Home Delivery & Tipping

Home Delivery:

Pretty much everyone provides home delivery for free in Mumbai. This can make you lazy, but can also be a godsend!  Whenever you are out and about in your neighborhood and you see a shop that you think you might be interested in getting stuff from, ask for a business card and/or menu.

When they say “free home delivery” it is FREE. Tipping is generally not expected, but is always welcome.  For small groceries or miscellaneous items you might have delivered you can choose whether you want to tip or not. If you decide to tip, it is generally no more than 10 rupees. It feels like such a small amount to foreigners, but it is enough and is appreciated.

Some services (such as McDonalds), include a small fee for delivery, in those cases, no additional fee is required.

Taxis:

Tipping taxi/rickshaw drivers is not common and is usually not done. Occasionally you will find a driver who doesn’t have change, if you are ok with not getting the change back, then accept it, but most often they do have change and are trying to extract a bit more money from you!

Restaurants:

Depending on the nature of the place you are eating, tipping varies. If you are at an expensive restaurant, you might already see a 10% service charge added to the bill – in this case, no additional tip is required.  If you are at a small café, you can leave 10-20 rupees, depending on the price of the meal.  Watch other Indians and see the standard of tipping for the place you are at. If you frequent some establishment often, it might help you with better service/food if you regularly tip a bit, but not always!

If you are unsure and the meal is relatively cheap, you can always go for the 10% rule – although in most cases this will be more than enough!