What to tip at coat check
World’s foremost tipping expert pleaded ignorance when asked
As surely as they sweep golden leaves into the gutter, winter winds have you pulling on your coat right about now. Which raises a swirling, annually forgotten conundrum: How much do you tip the coatcheck attendant?
This is one of the more vexing problems in all of gratuity etiquette. The world’s foremost expert on tipping is Cornell University’s Michael Lynn, a PhD who publishes in such places as the Journal of Economic Psychology, The Sociological Quarterly and the Journal of Foodservice Business Research. When I asked him about the coat-check matter, the superlatively knowledgeable professor declined to comment, pleading ignorance.
“The only thing worse than skimping on the coat-check tip is skipping the coat check altogether.”
TROY PATTERSON
The experts are stumped, despite and because of the fact that coatrooms have been sites of social anxiety since the ancient days when they were all cloakrooms and the women who worked there were girls. No major arbiter of taste has addressed the issue with any degree of thoroughness since Vogue’s Book of Etiquette came out in1948. Its author, the great Millicent Fenwick, set down the law like so: “Hat-check girls: In expensive night clubs, 25 cents; in inexpensive night clubs, 10 cents or 15 cents for a hat; 15 to 25 cents for a hat and coat.”
Using Fenwick as a guide — adjusting for inflation and also for the general decline of decorum — I hereby propose that the minimum, correct coat check tip is $2.
Now, to be clear, I am not proposing a universal law of $2 per checked item. That standard should apply only in major metropolitan areas and at small-town restaurants with big-city pretensions and Hudson Valley Foie Gras on the menu. In other places with differing cost-of-living standards, a tip of $2 will cover two items handsomely.
The correct tip for checking three items is $5. That is what to tip, whether stowing your stuff at a dance club or classical concert, or at any halfway swanky restaurant. If you are somewhere that the attendant presents your numbered ticket in a 5-by-9-cm envelope, maybe throw an extra buck or two into that envelope when you return it to him. (And daydream a bit about how such an envelope might figure in a film about high-level espionage, or a novel about small-time drug deals.)
The correct tip for an extremely expensive coat is $10 — no arguing. If a Loro Piana coat is within your means, it is certainly not worth your time to debate. It’s perfectly acceptable to slip the bill to the coat-check person at the start of the evening. Although this is a fine way to engage the attendant’s attention, there are no guarantees that the Dutch door won’t be breached by thieves. As the legalese printed on the Peninsula Hotel’s envelope puts it, “Whilst we make every effort to safeguard your property, (we) will not be held responsible for the loss or damage of any item.”
You can, however, protect yourself against the loss or damage of dignity by hewing to the standards described above. I am aware that some will publicly object to these rules — including members of the coat checkclerk community. But they’re just being gracious. The only thing worse than skimping on the coat-check tip is skipping the coat check altogether. If that’s your style, then stick to those (increasingly many) good restaurants where the best seats are at counters sporting helpful coat hooks.