I started coming to the states 30+ years ago. It seemed everywhere I went Service was the top priority, nothing to much trouble, always service with a smile. Happy to leave a tip, rule of thumb was tip twice as much as the Tax. Move the clock forward 15yrs and now I live in the States. It seems the greed culture has taken over, owners squeezing their staff to get the extra Dime out of them. Consequently the good Servers have moved on to other places and now the only ones left are here for a paycheck only, not much pride in their work, let's do as little as possible for a much as we can get and expect a tip for doing it.

One restaurant I went to in CA had a note on the bottom of the menu "4% added to help staff with a living wage". How nice of the restaurant owner to help his/her staff from living in a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere. I noted this on Yelp, the reply was to help with Health Insurance. Now a restaurant doesn't pay health insurance unless you work 30+ hours, as most servers are students you know that's not the case, so management benefit from this 4%.

25% as a tip is a bit steep, usually 10-20% would be a norm, with poor service coming in at a Zero.