I agree with 248! I'm a waitress and it's hard out there. We already get paid way WAy below minimum wage and for someone to give you a random coffee card is unacceptable. It DOES sound like they just had it in their wallet or just given to them, and rather than giving you some cash, they would rather give you that card. It would've been a nice gesture, on top of a tip also, but just by itself is almost kind of rude. I don't work in a super fancy restaurantm, so our plate prices aren't super high, but either way, I've been getting a lot of bad tips lately. BUT, it's still money. It's not like we don't need food or gas! Sheesh!

To #139: In response to this... "I really dont see the need of the whole "restaurants pay you less for you to make it up with tips" WHY THE **** cant the restaurant just fairly compensate you in the first place. Why must it fall on me to provide a portion of your paycheck. Last i checked you dont work for me so why am i essentially paying you." You're an idiot. Most restaurants pay their servers less than $3 an hour. You say, oh, why not just pay them more so I don't have to tip them? Ok, so let's say restaurants start paying their servers $10 an hour. Where is that extra money going to come from? FOOD COSTS, asshole. Your $8 plate of food is going to go up to $11 a plate. And last you checked, servers don't work for you? Who the **** do you think is getting your drinks, running your food, putting in your order, cashing out your check, making your salad with the 9890432 special requests, etc.??? All while dealing with seven other tables at once, half of which are acting like demanding assholes. Everyone needs to be a server for once in their life to understand why tipping 20% is important.

Picky!!! Give the card to me. I practically live at Starbucks

i agree with 253. people who don't tip are idiots , i always tip +20%...

#253 - dude, seriously, calm down. I think you certainly have a point, but if you look at it statistically there is no way the hourly rate would increase from $3 to $10 - in England I have a reasonably good salary for a teenager of £4.50 an hour (so... $6 dollars?) and that is with 0% tips. In some instances I'd rather the food was slightly more expensive without the expected tipping and the salaries were higher for the staff, because it would give the staff reliability - they can ensure of their hourly wages. Tippings would become bonuses rather than dependancy. Besides, I wouldn't tip 20% whole percent if I didn't consider the service worthy enough. Today a group of my friends I was with at pizza express only tipped 7% instead of the standard 10% because we had a rude waitress. I'm curious to see whether Americans agree that tipping should be optional if the service is rude? Okay, if they're good, 20% seems fair. But once my mum's boss was in Chicago and the servers took hours to serve the food, which was the wrong order, and the waitressing staff were rude and snotty. Therefore, quite reasonably, instead of refusing to pay the bill (as would most likely happen in England) he refused to tip the customers. The staff locked his family in the restaurant until he paid up.

Hey, at least you could get some hot chocolate with it.

It's a proven fact that coffe drinkers get layed more than none coffe drinkers. Time to start

Tips aren't an obligation. If the service is less than impeccable, the tip should be 10% or so. If it downright sucks, don't tip at all. I don't like how nowadays, waiters consider tipping an obligation.

Meh you Americans do it the wrong way. Here in Europe waiters get a decent pay so it ain't that hard to tip. Just round up the bill.

YDI for whining about getting tips. They don't have to give you anything.