The Most Generous Tippers Live in These Cities

Dollar banknotes and coins,  money tips.

vinnstock/istockphoto

Cheapism is editorially independent. We may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site.
Dollar banknotes and coins,  money tips.
vinnstock/istockphoto

More Than a Little Extra Something

When and whether to tip still confounds plenty of people, but there's no question that the pandemic has made many of us more grateful for restaurant workers. Popmenu, a company that helps restaurants with digital marketing and ordering, analyzed 450,000 food orders placed in a recent six-month period to find the cities with the highest percentage of orders that included tips of 20% or more. Here are the cities where the most generous folks live. 


Related: Sonic Is Taking Tipping Chain-Wide

Los Angeles
ViewApart/istockphoto
The Varsity Drive-in Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia
Sean Pavone/istockphoto
Stone Street, Lower Manhattan, New York City
OlegAlbinsky/istockphoto
A man waits for a table to eat outdoors on a patio at DuSable Harbor in Chicago
Page Light Studios/istockphoto
Downtown city core of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA
Pgiam/istockphoto
Food Trucks
BluIz60/istockphoto

5. Dallas and Omaha (Tie)

Orders with a tip of 20% or more: 30%

Still Celebrating the Fourth of July
Coast-to-Coast/istockphoto
People in Dairy Block, a historic block located in the Denver LoDo neighborhood, once home to Windsor Dairy
Faina Gurevich/istockphoto

3. Denver

Orders with a tip of 20% or more: 33%

Campus Martius Park in Central Detroit
csfotoimages/istockphoto

2. Detroit

Orders with a tip of 20% or more: 34%

Neon signs along the Broadway in downtown Nashville Tennessee USA
Pgiam/istockphoto

1. Nashville, Austin, and Seattle (Tie)

Orders with a tip of 20% or more: 38%

Contactless payment to pizza delivery man
urbazon/istockphoto

Other Tipping Stats

Popmenu also dug up some other interesting data on tipping:


  • The pandemic has prompted people to tip more generously. About 58% of people say they're tipping servers and delivery drivers more.

  • About 56% of people say they tip servers 20% or more, and 20% are even more generous, tipping 25% or more.

  • Customers aren't quite as generous with delivery drivers: 38% say they tip delivery drivers 20% or more, and 61% say they tip at least 15%.


Related: Etiquette Rules No One Follows Anymore