[WildTurkey]

"The whole reason so many restaurants do have notice is because this historically is a problem," says R. Rogge Dunn, a Dallas lawyer and former pizza restaurant assistant manager. "You get a large group that splits the tab, and some people are chintzy on the amount they’re going to leave."

They put it that way so they can get 20% for lousy service.

[longtermmemmory]

Having familiarity with the Restaurant business.

poor service 10%
standard service 15%
Above and beyond service 20%

What is above and beyond? special requests fulfilled, super attentive waiter/waitress, customer is just a plain good mood.

[Paridel]

I have been a college student for a number of years (well, now grad student) and while my friend and I didn't get to go out to eat too often, and often ended up having to go to Denny's cause it was about the only place we could afford, we always made an effort to leave a large tip.

It definitely paid off in the long run, because a lot people our age would be stingy, but we were remembered by the staff at most of the places we frequented, even if we didn't frequent too often and didn't buy high dollar dinners, because we were polite to them and tipped well.

Now I used to think that the idea of a mandatory tip was horrible. But I had several occasions where I went out with other people that I didn't know really well (engineering meetings, etc) and at the end of the meal they would announce "I don't believe in tipping" or perhaps just leave a really meager tip, and the rest of us would be left hanging.

So we had a choice: 1. we could all look like cheap bastards, or 2. we could cough up the extra dough from the rest of the group.

This typically happened in large groups, and unfortunately it would often be several people who did it.

Of course I would never associate with the real cheap bastards again (fool me twice....) but it happened on many occasions.

But... if there is a mandatory tip, it allowed me to be much more forceful in getting the money out of the rest of the group. I mean, I would (well, we would really) get in their face either way, but if it was mandatory it would typically work.

So as a customer this saved me from one of two fates: putting up more of my own dough, or having my food spat in the next visit. ;-) So now I'm happy to see it.

-paridel