Experts Say This is How Much to Tip Your NJ Pizza Delivery Person
Here's a question for you: when you have pizza delivered, are you tipping the person who brought it to you enough?
It's easy to sometimes (generously) round up the bill for a tip or maybe you don't ask for change back, but is that the right amount?
I was thinking about this the other night when I was too lazy to go get pizza myself. I ordered it online and there was an option for a tip. What I ordered was around $15 and standard tipping options were part of the check-out process: 15, 18, or 20 percent.
I always go with 20% (after all, I'm the lazy one here), but on a $15 order, a 20-percent tip is three bucks.
These days, what the heck can you do with three dollars? Especially in this state. You can't even pay the toll on the Expressway with $3 anymore.
While that was 20-percent, which is what I tip at a restaurant, it was still just three dollars.
So I did a little digging and found an article from tasteofhome.com. They did some research and they found $5 is the absolute minimum that you should tip a delivery person.
They say,
If you think about the time it takes a driver to grab the food from the restaurant, drive it to your place, wait for you to come to the door and then head back to the restaurant, you’re looking at 20 minutes, but probably more. Ask yourself: Would I take that trip for less?
That's a very valid point. If you're taking pizzas all over town and you depend on tips, is a 20 or 30-minute trip worth three bucks or at least five?
Tips are different in special circumstances
They also say 20% is the absolute minimum if you are getting an entire party's worth of pizzas delivered at one time or if the weather is really lousy.
True story: I once ordered a pizza when there was a tornado warning. The storms were really far away when I ordered it and as a card-carrying weather nerd, I thought I had it timed out to where the pizza would be at my house and the driver would be safely on his way before the storms moved through, but I was wrong. And to this day, I feel really bad about it.
What about lousy service?
If your pizza is awful, it's best not to take it out on the driver. Unless he or she does something horrible specific to your order, it's best to call the restaurant and figure it out with a manager.
