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If your stance is that any one should suck up to anyone else on either side of the give and take between a restaurant and its customers I am sorry to say we may never agree about anything.

The first confusion may be that tipping as addressed at Augieland is part of the behavior of a person that frequents a place and experiences a different version of the occasion than the general fly by night public. The first assumption must be you wouldn’t want to frequent every place. You become a regular at a place you find unique and special. I don’t share wine with strangers, I share wine with people whose company I enjoy, why else would I want to be and thusly become a regular at that place.

Retail sales and restaurant service can not really be compared. If you buy a shirt from a jerk as opposed to a nice guy you still own the same shirt. If great food is served by a poor waiter the entire experience is different. Yet still in retail, if someone shops at a place frequently and is a pain in the ass the staff will happily do all they can to allow some one else to assist him, and a fondly remembered returning customer receives far more attention than an unremembered face.

I am afraid the discussion of whether tipping is a good or bad thing is has very little to do with my stance on tipping. You are not sucking up to a server; you are acknowledging a job well done as a component to an experience in the currently accepted manner. I don’t care if you tip or don’t, in a nut shell I feel good service is one of the major aspects of whether or not I enjoy a place enough to return regularly and should therefore be rewarded. Don’t agree? Fine but don’t then ask me why I don’t have a tough time getting reservations at your favorite places.

I do have a question about tipping. If you ordered a bottle of wine let's say it cost $300.00 and your food was also $300.00. Do you tip on the entire bill of $600.00 ?

A lot of good operators make great money in the food business. I have a feeling Bobby Flay makes a bunch more than 400K. It's not that

It's not that I'm so concerned about the poor, I was just trying to make a point that didn't really sink in for you. I will try to simplify it for you. I think you said
"not by punishing the individual waiter unlucky enough to serve your table, and who, before tips, is unlikely to be making anywhere close to $10/hour."
The point is everybody always makes the server out to be the hardest worked, most unlucky, poor SOB in the world. Thats the problem, everybody tips them out of pitty. Even if the waiter makes more than you!

I know a girl that works at a pretty nice restaurant, $40 a head or so. She makes almost $4K a month, lives in the most wealthy county in the country and she has a runner and a bus boy. All she does is learn the menu.

Also, I didn't say that I don't tip at all. I said I don't tip unless I feel like the waiter actually cares. Unfortunatly, more often than not, the waiter doesn't care.

So.....like I said, tip if you want, just don't do it because you think you have to. There is no law that says to give money to people that don't deserve it. If a server does a crap job, how is tipping him any different from giving money to the bum that washes your windshield without asking.

If you're really that concerned about the poor, you should save the money by eating at home and donate it. When you go out to eat, tipping is part of the expense. Period. Yes, it's a way for restaurateurs to pass paying their staff onto patrons, and it's not a great policy. But the way to combat that is by not patronizing the restaurant in the first place, by writing letters to the management explaining the problem, etc. - not by punishing the individual waiter unlucky enough to serve your table, and who, before tips, is unlikely to be making anywhere close to $10/hour.

See but the great thing here is, as Americans (land of the free), you don't have to live with the system! If you don't want to tip.........don't. There are a ton of people worse off than the servers of the world, but they don't expect a tip. You want to be a good Samaritan, send the hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year to Africa, South America or The Mid-East. Or are you just like the rest of the passport-less Americans that think we actually have poverty in this country. If you can't find a job that makes more than $10 an hour, it's your problem not mine. I've grown up in the restaurant business and everybody I know makes over 400K per year. You think restaurant owners can't afford to pay their staff? They are just happy they don't have to with all of the "do as your told" drones out there that will tip because they think they have to. The restaurants that go out of business because they have to pay a little bit more payroll will make room for the guys that up the customer service game.

I can't believe that article suggested offering your waiter some of the expensive wine!
I know that Gordon Ramsey has fired a server simply for drinking water in view of the customers.

As for tipping, as a former waitress who used to work really hard for her money, I'll give well to anyone who makes an effort!

B
Hand to Mouth
Making Stock of the Situation
A blog for the penniless gourmet