Replies

I'm not sure about today, but in the past, the better jobs at the exclusive restaurants went to men. I worked at a couple of places where the main dining room at dinner hour was waiters only. Waitresses were relegated to lunch hour or cocktails.
That said, in a busy place you can make money from volume rather than big checks. I made a decent living in the Irish bars of midtown Manhattan by racking up the one-dollar bills. Greek diners are the same sort of thing. However, many "waffle house" type places have a clientele that just doesn't figure they need to tip, or you get a quarter or two no matter what the bill.

I work in a sort of 'waffle house' like you describe, a western chain, not unlike Denny's or IHOP, so my tips would probably evoke laughter from a server from Outbacks or Appleby's or even higher end resturants, but I would simply be happy with $1 per customer. Puts cash in my pocket and covers my taxes. A 10% is just fine too. The people who really tip are the people who go out to eat and enjoy being served as opposed to the people who demand or expect to be served. The 'white-trash' factor in my resturant is pretty high; malcontent white losers whose only opportunity to percieve themselves to be superior to someone else is when they come into my resturant and feel the need to exhibit their superiority by being pushy and rude. Just like Leona Helmsley, but with considerably less money. They make it miserable...JFK

"I'm not sure about today, but in the past, the better jobs at the exclusive restaurants went to men. I worked at a couple of places where the main dining room at dinner hour was waiters only. Waitresses were relegated to lunch hour or cocktails. "

If women want a place with good tips, they can always get in good physical shape and get a job at Hooters. I bet the waitresses there make great tips. I've got a hooter girl uniform (got it to wear for halloween one year) and they aren't that bad and the restaurant doesn't let the men grope them or anything. We've been to Hooter's several times as well (even took the kids with us) and the service is wonderful and food is great. The girls love to fawn over both of my kids too which is always fun. I know they always get great tips from hubby and I. Of course, we tend to tip good anywhere we go as long as the service is good and the server isn't rude to us (which is common in our town.) And if we are with people who don't tip well, we'll tip a little extra to make up for their lack of a good tip. All that goes out the window though if the server is rude. When they are rude they'll get just the basic 15% and if they are really rude, less than that. There has only been one time when I left no tip at all, and before I left the restaurant I told the manager why. Our server was too busy playing with the people in the kitchen (which we could overhear very well) and complained about my son being loud loudly enough for us to overhear. It wasn't even busy in the restaurant that day, yet anytime I wanted a refill I had to get up and go call the waiter from the kitchen to get more to drink. He also let our food sit there once it was ready long enough to get cold because it didn't want to stop talking to his friends long enough to do his job. Our son was also only about a year old at the time and was not crying, but just playing loudly with a toy. The other customers in the restaurant didn't seem annoyed by it and kept laughing at him, but apparently it annoyed the server for some reason.