posted
I have been waited on at nice restaurants by middle aged dumpy women. And men. And I find your characterization of women waiting tables at "fancy steakhouses" incredibly offensive. You are assuming they are part-time, and that the are married and their husbands have an income coming in and theirs are "just" supplimental. I understand it's an emotional issue to you based on your childhood, but there's no more reason for that to be true for a young, thin woman working in a steakhouse than for an older, fatter woman working in a cafe. Or a steakhouse. You are judging people unfairly based on resentment.
I have waited tables, when I was a college student, at a Crackerbarrel. I do tip well, and I do tip a higher percentage when the bill is lower and I know the server has done as much work as they would have in a more expensive place. But in my experience, servers at higher end restaurants tend to be more likely to be career servers, who have a lot of experience and provide excellent service. You find college students working part time at mid-range places and places that make a lot of their money from liquor sales. Looks make more of a difference there. In a restaurant where you're paying $100+ for a night out for two, the servers tend to be older and less there as eye candy and more there to make sure everything is taken care of. If I'm paying that much for dinner out, I'm paying it for the experience as much as the food, and if the service sucks you can bet I'm not going to tip as well. But it usually doesn't, because that kind of place pays attention to training and making sure their servers know what they're doing.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I don't know. I was at Denny's the other day and my server was grumpy, rumpled, and seemed bothered by the fact that I used both provided thimbles of half & half on my first cup of coffee. She shouted at the guys in the kitchen loud enough for me to hear what other people were ordering. Items arrived on the table with a distinct thump. I didn't think a thing of it; it's Denny's. It was cheap, edible, and quick. The server spent about three minutes on me.
If I went to a place that charged three times as much for breakfast, I'd definitely expect a more refined level of service. I'd expect both the food and the labor to cost more for a fancier overall experience. *shrug*
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: Okay, I won't pull punches.
My mother was a middle age, dumpy woman, red hair and freckles; though she has a sparkling disposition. She could never get hired in a nice steakhouse. She worked in a cheap, loud, country diner with the pervasive odor of cigarette smoke.
And she was the friendliest, most attentive, well liked waitress in town. Everybody knew her.
So, why should superior service in a cafe equate to less of a tip than inferior service at a fancy steakhouse. By what measure does the cute, young thing working part-time away from her housewife-y duties merit more money than the preternaturally attentive efforts by the person in the cafe.
Equivalent service equates to equivalent tip. It's more difficult to work in the lowlier jobs, so I'd almost argue that the server at Dennies deserves a higher tip than the server at Benihana's --- just for the sheer virtue of the fact that their job IS, in fact, more difficult.
I'm sorry you have such issues with this and I'm sorry if your mother received any discrimination due to her appearance. That does happen, although I've been to plenty of good restaurants where the wait staff wasn't all "pretty." But the fact of the matter is that when I go to a cheap restaurant, I expect everything about my experience to be cheap and the tip to be proportionately so. I won't give a $20 tip for a $20 meal. If I wanted to spend $40 on dinner, I'd go to a nicer place.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I can understand why you would be offended by my generalizations.
Just like any profession, there are two types of foodservice employees: terminal and temporary.
Terminal employees have chosen the foodservice industry as a permanent career. Due to the nature of this choice, they will tend to be older (30 year foodservice career), and they tend to work during the day.
Temporary employees are pursuing another career path and are only working for a limited time in food service. They will tend to be younger amd work evenings due to school or seniority.
A nice steakhouse is going to have the majority of their service in the evenings. Just by that fact, they'll tend to hire the temporary employees. And when employees all have limited experience, it looks become a much larger factor.
Establishments that tend to serve earlier meals will tend to hire career foodservice employees for their day shifts. Career employees build loyal customer followings due to their service, attentiveness, and ability.
Sure, these are somewhat categorical generalizations. And perhaps I was a little flippant without explaining myself.
But really, as the basis for my argument, the argument is sound. A server in a diner serving a $5 meal deserves a higher tip than the server in a gourmet restaurant serving a $50 meal --- IF the service is superior.
Posts: 688 | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Herblay: I can understand why you would be offended by my generalizations.
I'm not offended by them so much as baffled by them. My experience at high-end dinner places is that virtually all of the waiters are between 35 and 60, and have made food service their profession.
I would also consider Benihana a low-end restaurant, so perhaps that's why our experiences differ?
Posts: 650 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I am still disagreeing with your generalizations. In foodservice, the "prestige" shifts are at night. Dinner bills are higher, especially because they are more likely to include alcohol. Those are the shifts that people with senority want. In your mother's situation, she probably wanted a day shift so she could work while you were at school, eliminating the need for evening childcare, which is expensive.
I eat out a lot. I love food, and I love going to nice places. It's where the majority of my disposable income goes. And in my market, at least, which is a mid-sized city, you're just wrong about the disposition of employees. The temporary foodservice employees work at low to mid-range chains, because those are the entry level jobs -- Applebees, Olive Garden, TGIFriday's -- or at bars. The nice restaurants have career servers for the vast majority of their waitstaff.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
There ARE a lot of younger women working in nice restaurants at night, on busy days.
Why shouldn't there be? There are also a lot of men, and middle aged people working there as well.
I worked at a place where we did large business parties, usually for Pharm companies. It was a 3-4 start place, one of the best in town.....but it was German/Continental. That meant all the girls were wearing dresses that accented their....attributes.
I regularly got the best compliments, and had a large number of people specifically request me....both for parties and for regular dinners.
I quit when I found out that I was getting stiffed on parties. Some of my regulars were being told that I was busy (when I wasn't, really)..and all of the pharm parties went to the hot young girls in the dresses, regardless of who was suppose to be in that party room that night.
I was regularly screwed out of probably 200-500 dollars a week that way. For months. I walked in...to get 5 weeks of tips (same place) and found a waitress engaged in oral sex with the married owner, and I suddenly realized WHY she had taken my place for a $800 party (split 2 ways with another server) that night.
I found that interesting. So did his wife. Make that his ex-wife.
So....BOTH situations occur....which is hardly exclusive to the food service industry.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I don't ever tip. I feel that it should not be required of me. If anyone gets salty with me over it, I'll just tell them I won't eat there anymore. Too bad for them, they just lose money by caring. Typically after such a display I'll be sure to leave a tip: a quarter underneath an overturned, full glass of water. It is for this reason that my life expectancy is approximately thirty seconds, as I sit huddled in my room, with hundreds of otherwise wonderful people working as waiters and waitresses, breaking down my door. Oh god, they're here, they're going to stab me to death with salad forks, somebody hel
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I think the comment was because statistically most people do tip attractive people more. They may do it subconsciously, but they do it. During my time as a server, I also found that men got tipped more than women, maybe not a lot more, but when you're only averaging $7 an hour, that extra $.50 to $1 makes a big difference.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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