[Gerald]

Tips based on service. Not tips based on salary. Tips are getting ridicules in amount. You pay for the food. Food comes out poor quality. Less and less on the plate , then you are expected to pay 20% tip. Lol. food in the villages has and still is going down in quality. I eat out many times each week and find that it is much better quality food and service outside the villages. Once the snowbirds leave the restaurant says poor me no one wants to eat my poor quality food and pay for overpriced food. People get smart expect to get what you pay for and pay correctly including tip for what you get. Don’t get that eat at another place.

[GatorFan]

I leave minimum 15 and for really good service 20. I also leave cash and do not put on credit card. If left on credit card server is taxed on full amount. If you leave cash they are only taxed on minimum wage based on hours worked.

[GoodLife]

With a new law in place, all sides are claiming victory in the tipping wars

Tucked into Congress’s 2,200-plus-page omnibus spending bill are a few paragraphs that will prohibit restaurant owners from sharing server tips with supervisors, managers and themselves. But the provision will also allow employers, in some circumstances, to share tips with dishwashers, cooks and other back-of-the-house employees who have traditionally been underpaid compared with their counterparts in the dining room.

Signed into law Friday by President Trump as part of the $1.3 trillion spending deal, the new provision gives the restaurant association what it says it wanted all along in its ongoing lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Labor: the freedom for employers to establish pools to share server tips with other hourly workers in the restaurant, especially low-paid line cooks and dishwashers. The idea is that the extra cash will help owners retain back-of-the-house employees and balance the income disparities between line cooks and dishwashers (often Latino) and servers and bartenders (frequently white).

With a new law in place, all sides are claiming victory in the tipping wars - The Washington Post

[bilcon]

Originally Posted by Gerald

Tips based on service. Not tips based on salary. Tips are getting ridicules in amount. You pay for the food. Food comes out poor quality. Less and less on the plate , then you are expected to pay 20% tip. Lol. food in the villages has and still is going down in quality. I eat out many times each week and find that it is much better quality food and service outside the villages. Once the snowbirds leave the restaurant says poor me no one wants to eat my poor quality food and pay for overpriced food. People get smart expect to get what you pay for and pay correctly including tip for what you get. Don’t get that eat at another place.

If the food is bad, blame management, not the server. Often, customers take it out on the server when the food is not cooked correctly. If you have poor service, then I agree you leave a poor tip or nothing. I like the system used in Australia. No tipping, but servers make a good salary. Having been from a family of restaurant owners, I can agree that the food in the majority of the restaurants, in TV is inferior. When TV owned the restaurants, the food was great, but they didn't have the HIGH cost of doing business that the current restaurant owners have.Just saying.

[golf2140]

Originally Posted by justjim

Servers in many restaurants also serve as “Bus boys”. I also have observed that in some cases a server will have more tables during busy times than he/she can adequately serve. Sometimes employees call in sick and this causes stress on the Servers that are there. It goes without saying that the restaurant business is a “tough” business. Something would have to go very badly for me not to tip 20%.

[Carl in Tampa]

Originally Posted by npwalters

Well you have made quite a few assumptions here including about me. You don't know me and if I am thoughtless or not.

BTW, the ambience of the restaurant (décor, tables, etc)should influence the cost of the meal - not the amount paid for service in my opinion.

Well, no; I did not single you out. ANYONE who occupies a table in an ultra-expensive restaurant for one or two hours, and who does not realize that such occupation deprives the server of having another customer at the table, and who does not tip accordingly is thoughtless.

And, of course the ambiance of the restaurant does affect the cost of the meal. (It pays the overhead.) It is because of the excessive time you occupy the table that the tip should be increased significantly, not because of the price of the food.

Now, if you gobble and get out as one does at McDonalds, you might justify a smaller tip. But you don't. No one does. The pace of the service of the food courses prevents this, and adds to the pleasure of the dining experience.

[retiredguy123]

It's amazing to me that restaurants seem to be the only businesses where the customers are concerned about how much money the employees make. If the servers don't make enough money, they will find another job.

[biker1]

I am not sure of your definition of an "ultra-expensive" restaurant but the average dining time for the higher-end restaurants that I have been to, around the world, is over 2 hours (and is often more and I am sure you can find many restaurants where the average is significantly higher) and the pace is generally controlled by the restaurant. Typically, if the amount of time that the table is occupied becomes excessive (after dinner chit-chat over coffee), the management will tactfully offer to buy the party an after-dinner drink in the bar to free up the table. This generally happens because the next reservation is waiting. Higher-end restaurants will often have a couple of seatings per evening so the total amount of customers in an evening is fixed. In restaurants that don't have specific seatings, some diners stay shorter, some stay longer - it all evens out. I tip according to the level of service, not the length of dinner.

I am not sure I see the point in criticizing others based on your perceived morality. People pay according to their own value system and placing arbitrary labels on people you have never met is a pointless exercise.

Originally Posted by Carl in Tampa

Well, no; I did not single you out. ANYONE who occupies a table in an ultra-expensive restaurant for one or two hours, and who does not realize that such occupation deprives the server of having another customer at the table, and who does not tip accordingly is thoughtless.

And, of course the ambiance of the restaurant does affect the cost of the meal. (It pays the overhead.) It is because of the excessive time you occupy the table that the tip should be increased significantly, not because of the price of the food.

Now, if you gobble and get out as one does at McDonalds, you might justify a smaller tip. But you don't. No one does. The pace of the service of the food courses prevents this, and adds to the pleasure of the dining experience.

[cegallup]

Arithmetic - percentages adjust tips with increasing prices . . . . . . Just decide which percentage corresponds to the service. Me 10-25 %

[It’s..us]

In a more perfect world IMHO restaurant staff would be paid at least minimum wage and expected to give good service as though the worked for an establishment that cared. The onus should not be put on the customer and the customer should be free to tip according to their conscience and means. The customer should not be berated on forums like this or get snarky remarks because he has differing opinions. Yes, cost of eating out would be more expensive....or would it? I think the staff would be better off, certainly the customer would be happier and the owner wouldn’t be put upon because, as we know, the difference is made up in the price of the meal.
I love honest debates and listening to other’s ideas and how they differ but I really detest how some use an opinion to attack, directly or on the sly another person when they post from their heart, thankfully it’s only a handful of them.