Story at a glance
- Restaurant sales platform Toast released a new report on tipping.
- The average tip in San Francisco is 17 percent.
- The average tip in Cleveland is 20.6 percent.
Out of 12 cities analyzed, San Francisco restaurant-goers gave the worst tips, according to a new report from the restaurant sales platform Toast, with a number of cities in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain region slotting in as some of the most generous in the U.S.
The average tip in San Francisco is 17 percent, according to the platform’s report on the fourth quarter of 2022. Cleveland is the best city for tipping, according to the report, with an average tip of 20.6 percent.
The data comes from Toast’s review of sales data from the around 79,000 locations that it serves in the U.S. Although it was a review of the fourth quarter of 2022, it also included sales data from Super Bowl weekend and Valentine’s Day this year. The company analyzed data from 12 metro areas where tips were left via credit card or digital payment.
Cleveland was the only city with an average tip that was above 20 percent. It was followed by Denver, which had an average tip of 19.8 percent and Salt Lake City, with a 19.6 percent average. Phoenix, Richmond, Chicago and New Orleans finished as the only other cities with an average tip of over 19 percent.
San Francisco and Los Angeles, which had an average tip of 17.5 percent, were the only cities in the analysis to have an average under 18 percent. They are also the only California cities in the study.
New York, D.C. and Seattle all had average tips in the 18 percent range.
The report also fleshed out the tipping data for each state. It found that Delaware, at 21.8 percent, is the most generous state when it comes to tipping. California was dead last, with an average tip of 17.5 percent. There were 16 states that had an average tip that was at or above 20 percent.
Published on Mar 09,2023