I eat out probably twice a week,more so when I'm on vacation.My regular haunts are regular because they're good so they get my 15% vote.

If I'm eating at a place I don't know and the service is only average they get my 10%.If the service is good they get 15%.

If it's really bad they get nothing except an explanation as to why they got nothing. As I won't be returning there the chances of me eating a steak that has been used by the chef as toilet paper are non-existent.

Occasionally when service,the meal and the restaurant is spectacular they might even get 25%,especially when I've enjoyed feasting with Bacchus.

Do you see a pattern emerging ? I reward good service with good tips,bad service with nothing.THAT is the whole point of tipping.

Lemming-like tipping of 15-20% for bad service just makes me think a person cares more about what the server thinks about him than the quality of service he's just had.

You might as well just hand over your wallet,bend over and ask the server to insert it at their own convenience.

Barnum was right - there really is a sucker born every minute.

Or it's because you think that people working in a job that has a federal minimum wage of $2.13/hour deserve more. I don't really care what the server thinks about me, but it lines up with my beliefs on matters of a living wage.

YMMV, and obviously you are free to tip whatever you want - it's a free country. But to call people who 'automatically' tip higher as a base amount lemmings is unnecessary.

Well, at least you're aware enough of what goes on to be aware of that. :rolleyes:

You do realize that the servers have nothing to do with the kitchen, and basing your tip on the quality of the food is pretty silly?

That may well have been the whole point of tipping a long time ago; these days, the real point of tipping is that restaurants can offload their labor costs directly onto customers, and take advantage of that to present lower menu prices (or just make more money.)

No one is suggesting tipping for genuinely bad service (although once again, why sit through the meal at that point? Easy enough to pay for your drinks and go -- and if it's gotten to that point, walking away from a couple of undelivered entree orders is going to send a lot stronger message than no tip. Plenty of other restaurants out there, and it's unusual that a meal will go from good to entirely bad after your entree arrives unless there was a kitchen error -- in which case a manager usually ends up involved anyway.)

Then again, I doubt we'd agree on the definition of good service.

Exactly. Even places where the minimum wage is higher, nobody is going to getting rich on $9/hour, probably not even making a living given how few servers are going to be doing 40 hours a week on that.

i don't know why this myth persists. if a server does not make enough in tips to make full minimum wage, the employer must make up the difference.

i have long suspected that "tip creep" (the effort to promote 18%, 20%, or more as the new standard) is restaurant owners trying to avoid this obligation.

This is the point where your argument become less viable ... :rolleyes:

Closed for moderator review.

cblaisd
Co-Moderator, Dining Buzz