Large Tips on Bulk Orders

Do any of you have standard policies on how you handle larger than normal tips on large bulk orders? We recently had a large catering gig that was over $1,500 and resulted in a $250 tip.

Since this order caused some of my cooks to come in on their days off & everyone to pull some extra weight in store we split the tip up among the in-store crew & the driver.

The rub comes with our driver who made three different large drops for the order. For the three deliveries the driver walked away with the $3 delivery fee and a $40 tip. The driver was pissed off that they only got $40.

Personally I think the driver is spoiled and a $40 tip is great. We are looking to formalize our tip split policy for large orders like this in the future and I wanted to know if any of you guys have policies in place already that work well.

Is splitting the tip legal in your jurisdiction or does it all belong to the driver?..

I don’t have a policy because I don’t deliver. That being said, if I did have one, I would call the person and thank them for their business and ask them if they want the tip divided among the driver and cooks.

Most of our big orders don’t tip at all. Those drivers should be happy for the tip.

Most of the time it is the managers making the food for a large order like that and they are all sharing in the profit/bonus sharing. So in effect, they are getting a small “tip” from the order. We had a situation like this last week. Large order came in first thing in the morning w/ a $40 tip. Driver A helped to make the order. Driver B arrived as we were finishing up making it. Driver A had a delivery called in and made and out the oven before the large order was scheduled to be delivered. Driver B ended up delivering the large order and getting the tip. The driver did not share the tip. I know that Driver A was upset, but it goes both ways. There are days where the other driver will get the delivery and vice versa. What goes around comes around, Karma is a B****, however you want to say it!

When we do large orders (every year we have one in the 400 to 500 range). We split the tip and commission between drivers and insiders. Everyone does equal work on large orders. Just because the driver gets to sit on his ass and move finished product from point a to b doesn’t mean he is entitled to more then the 2 cooks who busted there asses for 2 hours to make sure the driver got that product.

Might want to remind your driver that without the cooks, they wouldn’t have a job.

We solve that problem in a very simple way, I normally deliver these types of orders. My drivers do not expect to deliver one of these and normally don’t want to because it has been the practice since day one that the tip belongs to those that busted butt on making the big orders. It is funny, because when a fifty pizza order is being cooked, suddenly the drivers want to help on the line because they know there is a tip coming to those that helped. Even if the customer does not tip I still make sure the cooks go home with something extra for knocking out a big order.

You should let you drivers know ahead of time that tips on large orders get split between everyone that works on that order. Cooks bust @ss to get the order ready correctly and on time for the driver to get in his car and drive it to the customer. If he thinks he should get more than that then he is greedy and IMO a greedy driver is no good. Everyones job is just as equally important cooks bust their buts in the kitchen and the drivers have to deal with the customers. I also ask the drivers to tip out the the kitchen at the end of their shift even if its just 5 bucks per driver it adds up at the end of the night and the kitchen staff is happy but I do let them know this at the time of hire.

durbancic said:

Most of the time it is the managers making the food for a large order like that and they are all sharing in the profit/bonus sharing. So in effect, they are getting a small “tip” from the order. We had a situation like this last week. Large order came in first thing in the morning w/ a $40 tip. Driver A helped to make the order. Driver B arrived as we were finishing up making it. Driver A had a delivery called in and made and out the oven before the large order was scheduled to be delivered. Driver B ended up delivering the large order and getting the tip. The driver did not share the tip. I know that Driver A was upset, but it goes both ways. There are days where the other driver will get the delivery and vice versa. What goes around comes around, Karma is a B****, however you want to say it!

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Wow! I don’t agree with this at all… Good luck keeping drivers.

Nate said:

Wow! I don’t agree with this at all… Good luck keeping drivers.

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Well, maybe the end of my post was misconstrued. I was saying that sometimes a driver will help to make the order AND deliver it. Sometimes they will NOT make the order and get to deliver it. It works both ways. I am not going to start making exceptions just because a driver helps to make an order. That is their job. First driver in the store gets to take the first delivery that is ready.

Overall, we don’t have a hard time keeping drivers. Hell, we tip drivers out of the store’s money for large orders that we get that DO NOT tip. We have a large order monthly that takes 2 drivers to deliver, we give them each $5. It’s not much, but it is better than nothing. Can’t just look at the one delivery, gotta look at the big picture. By serving a great product and getting it quick to our customers encourages customers to order again and become repeat customers.

We just have a very different model. We have 10-15 drivers on most times so it’s very possible to make sure the person I want take the large deliveries, does… Any one who had anything to do with the production of the order and the delivery gets a piece of the pie.