that warrants an extra dollar or two from my wallet when he gets it to me in a timely fashion. I'm not advocating Rockefeller-esque, slip-the-guy-a-$20 tips.

I will admit I'm a bit tipper though, I think that comes from working in the restaurant industry. When you see the hours people put in, both in the kitchen and as servers, when you realize that most people don't make anything close to a living wage for the amount they labor (yeah, tips are great when you're a server, but you're making $3 an hour, so if you're not at a high-end place, or you're not pulling the good shifts, you're not making much...), and you realize most people can't even afford health insurance, well, let me just say: it makes me more generous when I eat out.

Did I mention my name's not Rockefeller over here? megnut, what difference does it make to your delivery guy what the total amount of your bill was? Whether it's $5 or $50, he's humping your bag, a bag, to your door. Therefore, for the same task each time, he gets the same tipping Code. "Man needs a Code." -Omar Little A waiter in a restaurant, by contrast, operates by different rules of convention and theoretically works more on a bigger check than on a smaller check, so he gets a bigger gross amount as the check goes up. You give your delivery guy a $5 tip on a $10 check, and go up from there?? Must be nice...

Perhaps I was too hasty with the general "$5 is crazy" response. I assumed you meant $5 as a rule, no matter what your ordered. That seems crazy. But if your total bill is $10 or $15, $5 isn't crazy. If your bill is $25 or $30, then I do think it's too little.

$3 seems really crazy to me, especially as a rule. It seems really low.