Posted on 08/26/2005 9:02:02 AM PDT by EveningStar
Waiter, there's a service charge on my soup.
Customers at a high-end Manhattan restaurant soon will notice an extra expense when they get their bill, and not only for their soup course.
Beginning Thursday, chef Thomas Keller will charge customers a 20 percent service fee at Per Se, his year-old outpost in the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle, where the views of Central Park are nearly as breathtaking as the prices.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
"The Coldstone Ice Cream servers around here will sing a ditty for you when you tip. A buck gets you a 30 second song. It's amusing."
--- It may be amusing (to you), once
How about all of the other people waiting in line for another 30 seconds while the scooper wastes their time?
Hmmph. I go out with my female friends every couple months or so, and we generally tip around 20%. If you've ever waited tables, you don't stiff the waitress.
Worst tippers? In my limited experience, the friends of the boss. In high school, I worked in one restaurant where a LOT of the boss's friends came in. They got their discount by not tipping. I quit after six weeks.
Many Asians and Indians seem to be this way. I just chalk it up to their culture. Austrailians are the greatest customers that you could ask for and many of them just don't seem to tip.
Yep. I can hardly have an expectation of good service if the waitstaff already know they're getting a 20% tip. What incentive do they have to treat me well?
You should distinguish between cooks and chefs. The chefs are usually well into six figures and getting a piece of the action.
i still don't think its right. if you can afford $750 for a meal, you can afford another $150 for a tip. an it doesn't sound like (from the article) that they were taking a choke, with an average 22+% tips. what it sounds like they're doing is making a mandatory, and supplementing the cooks with it.
Their motivation comes from professionalism and the need/desire to hold on to $60,000 a year jobs.
"A good cook tops out at about 13-14 dollars an hour", I thought I did.
The difference isn't apparent to many...
By that logic, no business should peg bonus dollars or compensation increases to employee performance rating. They'd all work equally hard because they need the job and are professionals.
But we all know that everyone's human, and human behavior will change according to what system of incentives are in place.
Yup. A tip (To Insure Promptness) was originally used before the meal arrived to be sure it arrived at the diner's table when hot (and faster than some other patron's meal who hadn't tipped yet). Eventually it was provided later when settling the check. But to tell me that I must pay it even if my service was terrible? No, I'll lop it off or eat elsewhere. And elsewhere sounds better than this place.
If they provide good service, then that is a standard tip in this country (well, most places).
If people do not like this tipping convention, they can stay home.
I am opposed to a mandatory tip, however.
I'm a college professor. I don't get tipped for a good lecture. And believe me, I've tried. ("Bribes," my butt.)
We rarely eat out. If I eat out, I want something special that I can't or won't make at home - and I'm happy to splurge. Otherwise, my home cooking is better than most chain restaurants.
I can't understand tips at Starbucks. Starbucks? It makes a mockery of the American tradition of tippage.
Waiters in high-end restaurants can make a career out of what they do.
There is a restaurant in the DC area called L'Auberge Chez Francois where most of the waiters are long-term employees of the place, some with 30 years at that restaurant.
When you're waiting at a place where a table for 5 can easily spend $1000, your tip from that one table will be $200.
Don't worry about it. There is usually a weeks-long wait-list to get a table at places like that. So, I doubt they'll miss your business.
Actually, it's My Attorney, Bernie, and Murray, my accountant.
The teachers delight in letting you know they are teachers. They think it makes them look smart.
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