Originally Posted by
QueenOfCoach
As I said, there are various levels of experience. At a really great restaurant, you get superior food, superior service and really really tidy restrooms. You should tip accordingly. (I still remember the really nice restrooms at Pebble Beach.)
You don't necessarily get superior service at an expensive restaurant. You get more expensive food. One tips for the service one receives.
At a "regular" restaurant, you get good service, good food and decent restrooms. Tip the usual 15%.
You don't necessarily get "regular" service at what you deem as a regular restaurant. I have found some of the best service to be gotten at small family restaurants, coffee shops, and inexpensive holes in the wall (or is it holes in the walls?). Regardless of the menu prices, we tip ~15% for average service and more as it gets better.
If we go out for breakfast at a coffee shop, we overtip because 15-20% is peanuts.
As for bathrooms, I don't analyze them as you do. As long as they are clean and have toilet paper, soap, and paper towels or those super-blast dryers, that works. That is also to be expected; if not, we won't return there again. NYC is getting serious about making sure restaurants are clean (the entire restaurant) as they are now being graded A, B, or C which are posted on the windows. C is failure. Restaurants with C's must get a better grade or suffer the consequences from the City of New York.
Again, what happens to the money after it passes from your hands to that of the servers is not your business. It is the server's money to do with what they want.
Ohhh, so they can choose to keep their entire tip since, as you said, it's the servers' money. The decision to share part of the tip is the for the servers alone to make, is that correct? I believe I've asked that question already.
If part of that money goes to the bussers or the cooks, that's none of your business.
I'll be asking the waiters and bartenders we see this weekend. I'll then ask how patrons can tip them and them alone. It's not my job to pay for behind-the-scenes employees. That belongs to the restaurant management. Even if we use the credit card for the check, we will tip cash.