You’re Famous? Really? Then Tip Like It!

So I don’t live in LA or New York or any of those glamorous meccas of excitement, but I do live near a relatively big city. Every now and then we get a Person of Some Sort of Note in to the restaurant. Jackee (Sister, Sister, 227) came in once, legendary boxer Tommy Hearns, that kind of thing. And lets not forget, a Flavor of Love reject whose name I won’t mention because I’m a nice person. The first two were nice and decent tippers, from what I understand (I didn’t wait on either one). They both came in really low-key, not drawing any attention to themselves. The woman Flavor Flav didn’t want? She came in like she was a superstar, made sure everyone in the restaurant knew who she was, and apparently barely left a tip.

I have an issue with this. Some people say that it shouldn’t matter if a person is rich or well known, they shouldn’t have to tip more than anyone else. I believe that celebrities are obligated to tip extravagantly, as long as the service was good. Sorry, simply comes with the territory, at least in my opinion. Here I’m talking about your Brad Pitts, your Diddy’s, that kind of thing.

But what about the lesser known glitterati? I’m talking about the person you wouldn’t recognize as anyone out of the ordinary, unless they made a point of telling you who they were. I waited on a news anchor from our local CBS station. Had no idea who he was (I watch the local NBC affiliate personally), although I detected a snotty attitude from the start. Apparently he wasn’t pleased with the quality of his caesar salad the last time he dined with us, so he informed me that I’d best make sure his salad was the best we had to offer, because he was Bobby Big Shot from the news, and he would hate to have to call us out on (local) television. I was not impressed. I brought out the salad the salad guy put out for my order. Several minutes later, I checked back to see if everything was alright, even though I really didn’t care because of his attitude. He told me it was much better than the last time, and that I must have had a talk with the cooks, and good job. I gave him attentive service, albeit, the same attentive service I give all of my guests. I don’t have special Local News Guy service, I take good care of any and everyone in my section. At the end of the meal he tipped me about 15%, maybe a little more. I was not happy with this. I feel that, if you’re going to make a big deal of getting me to realize that you are a big deal, your tip should reflect that. Average Joe’s tip me 15% all the time, and half of them tip 20 or more.

So celebrities, local or otherwise, put your money where your mouth is. Especially if you expect special treatment. I’m just saying.