Why American Servers Hate Waiting on Foreigners

If you can handle the F-Bomb, Naomi sums up in this 11-second
video clip how we all feel. Yes, every single one of us.
Sorry.

In my first couple of months (working at the restaurant where most of this blog takes place) Pistachio throws me an honest question:

"Hey Guy, do you feel that you ever kind of slack off on your standards of service when waiting on foreigners?"

I think the question itself was an admission of guilt on his part, and that he was just making conversation, assuming that I'd relate.

Had I not been so new there, I think I would have given him a much more honest answer than I did at the time. I didn't really know him well, nor care to trust him with my innermost secrets (like I do you guys). Nearly two years later though, I think it's time for me to finally let the truth out.

To all of you foreigners planning on dining in the U.S., I think you should know that we American restaurant servers really, really, really hate you. For the most part anyways.

(Disclaimer : I'm using the word "hate" here rather loosely, as true hatred is against my beliefs and my nature. But it is a word that gets thrown around over and over when servers are discussing foreigners, as the videos I'm including testify.)

We don't hate you because of the color of your skin, your ethnicity, or for your religious beliefs. You may be of the same persuasion as your server on one or two of those items for that matter, but we will still hate you even if we're actually the same on all other checkboxes. It's not your accents we can't stand, that's just work. It's not the way you smell - although that, and your hygiene - could arguably use a little work, from our perspective.

It would probably be more accurate for me to clarify that we don't hate you personally, because we don't really get to know you of course. But by and large, we hate *waiting on you* because you don't tip.

90% of the time or greater, you don't tip well (or even sufficiently for services rendered) and many times you don't tip at all. We have learned from multiple experiences that you are more likely going to cost us money out of our own pockets because you sat in our section, than we are going to earn money from you. When seated a table of non-U.S. customers, our hearts kind of sink, and quite often the hostess apologizes to us for "giving you" to us. I'll bet you didn't know that did you? Your very presence often requires an in-house apology to be offered among co-workers.

Now, the spirit of my blog has always been that I don't complain about my job, my customers, my tips, etc. Rather, I share funny things that happen, life lessons I've picked up over the years, and the like. And just because my readers trust me and know that I'm often "on their side" as a professional who strives to offer my guests great service, they enjoy hearing me explain things to them which they did not know, from my inside perspective.

So lest you think I'm making an exception to my rules just to complain about foreigners, let me tell you a somewhat amusing story about "Mark from Denmark."

Mark's in Orlando for a large conference of veterinarians being held at the Convention Center (a few minute walk from our restaurant). We have these events all the time here, and we wait on customers from all over the world regularly. Well, Mark from Denmark is dining with two other guests and he pays me in cash for the lunch. To the penny, with no tip at all.

Now usually I let this go, but after over a year of putting up with this behavior routinely, I uncharacteristically decide to speak up. I don't think I would have, except for the fact that I was standing there as he counted out the bills and then handed it all to me. If I had picked up their payment after they'd left, it's not like I would have followed him out to address the topic, but he just counted the money outloud then handed me the book.

My frustration with this ongoing situation has somehow exceeded my capacity to keep my mouth shut, today it seems, and I calmly state "There's not gratuity included in the bill, like some places sir."

"What?" he asks me - probably not too thrilled that I called him out in front of his associates. (The truth is I know I'm moving from Orlando shortly, and just maybe the risk of losing my job for opening my mouth holds less weight for me on this particular day.)

I state even more matter-of-factly this time, "The tip isn't included."

Much to my surprise, he explains that this is a business trip (duh, I knew that) and to get reimbursed, he would need for the tip to be detailed on the check. Wow, that's completely understandable, and now I'm kind of liking this guy! Maybe he's not a total jerk foreigner after all, who doesn't care if I have to pay for the honor of waiting on him, he just wants to see it on the bill. I mean he was going to stiff me and it's not like he couldn't have explained all this to me up front if he were genuinely concerned about tipping, but since I brought it up at least he's willing to not be a complete jerk after all.

Not a problem. I just have to go to the manager and explain that Mark needs to have the tip itemized on his check. I know we can auto-grat this on the computer, print it out, and we both get what we want out of the situation. Great!

My mistake was opening my mouth again. Once was risky enough, but after explaining to him that I can do that, I mess up by actually asking him "The standard 18%?" to which he replies "No, ten."

I stare, and thankfully it's at this point that I finally, finally succeed in keeping my mouth shut. But I'm still staring, and with this quizzical (I'm sure) look on my face while clenching my teeth.


Wait for it ... because this is the part that I thought was funny ... Mark points to our policy, and says to me with all seriousness "18% is for parties of eight or more. We are only three."

Bwah, hahahahahaha! 

Believe it or not I actually understand his logic! So I walk away FAST before truly embarrassing myself by trying to take this any further. The crazy thing was explaining to Mike the manager why I needed a 10% auto-grat, which of course he's never done before. We're not even sure if the computer will do that, but he figured it out. As to the guy's reasoning, Mike good-naturedly says, "I guess it's a good thing for you he wasn't eating by himself."

Like most foreigners, Mark from Denmark doesn't understand that a 10% tip is actually an insult to American servers, but moving up from nothing I'll take it - and the funny story - in stride this time. Mark from Denmark could at least be reasoned with a bit.

Unlike Sven from Sweden.

Family of eight. Tourists. Auto-grat. But I made one mistake. Sven orders the "black and blue" steak but wants the blue cheese on the side. I failed to type that in, and long story short, we had to fix this, which took all of ninety seconds.

Everyone else loves the food and the service, and I take him the check. Sven from Sweden actually has the nerve to challenge the auto-grat because of my mistake. I tell Mike about the problem. We're both dumbfounded, but he removes the auto-grat, saying "What a jerk." Mike actually goes out to the table himself to present the check and apologize for our error, just so he can stare the guy down and see this jerk for himself. I wish I had been quick enough to suggest to Mike that we remove the auto-grat from just the one steak, but leave the rest, and take the check back to him. I honestly think Mike would have gone for it if I'd thought of it sooner, and man, that could have been fun to watch unfold!

So, bottom line ... Sven from Sweden - like Mark from Denmark and so many other foreigners before him - pays his family's bill to the penny, leaving me no tip at all, costing me about $12 in tip-out that night, out of my own pocket for "the pleasure" of giving good service to him and his smelly family.

"It all averages out ..." I lie to myself, while dispelling images of spitting in his food if I ever see him again. (I'm not going to lie and tell you I've never done it before in my 25 years of restaurant service, but I'm older now, and overall much more mature about these things.)

But listen up Sven. We know good and well that you would have found something to complain about if I hadn't made this small mistake, and that you most likely came in knowing about American auto-grats, intending to find a way to get it removed if at all possible and stiffing your server no matter what. I'd bet good money that you do it all the time. Or that you at least try. And we hate you for it.

It's stealing, Sven. In America, it's our "social contract" that waiters get 20% tips, otherwise a $4.99 burger costs you and everyone $7.99, if we completely change the system to where the restaurant pays us a decent wage. Nobody really wants that, so just cough up the dollar tip for every five you spend or just stay home.

Sure, we're glad that our overall economy gets a boost when millions of you foreign tourists spend millions of dollars here annually. The problem is that we servers don't get any of it. Those who wait on you get shafted most of the time. You not only fail to pay us for services rendered, you often cost us money just for sitting at our tables. We wait on you, you stiff us, we pay tip-out and taxes, and you take up the space that a table who would have tipped could have had that we'd actually make money on. 

And that is why we don't like you. And that is why we will auto-grat you every chance we get.

We servers all know that in your country tipping 20% for excellent service is not the custom. We also know that you know it IS the custom here. We know your travel agents told you, and that you have brochures and "Tips for Travelling in the United States" that explain it to you. We know you have the internet and learned all about this yourself before you even came. (Below, I'm providing yet another video for you, from "Wolter's World : America Explained" series. Wolter's a world traveler and he's not a waiter, but he knows that we hate you, and he is trying to help you.) I've been to Russia myself in fact, and our group had to study for nine months on how not to offend you when over there, so I'm sure you did nine minutes or more of research before you came here.

We know you're just pretending to be ignorant of the fact that tipping is expected here, and we don't forgive you for it.

It's foreigners like you, Sven, that make us American waiters hate waiting on you. All of you. Many of you don't tip, most of you don't tip well if you do at all, and we hate you, plain and simple, because of it. For my American readers, if you want to know why restaurants auto-grat so frequently these days, I want you to know that it's not your fault, most likely.

Sure there's plenty of Americans who don't tip well and we've addressed that here. They are in the minority I've found, however. The problem, is that the overwhelming majority of foreigners don't tip, unless made to. I'm willing to bet even more good money that by and large, that the sheer volume of foreigners visiting America as tourists - often concentrated in cities like Orlando, New York City, and Los Angeles - then stiffing their servers, is in fact how the auto-grat probably got started, and takes the form that it does today. Servers were crying and walking out and breaking things, remember? And restaurants needed to find a way to keep their good staff. But if you know one thing about business in America, it's that businesses don't typically want to piss off their customers, right? We don't do this auto-grat thing lightly. But it simply had to be done, because of the foreigners.

And now you know. And now that you know, perhaps I can sleep a little easier, having gotten all this off of my chest. I'm just one more entry (Petunia, remember?) and one appendix away from being done. It's going to make a great book that we can ship in bulk to foreign embassies and put in airport bookstores perhaps.

But back to Pistachio's question before I sign off for tonight.

"Do my standards of service ever get a little slack when waiting on foreigners?"

I'm ashamed to say... Yes. Sometimes.


You Svens from Sweden and you Marks from Denmark and you Europeans with your espressos and you Brazillians with your American holidays and you crappy-tipping Canadians and you French guys that leave quarters ... have honestly "gotten" to me.


I told Pistachio a year earlier that I know that some foreigners don't tip well, but some do, and overall it always averages out so I just try to give the same service to everybody. That was a lie then, and I'd be living a lie to say so here.

There. I admitted it. Happy?

I'm a damn good server who takes pride in my work - my profession, my craft, my ART if you will, but you cheap foreign &%@$#s have ruined me. I've taken so many different types of abuse at my job, and have seen many ups and downs in my work, yet I keep coming back and giving great service to people day after day believing the best about almost everybody and not caring about the worst as best as I honestly can.

But you people ... you foreigners ... you've beaten me. I can't stand you, and I can't stand myself sometimes knowing that I can't stand you. But you've finally won, and you've made me a lesser person for it.

If you're part of a foreign 2-top or a family of four that's not being auto-gratted, you MAY not get my best. If I'm busy, and I have to make a choice between giving three of my tables great service and yours maybe kind of bad service, or risk giving all four tables just "average" service to make sure that you get taken care of "equally" well ... Well Sven, I'm sorry, but it's just honestly not going to happen.

I'm not going to tell you much, if anything, about the specials, for instance. Figure out what's good here by yourself, and I'll come take your order after you've sorted it out on your own. If you ask my opinion about anything on the menu, I'm going to tell you "it's good" rather than be honest and waste a lot of my time telling you what I really like the best. Because you won't pay me for my time and expertise.

I'm not going to do anything at all in fact to serve you that takes up any more of my time than absolutely necessary to get you out of my life, because you're not worth my time based on how you're most likely going to treat me at the end. Tell me what you want and I'll bring it to you because I have to, that's how this works. If your drinks are empty and so are the drinks at table next to you, guess who gets a refill? Not you.

Don't dare ask me questions about "what's fun to do around here" or for directions either. Because if you do, I'm going to have a three-second internal debate with my passive-aggressive side about whether or not to send you to the absolute lamest place that I know of, or give you directions that will leave you lost and out of gas somewhere.

All that's on a bad day for me of course. Otherwise I'll probably try a little harder for you if there's time, because it's my job and I have to live with myself. But if I'm even a little busy, hundreds of foreign customers before you ever came along have already ruined things for you. As soon as I hear your accent, it's like I don't see you so much anymore, as I see "them" - the ones who have stiffed me so many times before I ever met you. Therefore, you might get a little ignored, maybe. Then again you might not. But it's a lot more likely that you will, if there's a choice to be made.

And I'm sorry for that.

It's just that feeding MY family is why I work here. Feeding YOUR family is just my job and a means to that end, but it's not my ultimate responsibility in life. So again, anytime there's a clear choice to be made, guess who wins and guess who loses? I sometimes hate myself for having to make this choice, and to be honest it kills me a bit inside when I do, but I'm here to tell you, the last time I felt I did have to make a choice between giving foreigners good service or Americans great service, I catered most and I catered best to those who were paying me cold, hard American cash for my time and efforts.

And I'll do it again.

And you know what? I actually CARE about my job and my performance and my guest's satisfaction. So if I'll choose to ignore you, you can bet that Pistachio and millions of other waiters and waitresses are probably going to as well, without even thinking twice or feeling bad about it. They've told me so in fact.


So what can we do about this problem Sven? What can you do, if you're planning on making a trip to the U.S., and you don't want your servers to ignore you, or give you anything less than their best service?

Well, you're reading this, and that's a start. Of course you can tell yourself that you're going to tip 20% for great service (which always surprises us servers, when you foreign visitors do so). But your server won't know that, so how does that help you, on the front end?

Hmmmmm ... how can your server know not to give you worse service because you're foreign, and that you're likely to tip well for good service? That's a tough one ...

Hey I know!

HERE'S how you can really ensure better service, if your server knows you're not from the U.S. and will be inclined to believe from the outset that you're a lousy tipper, not worthy of their best performance, or their time.

TELL THEM to auto-grat your check.

Seriously. Do it at the very beginning, while they're asking for your drink order, and possibly still inclined to be making a little chit-chat with you until they realize just how foreign you are.

Just say "Hey we'd like to ask you a favor... The tipping customs are different where we live than I've read they are here. But we want to make sure you get paid correctly. Could you auto-grat our check for us so that we can see it on the bill, and don't have to figure it out for ourselves?"

You do that ten different places while you're dining in the U.S. and I'm guessing 8 out of 10 waiters will cheerfully say "Yes sir/ma'am I can do that" and you will want for nothing. You'll receive possibly the best service you've ever received in your life from a server, who now genuinely appreciates you being there in their section. They'll be blown away that you cared enough to say that on the front end, and they will work very hard to make sure that you're very happy.

Two out those ten times however, you'll have a less experienced server who might seem confused by the concept, and maybe feel obliged to ask you to clarify. Tell them "Just whatever your restaurant's policy is on larger tables, please go ahead and add that amount to our check, even thought there are only (two, three, four, five...) of us."

Say it out-loud with me Sven... let's rehearse this together in fact. I want you to say, "Can you add 20% gratuity to our check please?"

Out of those ten servers, I'm guessing that you might possibly see one of them cry when you say this.

Because 30 seconds ago they were cursing life and God and you for sitting in their section, and you just made their day.

In all cases, you win. You'll get the great service you deserve for choosing to spend your money at our restaurant, and the server will get paid the amount he or she deserves for a job well done.

It's win/win ... everybody's happy ... international crisis averted.

Group hug!



You've just enjoyed Part 11 in my series on restaurant tipping and auto-gratuity. Here's links to Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 and Part 10 so you can catch up. The final installment (plus an appendix on The IRS) are coming soon. 

Don't miss it! Subscribe for the last chapters via the e-mail link below, or the box at the top of this page.

P.S. Here's a little more "food for thought" for all of the unrepentant Svens out there ... I'm not saying that I agree (entirely) with what happened here below, but you don't want to let the chance of it happening ruin your vacation, do you?

I'd Auto-Grat My Own Mother

EXHIBIT A :
This doesn't happen every day, but every now and then an
Auto-Grat gets smothered with a little extra Awesome Sauce!

My blogs have been rather lengthy of late, so I left this story out of the last one... 

But I really have to let you know about one of my all-time personal favorite "Hall of Fame" actions that any server I've ever worked with has ever pulled.

It won't be that big of deal to you really, but it does perfectly illustrate the point I was making in my last post (on Why Restaurants Add Automatic Gratuity and especially, HOW this either attracts or repels superior waiters to or from working for those that do)...

On my way up to "the bigger leagues" of more expensive fine dining (i.e., higher tabs and higher-end clientele, for whom tipping 20% and above is their norm, when service warrants) I quit the local Olive Garden and worked for about 3 years at "The Prime Cut" Steakhouse located near 2nd & Broadway in the heart of downtown Nashville, Tennessee.

The steaks there were around twenty 1997 dollars, and for me this was the big league finally. That's one thing I learned later in life than I wish I actually had - that like all sales jobs, if you have the skills to do the job well, you need to be where the big tickets are. It's simple math my young Waitron friends .. you will earn more money serving up $20-$50 dinners (where salads and sides may even cost extra) to people who can actually afford such, than you ever will running back and forth re-filling $8.99 Soup & Salad combos to people who struggle with tipping 15%.

Well "TIMMY!" joined our wait-staff at The Prime Cut at some point after I'd done so, and by then I was one of the servers who helped to train him. Turns out TIMMY! had also worked for an Olive Garden before, and I remember telling him about the differences in what to expect, especially in relation to our clientele.

"At lower-end places," I snobbily pontificated "it sometimes seems like YOU are "the entertainment for the evening" for a lot of the people that you're waiting on, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Dining out's a big expense for some, maybe they don't get out that much, and they're not so much going anywhere else this weekend. So for them, the waiter is "the big show" for the weekend."

(As a note to my readership - some of whom I can feel myself quickly alienating as I type this - I have since repented of and long ago gotten past my elitist-snob waiter stage ;)

"But here it's different in lots of ways. We gets lots of business travelers on the weeknights who are on their company's credit card, and mainly they're talking to each other. It's not like you have to entertain or impress them with your life story and tell them all your dreams and desires to pass the time. You tell them what's good, bring 'em their food, be polite and professional, and they're happy.

"And even our two-tops who are here on a date : generally speaking, they're on their way somewhere else after this... dancing, a concert, a play or an opera maybe. Point is, their waiter's personality is not really supposed to be their evening's highlight either. Plus, if some guy's dropping a hundred (1997) bucks on dinner with a lady, the last person he wants to talk to for any length of time is YOU. He's dropping that hundred bucks for face-time with HER. A lot of chit-chat from you can actually be annoying, and hurt your tip. So, you basically just serve them well, and you're good."

Man, did I really think I was the stuff back then or what? Haha!

So anyways, TIMMY! proved himself be an excellent server for us. He always remained very polite and professional even with his more "troublesome" guests, and only ever talked about them behind their backs, not to their faces. As far as facial expressions, body language, and the words he said at his tables went, he was among the best I've ever witnessed in the business about not letting his guests have a clue as to what he really thought or felt about them. What a champ, huh?

And apparently TIMMY! was on his way up the food chain (get it?) much more quickly than I, because when

Oops, I'm getting ahead of myself.

At The Prime Cut, we added 15% gratuity on parties of 6 or more. Yeh, that's important. 

It's also important to include that in addition to the higher-end folks we sometimes catered to, the place also had live music and a fairly hopping lounge on weekends. It was something of a local hot-spot in the 1990's, and therefore we certainly received our fair share of local rednecks who came out more for the great steaks and cold draft beer we offered, not so much for the fine dining ambiance we tried to pull off downstairs, when things were quieter.  

The 15% auto-grat was perhaps a little radical back then I suppose. While I can't remember for sure, it was maybe there that I first heard the words "Well, Id've probably left you a lot MORE if you hadn't already included the tip!"

Yeh right buster. We've all heard that one before.. and a few times since. And we know darn good and well that you're lying. 

We know (and these days, I even empathize) that the truth is you're suffering from sticker-shock at the price of the tab you just picked up for all of your buddies, business associates, or extended family. They maybe ate and drank more than you anticipated, and who knew that three $40 bottles of wine would come to $120??? Maybe the martinis you started with clouded your judgment on exactly how much food and alcohol was actually "in the budget" for you to order, or maybe you just fell for our finely-honed sales tactics where we get you to order way more than you would have on your own.  

This can happen - especially when we know you're being auto-gratted - and personal income aside, it actually turns into an internal competition for bragging rights with the other waiters over whether or not we can get you to order the hugest appetizer platter (or three) and some expensive wine. Waiters are by no means Real Estate brokers or car salesmen, but sales is a huge part of our culture, and just like those hard-workers from the last post, restaurant managers will also default to turning their best sale-people loose on the larger tables too!

In any event, you asked me what I thought was good, and I told you. You all loved it and now here's your check. Maybe back when you arrived sober you were hoping to make everyone happy and get out for $250, and now you're stuck taking deep breaths while staring closely at the $600 tab you ran up, wondering how it all went so wrong. And in this moment, the fact that $100 of it is gratuity, well, erks you a little bit, and that's understandable.

Not to be harsh, but that's also not my problem. My problem is rent. That, and the fact that the manager sat me down last night with a long computerized print-out of my sales report from last week and talked to me about how I'm not selling half as many appetizers as "corporate" projects that I should be, and asks me do I want more shifts or less next week? Hint, hint. So I sold you some. And because of the situation you're now finding yourself in, if the tip isn't automatically added to your bill at this important juncture, human nature dictates and my experience shows that tipping 10% is about the only way some people have left to feel okay about what just transpired here.

So you're buzzed and feeling remorseful about how much you just spent, and NOW you're telling me "Well I woulda left you more if you hadn't of added the tip."

Uh-uh. Sorry. We're just not buying any of that today. You're not the first to tell me that and you won't be the last. However, in your passive-aggressive fog, you don't realize that the only worthy response to that is "Well you still can. There's an empty blank on the voucher we leave just for those who feel the service was better than the __% minimum."

Bluff called. 

You see, we in the business have learned that people who are prone to tip more than 15, 18, or 20% when service is excellent, still will. (See Exhibit A, above.) But leaving off the auto-grat in hopes that you'll tip more, just because for some reason I'm convinced that you're "really cool" and that we're such good friends now and that you just loved me so-o-o much... therefore it would somehow be WRONG of me to include the gratuity... is a total fool's mission, I've found. 

It generally takes a few trials and errors before a server finally figures out that doing so will back-fire wayyyyy more often than it's worth when they don't auto-grat, but we all eventually get it. The last time I "gambled" and left the auto-grat off of a check was circa 2001. I even knew better by then, but I was just so convinced that these people loved me and they were awesome. We connected, we laughed together, they told me how great a server I was, and when it was all said and done they left me $15 on a $400 tab.

Maybe they thought the tip was included already, and the $15 was meant to be a bonus for me. I'll never know. But ever since then, I've always told my fellow (younger or less experienced, that is) servers who are thinking about leaving the auto-grat off of a check, "Nope. I'd Auto-Grat my own mother if she were in here tonight." They usually laugh, then I'll finish with "And she WILL still tip me extra."

Sometimes they go ahead and gamble anyways. 3 out of 4 times they come walking back into the station, with the little credit card book in hand and with this look in their eyes that tells me the story before I even hear the same words come out of their mouth that I spoke in 2001 ... "Never again."

Folks it's not personal when you see the tip included on your bill, mmmm-kay? First and foremost, lets not ever forget that this is a business transaction for starters, mmmm-kay? Most of us have tried it the other way, and we've just been burned - burned badly, and too many times. That, and these days the server may not even have any choice in the matter. At my last job we got some serious "memos from corporate" that we servers were not ever allowed to pick and choose which large parties to auto-grat or not. They were smart enough to know that some type of ethnic, racial, or other types of "profiling" could come into play, so they nipped it in the bud. 8 people, 18%, period. That's what the menu said, that's the policy and we were to stick to it. Yuppers, if you and seven of my best friends came in together and I waited on you, I'd actually be written up if I DIDN'T auto-grat you.  

I'd auto-grat TIMMY! if I waited on him and all of our old friends from The Prime Cut tomorrow night, for that matter.

Were you worried I was going to forget to get back to the story?

Well at some point we at The Prime Cut learned that the owner had decided to reverse our auto-grat policy. As in eliminate it, entirely. We weren't told why - maybe someone called him who thought the service was bad one night and resented the auto-grat, I don't know. But there we are closing up on (let's call it) Wednesday night, and out of nowhere we have to stuff new inserts into the menus that no longer mention the auto-grat. The policy has been changed and none of us feel good about this at all.

But what can you do?

Thursday rolls around. It's almost 5pm, and TIMMY! hasn't shown up yet, which isn't like him. We find out he no longer works here? Huh? Why? We're not told.

I get TIMMY! on the phone the next day. That son of a buck had the cojones to do what none of the rest of us did. He called the owner, and quit via voice-mail!

TIMMY! told me exactly what he said too - that he wasn't going to work for someone that didn't value his services enough to pay him what he was worth, and so he wouldn't be back in tonight, or ever.

My hero.


Remember my argument that good servers gravitate to places that have auto-grats, and away from those that don't? Well, non-related, but about a year later I moved away from Nashville. Approximately two years later I was back visiting, and went downtown to meet my brother for dinner at The Prime Cut. When I got to the front entrance, there were chains and a padlock on the door. 

According to the Public Notice taped inside the window, they'd been evicted for failure to pay their rent.

Coincidence?


You've just enjoyed Part 10 in my series on restaurant tipping and auto-gratuity. Here's links to Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 and Part 9 so you can catch up. Part 11 is either the conclusion, or the penultimate installment. Either way, you won't want to miss it! Subscribe for the last chapters via the e-mail link below, or the box at the top of this page.

The Auto-Gratuity's Effect on Service, Part 2

Folks I'm working a double today - on the blog that is! 

Here's another thrilling installment of my series on restaurant tipping. If you're new to this site please read Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 and Part 8. Part 8 is actually Part 1 to this entry, which could more appropriately have been titled ...
"Why Restaurants That Don't Auto-Grat Suck." 

IMHO, it's in your best interest to avoid them actually. Here's why...

Image Source - Menu PDF from Ruby Tuesday on NorthShore, Kroger Pike, Knoxville TN

Hey I'm going to pick on a Ruby Tuesday today, partly because I used to work at Ruby Tuesday in Knoxville TN (not this one, but in stores #1 and #20), and partly because of what this ONE Ruby Tuesday's menu states about tipping. From what I've researched for this post, what you see above is not Ruby Tuesday's "overall corporate policy" and many of them DO include gratuity on large parties.

One more thing before they try to sue me : I'll also say that Ruby Tuesday was my first job waiting tables ever, and in my three years as a server (and later bartender) for Ruby's, I learned quite a bit about how to give great service, and much that I employ still today. The training was quite sufficient (and I'm not just saying that because I was a trainer for them at one time) and the "by the book" standards of service for their "Waitrons" (seriously, the manual at the time called us Waitrons) set the bar pretty high as far as knowing what was expected of me a server.

With that said, back to real life.

As we discussed earlier, when you see an auto-grat on your bill for a large party, it generally means that you're being assigned one of the better servers which that restaurant has to offer you at the time... at least to whatever extent the selection of which server you get, falls under the reasonable ability of the manager or hostess to pick and choose for you. 

GO READ that whole story now, before proceeding here. 

And hurry up, you're holding up the line.

Now that you understand how that concept plays out in the restaurants you go to every day, the key to following me here lies in taking that same logic, then seeing how to apply it to a much larger picture. The picture not so much being the restaurant you walk into and the waiter or waitress they choose to give to you, but rather "the picture" being the town or city you are in, and the restaurant(s) you choose to walk into.

You'll also need to allow me to take you out of your point of view for today - as a customer who (hopefully) has choices about where to eat - and now enter my world as a waiter who (hopefully) has choices about where to apply for work. Sound like fun?

Cool. Now, with the table being properly set ... 

Tonight's Special begins with a few words from my fellow server/bartender/blogger Steve Nicolle, who has also tackled the topic at hand in his article "Automatic Gratuities and The Continuing Free-Fall of Fine Dining." First quoting, then building upon his revelation...

Steve writes 

 "Corporate restaurants serve to the masses... It is a business decision plain and simple. In and out pay the bill and next please. It is all about volume..."

Because of this, he correctly (to my mind) argues that many corporate giants are moving away from auto-gratting large tables, simply because they know that "the masses" are cheap (Hey blame the economy if you want to). Large chains are starting to snap to the idea that if they DO NOT auto-grat, they will be perceived by the population as a whole as being less expensive places to dine, and therefore more people will choose to go there to eat, and therefore the corporation will make lots more money. 

To my mind, Steve is 100% correct. People are more strapped these days, and many are understandably looking to pay less. I've no problem with this reasoning, but as I get back to your point of view in a moment, you also might be interested in seeing how this business model negatively affects you, and makes the quality of service you receive at these places worse and worse and worse as this trend continues.

Here's why. If you've been following me since the beginning, you've seen me get stiffed on both a $200 tab and a $600 tab, which literally costs me money out of pocket. You've seen a girl cry over getting stiffed on $300, and you've seen my friend almost get fired for his reaction to a table that tipped him poorly. While not covered here in such detail here to date, I've witnessed many other servers either walk out of their shifts - and their jobs - over this factor, and many others get fired for confronting or cussing out their customers who didn't tip.

It's hard to keep good help that way people. As I've detailed, the automatic gratuity is one of, if not THE essential ingredient in retaining good staffers, long-term, who genuinely want to work hard and be known for giving exceptional service. Because otherwise, human nature will eventually over-ride our calmer selves, and we would all walk out or get fired from our positions. We may regret it later, but it is indeed what happens in places that don't include the tip on larger parties, leaving their waiters to earn nothing for their shift. It's insulting, it's degrading, and we can't forever just take it. It HURTS having our hopes for a $100+ night dashed when bills are due, by some redneck, foreigner, or all around Cheap-O who thinks it's okay to stiff us for no good reason. 

But the above ugliness doesn't happen with even 1/10th of the frequency (I'm guessing) in restaurants where the server gets their autograt. We can happily and productively move on with our shift to the next round of tables and be pleasant to them, knowing we've already had a decent night. 

So if I - speaking as a very experienced server - have any choice in the matter, I will not apply to work in a place that does not have an auto-grat policy in place. Neither will most other experienced, excellent servers. Our experience shows us already that we're going to earn considerably less income there, and who wants to work for a place that so clearly cares so very little about their employees' overall well-being? Have you, dear reader, ever had to make perhaps a similar choice in your own professional life?

Getting back to the Northshore Ruby Tuesday in Knoxville Tennessee, I'm not *only* not going to work there, I'm reluctant to eat there as well. And mostly not because I'm offended by their policy. I am a bit, sure... But Hey, this is 2012. Nobody boycotts or chooses a restaurant based on things that have nothing to do with the quality of the food, right? Ummm.... 

It's just that in this case, because of knowing about this particular policy, I wouldn't expect to get near as good of service as I might at any of their nearby competitors, that do auto-grat larger tables. 

I can surmise this because I know the secret code required to translate the policy stated on their menu!

"... and unlike other restaurants, we don't add an automatic gratuity. We believe the amount you reward your server should be your choice."

That sounds reasonable at first, and I'm sure many Knoxvillians go there for that very reason. They can leave $5 on their hundred-dollar tab and not feel guilty about it, because the menu said it was their choice. This implies a belief by the owner and/or management that there are no industry standards to go by, and that there is no right or wrong to go by when tipping. Well hopefully you know better by now reader. How this statement actually reads to me, goes a little more like this :

"... and unlike other restaurants, we don't care so much whether our staff takes home any money, just our corporate owners and officers. Our staff is mostly college kids who don't have much experience waiting tables, and probably won't be here next time you come in, because they've either graduated or moved on to a restaurant where they will be treated with more dignity by both the company and the customers, and will make more money. 

"We know good and well that you come here for great food, and if you honestly expected or demanded outstanding service, you'd be willing to pay for it elsewhere. Sure, if you complain about the service, we'll take it seriously and might have to fire the kid... But that's okay, because we know that we have thousands more inexperienced workers coming in every year to replace them with. So feel free to come leave your money in our cash registers, without thinking twice about how much you leave in your servers' pockets. We know they matter even less to you than they do to us."

But maybe that's just how I read it.

Not to single out this one restaurant, I just want you to know that any place that offers sit-down service - whether they call it "fine dining" or not - has made an important and key decision about their service levels, one way or the other, which will be quite apparent by their auto-grat policies. If there's an auto-grat, they'd prefer to retain their more experienced and skilled employees by meeting their financial needs, and believe that enough people will come in for both their food and the superior service which their experienced staff provides, to make up for the value diners they lose. If there's not an auto-grat, they're probably courting less sophisticated diners who care more about saving money than paying for top-notch service. And they're betting that these days, there's more people like that than those willing or able to pay for top-notch service.

So that's another way that an auto-grat actually works in your favor - even if you're not part of a large party but are just wanting a nice dinner out for two. The more skilled and experienced servers will tend to gravitate towards working for restaurants that have such a policy (and those that generally demand more experience to get hired). Just as the less experienced servers who are getting stiffed on 10-tops will tend to cry, break things, and walk out in the middle of their shifts - perhaps leaving you and your date waiting for some other server who already has 4 or 5 tables going - to be told by the manager to add you to their workload.

I'm speaking solely in averages and probabilities based on years of observation and experience here, of course. I'm sure this Ruby Tuesday (and many other non-grat restaurants) have some fantastic servers on their payroll. I was one, so to speak. But I'm equally sure that the good ones who are there now, who are still waiting tables a few years from now, will have taken their skill-set somewhere else, just like I did.

You have the same choice of course, and I respect you either way. Take your money where you like, but I will caution you to not take expectations for the best service to places that don't auto-grat large tables. The servers most likely qualified to meet those expectations for you... have left the building.


"Oh yeah, smart fellow? Well, as a matter of fact I woulda tipped you a lot MORE if the tip hadn't been included!"

You sir, are a liar.

Next, on Guy's Work Blog. 

The Auto-Gratuity's Effect on Service

Welcome back friends and enemies alike! 

Working 2 jobs has it's ups and downs, and one of the downsides is definitely a shortage of time to blog. But I've finally got a couple of days off, so I'm squeaking out yet another thrilling installment of my series on tipping (and the auto-grat) today. If you're new to this site please read Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 and Part 7, and subscribe to this blog for the final installments.

For you cool kids in the know already ...

Source : TheAtlanticWire.com
"Please Welcome the Rise of the Automatic Gratuity"

The word "Auto-grat" (which I'll be using from here on) is simply restaurant servers' affectionate term for the "automatic gratuity" that in many places gets included on larger tables. Generally, groups consisting of around 8 people will get auto-gratted, and possibly on parties of as few as 5 or 6 people - and occasionally even less - depending upon the establishment's policies.

For example, where I currently work the menu reads "20% Gratuity will be added for parties of 7 or more."

Maybe it's (an archaic) 15% where you like to dine most, and just maybe 20% seems a little bit steep to you.

Over the years I've worked at restaurants where the auto-grat was 15%, 18%, and now (finally!) 20%. What this means to me actually (I'll get to you soon enough) is simply that "I've moved up" in the past several years. I can say this most especially because I've also worked in places where there was and still is NO auto-grat for large groups... and you know what? By comparison, these are the crappiest restaurants you can choose to frequent. I'll explain why later, but just know that I've found the longer I'm in this business, I finally see how the auto-grat actually benefits the paying customer now, not just how it benefits me.

"OH RE-A-L-L-L-Y?" you may be thinking.. "But I thought automatic tips just produced lazier waiters, who don't work as hard because they know they're going to get paid no matter what! HOW can you say such a preposterous thing, young man?" Read on John...

I'm with you, to a point anyways, as I can freely admit that occasionally the guarantee of getting a tip does cause some workers to slack off a bit. More than a bit in rare cases, conceded. And as I've already made clear, you the customer have every right to speak to a manager and have that charge removed or reduced if you don't feel the service was adequate. But as I've also said, it happens much more frequently that good servers who give great service get stiffed or screwed over by cheap or unknowledgeable (often foreign) customers, than good customers get taken by bad servers.

It happens, I know, but most often these are the laziest workers and/or the most mis-matched people for the job, who eventually weed themselves out and either 1) Quit because they're really just not suited for this line of work, or 2) They get themselves fired for their non-customer-service attitude or their shoddy work ethic overall. Good riddance either way, I say.

For the majority of us in the business however, the psychology behind the auto-grat actually has a reverse effect of what you might initially think. What actually starts going through a decent worker's mind are thoughts like "Oh I can't slack off or mess up on this table. I don't want them accusing me of acting lazy because of the auto-grat. I can't afford to have them talk badly about me to a manager, because I might lose my job. Or I might never be given a big table again. I'd better make sure I'm doing an extra good job on this table, EVEN IF this means I have to kind of ignore other tables..."

(Exhibit A : Old-time blog readers of mine will remember my "work-wife" story, where I shared that the first time I was given a table of 12 people at a new job, I actually paid my co-worker $20 - in advance! - to help me make sure the table got great service.)

Seriously folks, as I "moved up" in this field, I've spoken with many, many, servers who have told me that THIS is the attitude they began to take when assigned larger tables that will be auto-gratted. At a personal level, we simply don't want to be accused of "being lazy because the tip is included." Of course there's bad apples in every field, and if you'll just hang with me on this I'll try not to come to your job and judge your performance by what your laziest co-worker does, okay?

Look, no supervisor wants to deal with angry customers, right? Not one, not two, but definitely not ten at once! So speaking in very broad terms here of course, I want you to understand that when given a choice, restaurant policies and the individual managers are going to default to giving the larger tables to the servers who have proven that they can and will consistently give such parties good service. This is but one way seeing an auto-grat on your bill has worked in your favor that you didn't even know about. It's exponentially truer by the way, if you made a reservation, and management had the chance to plan the evening, and to make a personal merit-based judgment call on what server(s) are going to be assigned your large table.

Are you starting to follow me yet, even just a bit? The management doesn't want to get bitched at by the customers of course, but especially not by his or her bosses either, if your complaint goes over their head to their superior (or online, these days). Simply put, the greater the number of people at the table, the more a "floor manager" has a vested interest in your satisfaction, and wants to give your table to the best server(s) available at the time you walk in - if he or she has any choice in the matter. Without a reservation, it may come down to random rotation of course, and the server you get - especially if they happen to be new - will be in a "sink or swim" position... Either they step up and do a good job by you and hope you say something nice about them to the manager on your way out so they can move up, or they'll possibly get a complaint and be out of work without some drastic improvement. And generally speaking, they know this.

If it's any consolation to those of you that may resent the autograt, every place I've ever worked, auto-gratting a check can only be done on the computer by a manager. Our pimply-faced minimum-wage friend Fred can't just add a tip to any check he pleases. At my last two jobs, both companies' policy stated that the manager on duty HAD to drop by the table, and check in with the party before the autograt even got added to the bill. Generally, this will happen sometime after the entrees have been served, or while you're enjoying desert. (That's your chance to speak up, by the way. Otherwise, forever hold your peace.) If at that time the table is a hot mess of uncleared dirty dishes, the manager will either speak to the server to correct it, or tell them they're not going to auto-grat the table, simply because he/she either thinks the auto-grat wasn't earned, or doesn't want to risk the complaint of such coming back to his/her boss.

So now you know okay? I'm sorry to you younger servers reading this who may not appreciate me telling the customers exactly when and how it is most strategic to lodge a complaint or get you un-gratted. But hey, I've got a book to sell and that's not going to happen without me spilling some secrets okay? Just do your job and you'll have nothing to worry about. If you're overwhelmed and can't keep up (which still happens to me, to all of us) part of doing your job involves knowing when to ask your teammates or management for help, thus ensuring that your guests receive the service they deserve. So swallow your pride youngster, drop the attitude that the world owes you a living, get help when you need it and you will start making more money as well as stop giving the rest of us a bad name.

Where was I?

Oh. The fact is that - bad apples aside - nicer restaurants are staffed with decent workers who have bills to pay and who have goals in life, who therefore actually do want to do their job well, so that they can move up a little over time, and who are going to work hard to earn the right to be assigned the larger tables (that are auto-gratted) more and more frequently because (light bulb!) that's where the money is!

I and every other server in America know that we make our money based on three factors and three factors only, and "Surprise! Surprise!" only one of them even PARTLY relates to how good our service turns out to be.

#1) Volume : the number of people we wait on per night, multiplied by

#2) Sales : the amount of money you spend (or that we convince you to spend) multiplied by

#3) Gratuity: the percentage of the total bill that you leave as a tip (10, 15, 18, 20, 30%+, whatever...)

Except for the auto-grat, the last of course remains out of our control. Some people are just poor tippers who will never change, and that's just one sad fact of my and others servers' lives. For every story you can tell me about receiving bad service and seeing the tip added, I can tell you dozens about when I gave great - impeccable even - service and still got tipped 0-10%. We servers all know that whether or not we get a 20% tip (our minimum expectation when service is great) depends as much upon WHO we're waiting on and the TYPE of customer you are, as it does on the quality of service we give.

Receiving 25-30% tips (this may shock some of you, but yes, some people do tip in that range voluntarily) begins with the type of customer first, combined with giving fantastic, attentive, personalized service. 30% doesn't happen every night (to me at least) and for the most part whether a server receives 0% or 30% remains fairly unpredictable, and largely out of our control.

So what CAN we at least influence, if not control.......?

Total sales per guest check can be increased over time if we work on little things like suggestive selling of appetizers, deserts, highly-priced wine, etc. And we do, and some restaurants reward us (via daily contests, via better schedules, or by monitoring our PPA - Per Person Average - because the company wants to see those numbers go up, and their profits increase).

As to volume, we can't really do that much as far "marketing" to get more people walking through the doors, except from giving fantastic and personalized service that results in you asking for us by name when you do come in. "Call parties" (as we refer to them) aside, we can't otherwise do that much to effect how many people come in, or how many sit in our section tonight. (Well, actually there was this one time when I was dating a hostess and got more tables than I should have, but that was a long time ago and it's not a tactic I could employ now. However, offering occasional bribes, drinks, food, flirting and compliments actually does work out pretty well for some waiters.)

BUT in general, we CAN work our asses off to prove to management that we're worthy of being chosen to get that party of 8 or 12 that does call up for a reservation tonight. With the minimum gratuity being guaranteed and the volume being handed to me, I can focus so much better on service (and salesmanship ;) with your party, than I can with my other tables. If my manager knows beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt that you are going to get great service from me and have nothing but nice things to say about our restaurant when you leave for days and weeks and months to come, then he's going to assign you to me, as well as many more large tables over time.

But if he's going to receive complaints and perhaps be told that "We resent the tip being added because our server seemed lazy and really didn't deserve it" just how long do you think it's going to be before he assigns me to another large party? Or to the Unemployment Office?

Point being, contrary to what you might think or even have experienced a few times in your life ... I, and every decent server knows that making a conscience choice to give bad service "because the tip is included" becomes so counter-productive to our financial needs and goals that it's not even a logical choice. Exceptions of bad workers aside (blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, okay?) we DON'T give you worse service "because the tip is automatic."

Generally speaking we will try to give you better service, or at least the best that we're capable of, because doing so equals money in our pockets, and will continue to do so long after you're gone.

So, those times when you see a gratuity added, it's most likely worked in your favor because - out of the servers you could have gotten that night - the odds are you got one whom the hostess or manager knew would result in the least amount of complaints to them personally.

That's just one way the auto-grat works in your favor. I'll share another one next, as well as support my earlier statement that restaurants that don't ever include the tip in your bill are likely the worst places to eat.

Subscribe via e-mail for your next heaping helping of my hospitality-y-y-y-y ...

I'll give you something to wine about

Image Source
Ummm, for purposes of this story,
the red stuff pictured above isn't wine.

Perhaps you've been out to a restaurant a time or two in your life, and perused the wine list thinking about ordering a bottle wine to compliment your dinner.

You may have also found yourself thinking, "Dang? $65 for a a bottle of my favorite Yummy-Delicious Brand of Cabernet Sauvignon? Why, I can get that same bottle for $20 at __________ (insert local retail store here)...

The prices you pay at a restaurant for a great bottle of wine can seem a wee bit outrageous indeed, I understand.

Well folks, I have to confess to you that *I personally* am part of this "insanely-high-priced bottles of wine problem" that you face when ordering wine out.

Sorry about that.

Small consolation perhaps, but tonight I'm going to share with you exactly why it's servers like me that drive the price you have to pay for a bottle of wine when "out" so through the roof.

Because tonight, for the second time in my lifetime as a career bartender/server, I wound up at the "Emergency Room" after a wine-glass related injury.

Many of you already know - and perhaps routinely accept - the fact that when you're at a nice restaurant you're going to pay probably triple, and maybe 4 times, for a bottle of wine than you'd pay for it at a local store. If you order by-the-glass in fact, you've perhaps noticed that you can actually buy a whole bottle of your brand of choice in a store, for about the same amount you'd pay for a single glass when ordering out. Before tipping, that is.

And if you've ever felt the need to ask about or challenge this concept, you've probably received an answer that inevitably contained the word "Ambiance" ...

Well sure Yes that's part of the correct answer... I mean the plush (furniture expenses) air-conditioned (utilities) building (Real Estate in a nice and convenient location) expenses do have to be covered ... But also No, that's just not the entire story either.

Okay, so you get the fact that this yummy-deliciousness gets carried to you by someone that the restaurant has to pay. Check. Stopping to think about it, you're also okay with the idea that it's served to you in nice glasses. Glasses that have to be purchased, and washed regularly with really hot water, by another person who has to be paid. Glasses, hot water bill, and payroll - check, check, and check.

So of course you're paying for a bit more than just the cost bottle of wine itself. You might even understand that long-term, these nice glasses get broken from time-to-time (I personally break three or four per month one way or another, and I've witnessed a server break over a dozen at once in one little accident. "What up, Dee?") and so these expensive glasses have to be replaced quite routinely. And of course you understand and respect that the restaurant itself actually has to make a decent profit from the whole transaction in order to remain open for you - for the next time you want to order a bottle of wine in a plush air-conditioned establishment with hopefully nice people waiting on you hand-and-foot who also have to be recruited, trained (BIG expense) and who of course expect to get paid for doing all of this for you.

But then on top of all that, there's guys like me that wind up at the hospital from time-to-time - just to deliver all of this yummy-deliciousness - trapped inside of a seamless "perfect night out" to you and for you.

My bad! Again, I'm sorry for throwing the equation off. But here's how it went down tonight :

I arrived a cool 20 minutes early for my shift. Take that to mean that I'm in NO hurries tonight, and I'm not rushing to catch up, nor being careless by any means. Where I work, there are wine glasses pre-set on starched white tablecloths on every table before you sit down. So, one of the largest parts of our "opening side-work" (as we call it) involves dividing ourselves into sections, then walking through the building with pitchers of hot steaming water, and polishing every wine glass.

For people who like to order expensive bottles of wine out, waiting while someone eyes the wine bottle's cork and then holds the first sip of wine up to a light - "rolling the glass" before even smelling - and then finally tasting - the wine itself... is just the every day part and parcel of what I do for a living.

Therefore, before opening for the evening, we servers likewise hold every wine glass up to a light to examine each and every one for little things like water-spots or (the worst!) those pesky lipstick stains that don't automatically come off with machine-washing. While all of the glasses are technically clean and sanitized, little things like this will of course catch the customer's eye whilst he or she rolls the glass and peers though it and the wine, searching for signs of quality and/or imperfections. Yeh, sounds pretty anal I know, but whether you're paying $30 or $800 for a bottle of wine (we carry both where I work) you deserve a clean glass, and part of what I get paid $2.13/hr for by the restaurant is to make sure you have it, okay?

So I've got my pitcher of hot water and clean linen towel. I'm making my way from table to table at a casual pace examining the glasses and polishing as needed. Then there's this onnnnne glass that's giving me no end of trouble, because of one pesky little hard-water spot that doesn't seem to want to come off. It's not enough to just polish it, so I've held the glass topside-down above the steamy water to fog it up a bit, then polish it again using the condensation to help with the stain.

That works just fine at least half of the time, but not this time. Now I've additionally dipped the glass into the water, and given it the extra attention of basically hand re-washing and then drying the glass. The chalky little stain is still there, hanging on determinedly, but it's almost completely gone now. Almost so completely gone if fact that I place the wine glass back onto the table, thinking to myself "Good enough" and move on to the next glass.

At the next table, that tiny little spot is still bugging me tho. Maybe I have a good work ethic or maybe I'm just OCD. Maybe both. Whatever, I have to go back. I basically repeat the process yet again to no avail, then try lightly scraping the glass with a spoon, which always works but it's a last resort because then I have to walk away and replace the spoon that was on the table because I know I've gotten it dirty in the process of cleaning the wine glass.

Even that didn't work this time. So I wet the glass one last time, holding the rim much more firmly than is usual (or smart) and give polishing it one more go...

Crack! Two other waiters turn around at the sound of breaking glass hitting the floor. I'm standing there looking at the cut and immediately begin applying pressure with the linen towel. I know good and well what this usually means, and I nonchalantly announce "Night off" as I begin calmly walking towards the nearest sink. This may sound pretty bad to you non-restaurant folks maybe, but since I'm not screaming, "DT" my co-worker, with equal nonchalance, announces "We've got a bleeder" as he and the other guy walk towards the table I've left with a broom and dutifully go about the business of cleaning up the mess I'm walking away from.

I'm going to spare you the bloody details of what actually had to be cleaned up so that I can get back to the point I've strayed from. But not without first giving a shout-out of thanks to about five people who really stepped up to help and take great care of me in my time of need, plus cleaning up what I perhaps rightfully should have, except that I was busy driving myself to the Emergency Room. The manager did a great job of helping me to relax while also applying different ointments and antiseptics, and "Yanni" both wrapped and unwrapped my finger with towels and even made a finger-splint to keep from re-opening the wound, while "Mrs Rabbit" cleaned up said sink. Thanks all you guys, I really mean it.

But back to the original point, Emergency Room visits aren't cheap - and as I noted, this is my second such visit (the last being around 2005) requiring stitches both times. So as to the seemingly ridiculously high price you pay for a bottle of wine while dining out, while "Ambiance" may definitely be a good catch-all answer, I'm thinking it's more correct to say that there's probably more "Overhead" costs going into the experience than most of us will ever have to think about.

So even if you bring your own bottle of wine to a restaurant, maybe now you'll be a little less peeved about the "corkage fee" you get charged, knowing about how much overhead actually goes into those nice clean shiny and hopefully spot-free glasses which you're chugging the yummy over-priced wine from.

That we break all the time, haha.

In fact before we even opened at 5pm, I heard when I got back from the hospital (and yes, I did go back to work and complete the shift, waiting on people with a cute little splint on my hand) ... I heard that another server broke another glass while polishing them, but I'm happy to report that she escaped unscathed from the incident.

While I can't speak for her, I just want to say that I'm sorry for being the guy that runs the cost of that bottle of wine up so high for you.

But yes, all that said, I still expect you to tip 20% on it. Duh. $2.13 an hour's not exactly hazard pay, right?