correct!

Oh dearie me! Cut to the quick! I suffer under the weight of harsh words by one who knows me not.

In light of the experience you have shared, I have a question, not to be mean, but I want an honest opinion and I think you will tell me.
If there was no tipping, do you think that wait staff would be paid the same minimum wage as other restaurant employees? I believe they would. And, that is good reason for them to love tipping, for one average tip from one average table and they easily exceed minimum wage.

When you are speaking with the manager about the above waitress who smiled, took your order and correctly and promptly delivered your food, and he asks what did she do wrong, you would say...?

I made average tips as a restaurant server - nothing over the top, but enough to go beyond the minimum wage in the state for non-tipped workers. Once, someone gave me a $20 bill after eating a $10 meal. And a few times, I was stiffed for a tip entirely.

I would've been fine with a living wage instead of tipping. But a living wage was not the same as minimum wage. I didn't rely on this one part-time job to pay my bills. If I was a single mother who couldn't afford child care and could only work 3-4 part-time shifts per week, I would probably hope that tipping was allowed, so that I had a chance of earning more than whatever my employer was paying me.

I wasn't in that situation though. During the years I worked in restaurants, I often worked multiple jobs. Sometimes part-time office work plus restaurants, sometimes more than one restaurant, sometimes bartending in addition - and when I lived in Boston, being a street musician was always my primary source of income.

If restaurant work paid $15/hour with no tipping allowed, I probably would've tried to get a job here in the Villages when I moved down, instead of working at Publix.

I once gave my server a $50 cash tip, on a $200 bill. She remembers me to this day. The service and food was well worth it. It was 25%. My wife was in favor of it.

So Mr Sinatra…tell us where u ate that a waitress deserved $50. Please be specific of what she did for u

Once again, context is everything. Note the bolded. I don't need a waiter to just deliver food and smile. Counter clerks can do that.

Minimum service for a tip: offer us water and/or other beverage before we even order food. Bring it, if we ask for it. Ensure that our table is clean and has all the cutlery necessary for a guest to eat at their restaurant. Take the order efficiently. Ensure that our food is delivered efficiently and correctly. Pause to make sure everyone got what they ordered and that it at least -looks- right, before walking away. Return after a few minutes to see if everyone's food is prepared properly and tastes satisfactorily to the guest. Ask if they want anything - condiments, more lemon for their tea, a refill on the water, another beer, another basket of bread, etc. etc. Make eye contact every time you pass the table, in case the guest wants to flag you down for something new. Assist them promptly, or apologize for any delay, if applicable. Around 20 minutes after their food was placed on their table, return again to see if they're finished, or almost finished. If so, ask if they want dessert and/or another drink. Make sure the busboy has taken the empty plates off the table (or do it yourself if there's no available busboy). Present the check. Smile with each step of this process.

That is the MINIMUM required, to get any tip at all. If they fail to do these things, then it's worthy of a complaint. This is the minimum I was trained to deliver, to ensure that I still had a job the following week. And this is the minimum I expect from my server as well.

Thank you. I still don't like the concept ot tipping as an expectation. I don't like that the business shifts a part of their financial obligation to the employee onto the customer. It is unfair to both customer and employee. Employees don't have a steady paycheck they can count on and the customers pay more out the door for food+ 20÷ than the relatively smaller increase in cost to cover the expected rise to full service wage.

Bottom line is, if you get a really good server a 20% tip is whats considered appropraite. Sometimes I'll do a bit more. If they don't do a good job, I adjust the tip accordingly.

The concept of servers making little per hour and more on tips is basically incentive pay.

In theory they'll work harder to make your visit enjoyable. But as we all know it's not a perfect world, and it doesn't always work out that way.

But if you don't like that concept, that's a you problem.

I work for the biggest food dist in the world as a sales rep. I sell to independent reaturants, so I see it all. The good, the bad and the ugly.

But any of the rockstar servers will tell you they would much rather work for tips because they know they can make really good money, and many do. It's the American way, reward hard work.

I am not a big an of the system, primarily because it makes providing a decent wage to the waitstaff a voluntary payment. We all know that if the waitstaff were paid a decent wage, and tipping became passe, the menu price would reflect the extra cost of that wage.

What the low-ball tippers don't want to recognize is that in the restaurant business there are plenty of down times when the place is empty. These times are not always predictable. Waitstaff has to be on hand to serve, and that is a cost borne by the restaurant even when nobody is dining. The low-wage + tip system mitigates that risk to the business somewhat.
Unfortunately for the waitstaff, they sit there with nothing to do, making less than minimum wage, and earning no tips because they are not serving any customers.
Then when things get busy, everyone is hustling like crazy trying to take care of their diners, and every diner there expects to treated as if they were the only table in the place.

The dead times and the rush times get rolled up into one big ball. When you dine, and you tip, you are participating in the system as it exists, not as you think it should be. When you tip, you are pulling your weight, recognizing that your tip helps smooth out the up and down times. When you don't tip, or you find some reason why you shouldn't tip to the customary %, you are letting someone else pay your bill for you.

Even if I didn't tip ( give a monetary gift to my server) I would still pay my bill from the restaurant and thereby fulfill my obligation to the restaurant. Tipping is voluntary and, though somewhat customary here, it is not required. Saying that if you don't tip you are not pulling your weight is flawed perspective, insulting emotional blackmail. Not pulling your weight is not giving waitstaff full minimum wages and guilt tripping customers into picking up part of their financial obligation.

And your perspective is flawed because it pretends the world is as you would design it, instead of acknowledging that the world is as it is.

If that is the MINIMUM to get any tip, is that a 10%, 15%, or 20% tip?

If they don’t smile, do you not tip?

Oh, I do tip. Not because it's the way it should be, but because that is the custom of our time. A custom that hail back to a time when lords and ladies might reward with a gift, some servant that pleased them. Having to rely on the generosity of strangers for gifts reinforces old class distinctions.
My argument is simply philosophical. Expecting the employer to pay their employee for what they do for the business seems appropriate. After all, when a server at the jewelry counter at a department store brings you the watch you buy, do you tip them or do they get paid buy the store?