The Basics of Tipping Caterers Explained

By Catering Staff | September 26, 2016

You will soon find that there are no hard and fast rules about tipping your caterer – or the catering company’s employees, for that matter, as is the case with Ruby Tuesday. You may even find that the situation can be awkward when you failed to tip the waiters/deliverymen when a tip was expected to when you tipped them when the company’s policy clearly stated tips are not allowed. Fortunately, you can make heads and tails of an otherwise awkward situation with these rules of thumb.

Give Tips Similar When Dining in Restaurants

In a sense, dining in restaurants and catering from restaurants are similar. If you give tips to the waiters in restaurants as acknowledgement (i.e., token of thanks) for a job well done, then you should also consider giving the wait staff, chefs, and event captain in a catered event their tips

You don’t have to give each of the catering company’s employees their cash tips since it will be inconvenient on your part, especially in a large catering event with numerous people. Instead, you can give the total cash tip to the catering supervisor or event captain with the express instructions of giving the rest their share of the tip. Your best bet: Small bills that can easily be distributed by the supervisor to each employee.

How much tip is sufficient? You have to decide although you may want to give the chefs and catering supervisors with a larger tip than the bartenders, servers, and kitchen staff. You have to look at your budget with the size of the event as one of the factors considered. For example, in large cities like Washington, D.C., you may give each of the chefs $50 as tip while it’s $20 for the rest.  

Look at the Contract

When in doubt, you should look at the contract particularly on the part about tipping. You may find that the catering contract already includes a service charge, which can range from 10 to 20 percent of the total bill. In this case, you should determine whether the service charge is already the gratuity.

If it’s considered as gratuity, then you don’t have to give tips to the wait staff, chefs and event captain. If it’s not, then you may want to leave a cash tip after the successful conclusion of the event.

Just keep in mind, nonetheless, that you aren’t required to leave a tip when you aren’t satisfied with the catering services delivered. In fact, you can even express your complaints about the unsatisfactory parts of the services and get resolution for them.