You really think this is working great. Do you think it is great that two waiters both work their butts off, do great service, and one makes $15 an hour, the other makes $2.50 because the second one served a table of minorities?
When my friends and I frequented an establishment in Heidelberg, Germany, we had our favored staff and ensured we sat in their sections (large crowd, we overlapped).
They took great care of us (including running a tab which the est never did with anyone else). We took great care of them. With a group of 15 -20 we each dropped an average of an extra $20 on top of our tabs.
We went there nearly every Friday and they knew we chose them as our servers. That’s because we knew their service was great. That’s what happens when a server is exceptional.
If you don’t like exceptionalism and performance based awards it’s your business. Just don’t screw it up for the rest of us.
When I was younger, my wife and I had a restaurant we would go to with two friends after church on Sunday. The friends had introduced us to the eatery, and were already friends with many of the waitstaff.
We were lavished with special treatment, and we tipped well. No idea which came first, the chicken or the egg, but it was a wonderful experience.
And I couldn’t tell you how much the base pay was for those waiters and waitresses, but I hope they were well-paid, because they were great.
Now, how is the amount of money they are paid as base salary going to make your dining experience less of an experience? DO you actually WISH that those people giving you great service get paid less? Or are you afraid that if they were paid more, they wouldn’t give you good service because they would figure “hey, we already have enough money, so let’s just piss off the customer”?
If you think I opposed tipping, you got me confused with some other person on the thread (assuming you must have read SOME comment to that affect). I’ve always loved tipping, and tipping well, and I never suggested it change.
My comment regarded the trend toward paying a wait staff less and less in salary, and then pressuring the customers with “required” 20% tips on bills, especially in areas where the owner knows their is a serious problem with certain customers never leaving a tip.
But anyway, I can’t relate any of my issues to your fear of losing your experience.
On the other hand, if I WAS a person who didn’t like the tipping thing, and I was loudly telling the places I ate that, and suggesting they adopt a different system — isn’t that what the free market is about, businesses hearing what customers want, weighing the differing desires, and then each business choosing which they want to cater to?
Is it bad for some customers to express their desires, even if it does risk screwing it up for you? Maybe it will turn out that a lot more customers like it the other way, and you are in the minority.
But seriously, I wouldn’t worry about it — I don’t see it changing.