Restaurants - Tip #2 Tipping

Here's a story for you. I was working in this mid town restaurant in NYC. For those of you who don't know, when you work in mid town you will be dealing primarily with tourists. So this post.....for you. Anyway, I had this very lovely table with some business associates from London out to dinner. They sat for a few hours, relaxed, enjoyed their meal and drank quite a bit. At the end of the meal, I handed them the tab. When I came to pick everything up, (btw, I created an amazing atmosphere for this table) I look and saw that they had rounded up to the nearest dollar. That was my tip. That was how they thought I was going to pay my bills. By giving me that $.20 that made it easier for them to balance their checkbook. That's what I got for spending over 2 hours of my time making sure they were happy.

Tip #2 - In the United States, you need to tip.

A minimum of 20% is now the norm. 15% is considered an insult. Do not round up because here in the U.S. waiters live on tips. They get paid way below minimum wage (I got about $2.15 per hour). The reason for that was to cover any taxes, however it doesn't cover nearly enough so even though I always got a paycheck with $0, I still needed to pay TONS of money during tax time.

So please, all of you coming from another country where your waiters actually get minimum wage or a bit higher, we don't do that here. Please note - WE LIVE ON TIPS!

For those of you coming from another part of the country, 20% is the minimum. 15% is an insult, and when your waiter sees you bringing out your cell phone or handy little 'tip card' like the one seen above, just know that they wish they would have spit in your food.

Here's a tip on how to tip. Round up and Double it, for example, lets say your tab is $16.75. I'd take the 1, round it up to 2 and double it, leaving a $4 tip. Here's another one, your tab is $54.32. I would leave a $10 tip (take the 5, no need to round up, and double it). Here's a tricky one, your tab is $6.50. Well you aren't going to leave a $12 tip, instead, I would always leave a minimum of $2. Okay, let's go to a 5 star restaurant. Your tab is $250. Any guesses? You got it, leave $50. And for those of you who don't tip on bottles of wine....shame on you.

Happy tipping!!

Restaurants - Tip #1 Don't Assume

I was having a hard time trying to figure out where to go this week when I went out to eat and realized how many things I have to say about restaurants and eating out. I would like to preempt this by saying that I have a lot of experience working in restaurants. Not back of house, but all front of house. Waiting tables was a great way to make some cash while I was on unemployment and waiting for my next gig to come my way. So...I say this all with a little experience under my belt and from the view of the waitress, not the customer.

Tip #1 - Don't Assume

I realize that there are many reasons to go out to eat. It could be a birthday, anniversary, pay raise, lack of a pay raise or just a nice date night. Sometimes though you want to go out to impress somebody and if this is the case then be careful, because this tip will definitely apply to you.

Have you ever gone to a restaurant and didn't tip your wait staff because the food was slow, the order came out incorrectly, your drinks took too long, the wait staff wasn't around enough or the wait staff was around too much? How about if the food tasted bad? Or the cocktail wasn't exactly how you like it? Maybe you had to send your steak back a few times because they just couldn't get that damn temperature right? Or maybe, even worse, they told you the wait time was appx 30 minutes and 60 minutes later you still don't have a table.

Here's what I'm going to tell you. Get over it. YOU decided to leave your home and have someone else cook for you (btw, the waiter does NOT cook the food), YOU decided not to cook at home, YOU decided to sit down at a table and get served. YOU decided to pay too much for food and drink.

So if something goes wrong, it's probably not the waiters fault and there is nothing they could have done about how slowly the bartender moves or how horribly they make drinks. Nor could they do anything about the cook and how long they decided to keep your steak on the grill. You want a perfect steak to meet your standards?? Then do it yourself.

The point I want to make here is don't assume that the wait staff is responsible for everything that went wrong in your meal. Don't assume that you deserve anything. They are there to help and guide you through a meal that you didn't want to cook.