Bad Service

I know that a lot of people who are or were servers, or people who have friends that are servers are very sensitive about tipping. Even if they receive poor or mediocre service, they feel the need to tip generously because, admittedly, it is hard to be on your feet for that long and being a server can suck sometimes. You do make minimum wage, and you do depend on your tips to live...but here's the thing, I'm don't want to be the one who pays you to suck at your job. If the kitchen is slow, then tell me that. If they are backed up and I should expect to wait an hour or more for my meal, then let me know. Be nice. Be attentive. I can see how busy you are, how many tables you have, and if you are working hard or if you are standing around talking to the other servers.

Never...under any circumstances... add gratuity to my bill. Okay, if I'm at the Olive Garden with a party of 10, then add it, but if I'm at a nice restaurant in NY with a party of 5, you better not try to tell me how much you deserve. If you do an outstanding job, I will leave more than 20%, but if you are lazy, unattentive, or just basically suck, I will give you what I think you deserve.

Last night some people from work and I went to La Palette. When we finally got our food, after what seemed like an eternity, it was decent, but certainly not good enough to justify the kind of wait we endured. Problems like this can often be remedied by the server, who, if they have a good attitude, explain the situation, or take something off my bill for being so patient, can convince me to give the restaurant another try. We had to ask our server where our food was multiple times. She never apologized for the wait. Then she proceeded to add a 20% gratuity to our bill, before tax!!! So she taxed us on the tip too!

Needless to say, after waiting 45 minutes for our food, we weren't about to leave her a 20% tip. We left what we felt was fair, only to have her confront one of my co-workers about not leaving enough money.