A majority of restaurant patrons, however, only get to experience one end… being a customer.  Thus, missing out on the fine joy that it is to serve others.  I have a motto: Treat your server like you would treat your grandmother.

Many, however, need schooling in this art and my subscribers and I are here to help you.

Some Etiquette:

First of all, the 10%, 15% or even 20% tip that you’re going to leave me at the end of your meal does not buy rude or dismissive behavior.  Look at me when I approach you, maybe even smile.  This may be just a job, but I’m trying to connect with you right off the bat.  I have to approach a table sometimes 15 to 25 times per day (if not more).  It’s a lot harder for me to muster up a smile and give the same “shpeel” over and over again, naturally, than it is for you, who might be at your first or second restaurant today.  When you order from me, look at me! Not your wife, your kids or your guests.  I don’t consider the item ordered until you tell me what it is!  It’s all just discussion until that point.  It’s very important that you make your server feel like a human when he’s at your table.  Treat your server like you would treat your grandmother.

If we (guest and server) establish a rapport with one another then you can start asking semi-personal questions.

It really amazes me how a guest sometimes feels it’s okay to ask or say anything that rolls through their mind to their server.  Are you an actor?  What have you done?  Do you live nearby?  Do you have roommates?  Are you Italian?  Hey! I’m controlling part of your salary tonight and I want answers! (well, they don’t say that but it sometimes feels like they are).  Would you ever go into the bank and just start grilling the bank tellers?  They’d probably hit the alarm!

As long as we’re on the subject of stupid questions:  Think then speak!

I had a customer ask me where the bathroom was once.  I told him “downstairs”.  He turned around and realized that he was standing about a foot from the staircase.  He looked back at me and said, “Is this down?”  To which I had to reply, “Only when you’re standing up here!”

I lose confidence in us as a race when I hear some of the ridiculous things that only a customer could ask.  It’s not that I’m bitter or have no patience, it’s just that I’m usually dealing with a lot of overwhelming information and stress, constantly.  I need to keep my shit wired tight at all times or people don’t eat, or make it to the theater, or impress their dates, etc.  So, with all this mind juggling that I have to do for eight hours or so, I just expect questions that are of a little more substance if I’m going to snap out of my inner dialogue that’s constantly spewing a task list at me of all the things I need to get or do for my tables at any given moment.  Questions like, “How long is 16 inches?” or “What do you think I should drink?” are things that should be left inside your own cob-webbed head cave or whip out your iPhone 4s and ask Siri.  Even grandma wouldn’t have patience for stupidity.

When you say you’re ready to order, Be Ready!

There is nothing more frustrating then when I go to a table and ask if they’re set to order, they say “yes”, then decide to open menus and start discussing possibilities with their guests.  To this, I usually tell them that I’ll come back in a minute, then leave the table.  I’m usually back in about five minutes… to be sure.  I sometimes have guests that won’t let me leave but still want me to watch as they read the menu.  When this happens, I excuse myself and rush over to another table as if I heard them calling me.  I’m not mean, I just don’t allow for that kind of time spent at a table.  I figure a minute to take orders is sufficient.  Me watching someone read a menu during a pre-theater rush in Times Square is about the most unproductive use of my time that I can imagine.  It’s extremely selfish to other guests.  If you’re not ready, don’t feel you have to be, or find a meaningless task for me to do like “Bring us water, I guess.  Then maybe we’ll be ready”.  I’ve got a whole list of things I need to do, you don’t have to find me stuff to keep me busy.   Just say “Give us a minute” (unless of course you really want water).

Here’s a biggie:  If someone at the table asks for another drink, I’m not always going to ask everyone else if they need another, as well.  If you’re thirsty still, it’s kind of your responsibility to let me know at that point, NOT when I return with the first guys drink.  I do understand that you might not be aware or you were talking and didn’t see what was going on so the second trip to the soda machine is forgiven easy enough.  What isn’t forgiven so easily is the third or fourth trip that I make to the bar or soda station in a two minute period for the same table.  Would you send grandma running back and forth to the kitchen four times in a row?  Or maybe you would and that’s why you end up in a restaurant.  Either way, like snapping your fingers at your server, don’t do it!  It’s the epitome of ignorance, selfishness and rudeness.

When you ask for the check and I give you the little check presenter, please either let the card or cash protrude from it when you’re ready to pay.  This way I don’t have to come over and pick it up for you to say,”Oh, we’re not ready with that yet”.  When I see a payment hanging out of it, I’ll know you’re ready.

Now, when it comes to analyzing the tip:  We pretty much all know what good service is when we get it.  Easy enough to figure out.  But, when you’re considering leaving little to no money because you got bad service, there’s just one question I have to ask you.  Do you really know what bad service is?

I work in one of the most high-volume restaurants in the most high-volume part of NYC, which is the most high-volume city in the world.  Now, during Christmas season it’s about as insane as you can possibly imagine a restaurant to be.  Nowhere to walk, pushing, shoving, baby carriages, shopping bags, etc.  Now, I work with some of the most talented servers that I’ve ever worked with as far as this kind of volume goes.  A lot of them memorize all orders and no matter how big the party is, they never use a pad and pencil.  It takes skill.  That’s just a part of it.  We would compare stories at the end of the night on why certain tables “stiffed” us and sometimes, rarely, it was authentically something we did.  We are professionals, but sometimes shit happens.  There are some things to consider before you might render someone a bad server.  Here are some tips:  Take a look around. Is your server juggling an enormous amount of things going on around him but still getting the job done (even if your food was a little late for whatever reason).  He’s a bad server if he’s hanging out talking to his buddies and neglecting you, not if he’s really busy and getting it done.  Do you stiff him because a customer knocked your drinks out of his hands and you had to wait?  No?  Did he tell you it happened? No again, but you should assume because the restaurant is that busy that the bar is probably backed up and that’s why you waited.  When I dine out and this is the case.  I wouldn’t even ask the server if that’s why, it’s assumed!  That would be a dumb question.  Take a look around and assess what’s going on.  Does he have a party of 35 screaming kids and 5 other tables including yourself?  If that’s the case, be grateful for decent service.  We have to deal with the hands we’re dealt when we’re sat.  Sometimes you do too.  It’s not always the servers fault.  So, use common sense when you’re trying to decide if you got bad service or not.  We’re more ashamed at your obliviousness when we get “stiffed”, most of the time, than at our own inadequacies.

Anyway, I’m sure my readers will have a lot to add to this but at least it’s a start.  For those of you who already “get it right”, we thank you!  Keep being decent and treating us with respect and we’ll do the same right back.

How do I do it?  It’s extremely simple.  Come to my page Virtual Waiter/Bartender and I’ll show you how I do it.

Aside from that though, there are other reasons.  I know a lot of English tourists for example come here to shop for clothing simply because it’s much more expensive to buy back home.  It’s actually cheaper to fly here to shop and probably eat and sleep, as well.  My point is that currently $15 American dollars is equivalent to €10.23.  If some tourists are saving money overall by coming here then it shouldn’t be much of a big deal to shell out a few more converted euros to leave as a tip.

Another reason is that if every foreign tourist who came here left a tip everywhere they went to eat or drink that would put billions of dollars back into our economy, which if you haven’t noticed isn’t doing so well these days.

Lastly, when anyone, foreigner or local alike, doesn’t tip a server or bartender at all, the waiter actually ends up paying for the customer to be in the restaurant out of his own pocket.  How is that you ask?  Our government looks at the amount of money each waiter or bartender rings into the computer every shift, then assumes the percentage of that they made in tips.  When they aren’t tipped the government is still taxing them on assumed tips on that check whether they received a tip or not.

I feel that tipping is our culture here in America.  When traveling abroad I’m expected to abide by the cultures of wherever I’m traveling to.  You can be damn sure that I’m going to research them and feel embarrassed if I’m told later that I’ve insulted a local by taking part in something that’s counter to their system of operation.  That’s just me, though.  I’m sure there are still some that just don’t care either way, and hey… that’s fine.  If we’re going to live in societies like that, however, then it’s every man for himself when traveling.  Don’t ask me for directions or advice to make your stay in this country any more convienient.  Spend that money that you didn’t leave as a tip on the second taxicab you’re going to have to get when you “accidentally” end up 15 blocks north of Yankee Stadium in December at 3AM when no one cares enough to look out for you on a human level.  I’d rather we just didn’t go there.

As to the perception that a given customer only gets “a few minutes” of our time.

 

Before you arrived we rolled your silverware.  Before you arrived we set your table.

We brewed your tea/coffee, sliced your lemons Set up whatever “complimentary” foodstuffs our restaurant offers, etc.

 

When you arrived we greeted you. Brought you drinks, rolls, chips, relish, tortillas, biscuits, scones, creamer, a few more napkins, the fresh salsa not the 15 min. old crap, and strawberry preserves, not just grape jelly.

 

We took your entire party’s order, easy if it’s off the menu, harder if it begins with “All I really want is….” and we convert it from what makes perfect sense to you into something our cook will be able to glance at prioritize and properly prepare, even if what you want never thought of being on a menu.

 

We get your third refill, and of course there’s no problem with bringing more biscuits.

 

We bring your food. Find out what you really wanted, which may look remarkably like whatever your friend, or the table next to you ordered.

 

We return with your new order (our fault entirely, happens all the time, evil menus)

 

Refill.  Bring dessert.

 

Accept your payment, making change from our own money and taking the financial risk on ourselves that you’ll skip.

 

All while dodging your kid, waiting for you to interrupt your cell phone call to talk to us, and paying a percentage of your bill out to hostesses, busboys, bartenders and food runners whether we get tipped or not so that management doesn’t have to pay minimum wage to any of them.

 

And we get to do it for four + tables at once.

 

And we get to clean up afterwards!!! Wheee!!!!

 

Assuming you’re going tip at all (and the IRS assumes you are, also, so they just go ahead and tax me on the amount of your check whether you do or don’t).

 

Yeah I guess 10% sounds more than adequate.

 

P.S. If we all got better jobs, no one would be there to wait on your crabby ass, and if you wanted to get it your own damn self you’d be having a hungry-man ™ right now.

 

“Thank y’all for coming in! You have a great evening!”

 

Every other table has left. Every other server has left. All the busboys and runners, it seems, are sitting at table 40 in their street clothes staring at me because they want to get “tipped out”. Even the manager seems like he has a date with Jessica Simpson in fifteen minutes because he keeps poking his head out of the office to see if everyone’s gone.

My lone table sits there, a young couple in their late twenties, done sharing their creme brulee over 45 minutes ago, now holding hands across the table caught up in a perpetual gaze. So… what should I do?

First off, I don’t want to be rude and get a bad tip from my last table: A) It’s a bad finish to a long night to get a horrible tip and maybe piss them off enough to call up and complain to a manager tomorrow (that would start tomorrow off bad) B) The check is big enough for me not to want to lose any of it. The only important thing in the world right now is that universal sky scribble meaning they want the check.

Here is what you can do:

I would start with eye contact first. If you’re fortunate enough to be able to create an audible diversion (crashing silverware, perhaps) you might be able to break their love gaze and get them looking at you who is now giving them the stare-down of a lifetime (and trust me nothing short of Doc Holliday’s steely stare at the OK Corral will work).

Then there’s, “Is there anything else I can get you?” You say this because you know that there’s nothing these fools could still possibly want except the check.

If that doesn’t work, move on to “disassembling their tent”. That means: clear off everything from their table not nailed down. Take away the dishes, coffee cups, spoons, sugar, creamer, candles and yes… even the decorative little vase with the flowers. Everything. This should get the point across.

If not… we move on to something a little less subtle. I call it, “Dousing the flames”. You can’t camp without a fire. If you have access to the sound system and it won’t get you in trouble, KILL THE MUSIC. Music is a mood setter. Once the music is gone, so is the mood. Nothing makes campers more uncomfortable than a silent empty room. Except… and this one is tricky, Kill some of the lights, if possible. Now, I’m not talking about the main floor lights, I’m talking about something within one of their peripherals or over the others shoulder. Maybe in a party room or unused service station. “Dousing the flames” is effective. try it.

My very last suggetion, and you can only use it if you’ve already dropped the check but they won’t put money in it or sign their credit card receipt. It’s called “Kill em with kindness”. No more games. Even though you know they haven’t signed/payed you keep making trips to the table and picking up the check as if you assume there’s money in there. Then you say, “Thank you so much! Let me get this out of the way for you!” Then they should finally sign the credit card receipt or give you some form of payment. If not, repeat this one every 3 minutes until they do.

Now you know how to successfully send a camper packing and headed for their next destination.

and bartenders is pretty simple:

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