[HairOfTheDog]

I return and give them more business.

Of course! - I am a firm believer in the 'regular place'. Drives some that I know nuts, but I like to go to the same couple of places, where I know it will be good, everyone knows me, and I them.... I have no interest in exploring new places, but then I am a hobbit through and through. ;~D

Being a regular though, I get to see the regular waitstaff on good and bad days, some days they are on top of their game, some days, they are dealing with troubles like the rest of us.... I tip them the same usually, because I can dig it.... If I were new I might think they were always scattered or didn't care... But I know them.... a good tip on a bad day for someone might turn it around for them in some small way. I wouldn't feel that way about a stranger at a place I've never been.

[Lijahsbubbe]

.... If I were new I might think they were always scattered or didn't care... But I know them.... a good tip on a bad day for someone might turn it around for them in some small way. I wouldn't feel that way about a stranger at a place I've never been.

Just stop it! Yer gonna make me cry!

[Just another Joe]

Being a regular though, I get to see the regular waitstaff on good and bad days,

I tip them the same usually, because I can dig it.

I can see your point here.
I just don't go out enough to be a regular anywhere.

[B-Chan]

I'm with you. There are precisely four -- count 'em, four -- Mexican restaurants at which I will eat in my hometown. One is a regional chain that is still owned and operated by the family of the man who started it in 1918. One is a two-city (Austin & Dallas) operation that is owned and operated by the son of the man who founded it in 1948. The third is a city-only outfit with two locations that is owned and operated by the family that started it in the 1990s. (They feature seafood, also live mariachis on Fridays). Finally, there's Casa Jose, which is still in the same renovated 1940s bungalow that it inhabited when Sr. José himself opened it in the 1950s.

Other than these four places (plus a tortilleria and a place in Dallas I know, both family-owned) I do not patronize Mexican restaurants. Why? Because at these places, my wife and I recognize and are recognized by the staff; because the food is cooked to order by adult human beings who know what Mexican food is supposed to taste like; because my iced tea glass or beer bottle is never empty; and because all are run by families whose livelihoods depend on quality food, service, and reasonable prices.

I only eat chain-restaurant food when no other choice is available and I HAVE to eat. Chain places are geared towards pure profit; there is no love of food for food's sake at the Olive Garden, only the desire to get you in, get your money, and get you out ASAP. As a result, one gets prepackaged, microwaved food-service products instead of food, dished up by slack-jawed teenage amateurs who don't give a hoot in hell about you, your order, or anything except their next Lewinsky session in the walk-in.

I'm surprised our emergency rooms aren't crawling with gagging food-poisoning victims, considering the kind of homogenized slop freeway restaurants serve.

[AnAmericanMother]

Hey, HOTD, we're hobbits too!

Every once in a while we'll try out a "new" place, but there is one restaurant in particular that gets most of our business. The dining snob at my work hates the place (I don't know why - she loves the most expensive and esoteric restaurant in town, though, that's probably why), but the food is excellent (modernized traditional French cuisine, not too nouvelle, always something new and interesting on the menu), the situation is wonderful (intimate little candlelit tables and big glass windows overlooking the river), and the waiters are great - a trifle casual if you like the real French service (I mean the really good kind, not the snobby kind) but enthusiastic and helpful. We have two waiters who usually look after us (depending on whose night off it is), and we usually tip 20 percent, just like you, because they always try and are cheerful, even if it's not their best day.