Posted on 12/06/2005 12:33:26 PM PST by George14
I suppose you're right, but I have to tell you that the service in my area has gotten so bad that we simply don't eat out very often.
A good waitstaff can make a meal with mediocre food a pleasant experience, and bad waitstaff can ruin a delicious meal. Maybe our local problem is that so many of the staff are high school students or recent grads. Probably still living with the folks, and not too worried about paying bills.
My experience has been that mature staff, the ones who count on tip income to pay the rent, bust their tails to make a meal enjoyable. Those people always get excellent tips from me.
It's the ones who don't care to acknowledge your existence that start off on a bad foot. If they're busy, I can understand that. How 'bout dropping by the table and saying, "We are so busy tonight and a little shorthanded, but I'm glad you're here. I promise to come by as quick as I can." So much better than someone pretending not to see you while you're trying to catch their eye.
Washington State has the highest minimum wage in the country (currently $7.35, going to $7.63 in January; it goes up every year) and employers are forbidden to pay less than that, even if the employee makes $20-30/hour additional in tips.
If service is good I tip like crazy, 30%, 40%, 50% and up and I'm definitely not rich. Especially if it's a place I frequent.
I leave big tips all the time.
I knew one guy who immediately after being seated would put 20 one dollar bills on the table, and pointed out to the waitress that was her tip, but if she screwed up, one by one he would remove dollars from the table for each screw up. When being served a drink, he would tell her, "I don't want to see the bottom of this glass."
Ahh I see what you are saying now, thanks. Now the question would be are these bus boys getting taxed on a certain percentage of the house take.? if so then you have to have a system to offset this. So requiring the wait staff to share would be reasonable. My wife is a waitress and when she is very thankfull to her bussers then she'll tip them more than is requred, and this too helps her in the long run.
I've heard from a number of people that Ron Kuby -- the radical Marxist lawyer who does a morning radio show with Curtis Sliwa on WABC in New York -- is regarded by many of the station employees at the station as the most decent human being they've ever met.
And this sounds even more bizarre, but it comes from a very reliable (Republican) source -- who swears that outside the public eye the most generous, compassionate person in Washington D.C. is none other than New York Senator Chuck Schumer.
Go figure, eh?
I can just imagine the bar tabs Terayza must have run up.
I think it's ridiculous that the employers are lowering the wages to steal part of the tip. I think it's scummy business practices. But I don't want the government doing anything about it. If people refused to eat at places that did that and servers refused to work for them, the practice would end really fast.
LOL! She still refers to John Heinz as her husband. And that works because in a way, he is paying for it.
If you want to do the waitress a favor use cash for any tip over 15%.
OldBobDole sucks. Always has, always will. He's horrid, but was the canary in the coal mine when he was nominated for that laughable, absurd campaign of his. That told me all I ever needed to know about the Republican Party of Big Stupid Government.
After OldBobDole, I can't imagine why anyone's surprised to see what Republicans actually do once they seize the reins of power. I had their number in '91 with "read my lips".
The practice is not that widespread at locally owned bars and restaurants, but is quite common at the chain places. At my two favorite locally owned pubs, all the bartenders and waitstaff "eat what they kill," although at one place, there are two bartenders per shift and they pool the tips for that particular shift only. From what I've been told, chains places like Outback, TGIF, Applebee's etc. pool the tips, which might explain why the service is mediocre on the best of days.
Actually I have seen it work quite well. The hot barmaid walks around keeping everybody's spirits up and the homely barmaid is busy serving drinks and picking up empties.
The hot barmaid gets all the tips but doesn't do any work. The homely barmaid does all the work but doesn't get any tips. They need each other to perform well to maximize their tips, so they split the take at the end of the night.
Don't start with the "eh's", I used to live in Cape Breton. (yes, one of the creeps and bums from the east)
LOL. You know Colin White of the NJ Devils?
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