Restaurant owners are just like most people in biusness ,the workers get the least they can possibly get away with! Most here in this area ,anyway dont even pay minimum wage plus tips! Trust me waitresses and waiters get the bad end of the deal! , I've done it and without tips,there would be no servers! Less for the owners to pay and probably the only reason you have servers! A lot of buffets have gone up and folks dont tip much ,because their getting their own food! !

Dori wrote:

Restaurant owners are just like most people in biusness ,the workers get the least they can possibly get away with! Most here in this area ,anyway dont even pay minimum wage plus tips! Trust me waitresses and waiters get the bad end of the deal! , I've done it and without tips,there would be no servers! Less for the owners to pay and probably the only reason you have servers! A lot of buffets have gone up and folks dont tip much ,because their getting their own food! !

This is so true. If I'm at a buffet where there are people cleaning the tables I still tip. There's still work being done by people who are paid slave wages.

I think it shoud become a thing of the past.  They want to say it is mandatory to paya tip so if that is the fact I would rather they just add it to my bill as a surcharge and have the owner pay thier employees a minimum wage.  Much easier for me if I don't have to sit there and try to figure out how much to leave as a tip and less stress about what they will do to my food the next time I come if they feel I didn't tip enough. 

Yes.  Get rid of tipping.  Add 20% to the price of the meal and use that to pay your staff.  It adds up to the same but does not make the server dependent on the good will of the customer.  And many customers are complete asses.  It has been argued that servers would not do their job.  Nonsense.  If you don't do your job you lose your job.

needtosay wrote:

I think the boss would have to be more involved in giving his or her employees some incentive to work hard and do a good job. 

Honestly, the times in my life where a server has been outright rude have been few and far between, and on those occasions I have chosen to speak to the manager about it. Leaving a lousy tip is just going to get you spit in your soup next time and management may not even be aware that there is a problem.

Even servers have bad days, and they are counting on that tip as part of their pay. With the amount of crap they have to deal with from the public, I tend to give them some slack. If we were no longer rating their service with tips, maybe more people would be inclined to talk to the supervisor if there is a problem. Seems like a much more fair way to proceed and it equally targets the cheapskates who regularly stiff.

needtosay wrote:

That is just it. When someone leaves a small tip how is anyone to know why they did that?  It could be just because they came up short and that is all they have to leave or it could be because the food was lousy or the wait staff did a poor job.  The way I look at it is I am the customer/patron and I am there to have a nice meal.  The server is there as an employee hired to do a job.  They are not my employee and the onus should not be on me to encourage them to do a good job.  If I feel my server did a poor job then the manager or employer should be made aware of it and it is up to him or her to deal with it.  It is the employers job to encourage and motivate it's employees not the customers.  This is why I favor the elimination of the tipping system and just adding a surcharge to the bill. 

Very good point. We can show our displeasure by going elsewhere and it's on management to make the changes. If the servers are unhappy then the kitchen is probably unhappy...and that's not good for anyone.

In many places in the international community, tipping is considered gauche.    I actually prefer for the surcharge to be added in.  If I think service has been exceptional or the staff has done something special for me, I leave a bit extra. 
The thing to think about though, is that some nicer establishments have servers that have been there for years because they know their patrons and they are tipped WELL. Some of these jobs are even passed down.  I don't think these few would want to change their ways.  Maybe it should be up to each restaurant, and posted accordingly -- like the surcharge for large parties.
 

its not just about bubbly outgoing vs shy reserved-its about doing a good job vs not. Some customers prefer the "less enthusiatic server" over the "won't leave you alone doing cartwheels server". Its a gamble really, you never know what you're going to get as a customer or a server. (unless they are regulars). Also this dosen't address seasonal workers, who work thier a$$es off for 4 months and get tipped well (usually) which has to carry them over the rest of the year.

I would dearly love to see tipping abolished across this country, not because of the cost of it, but because of the number of ways that servers are being abused by it. There is no day of the week that a person working in this country should be monetarily punished for having customers in their station, yet that is exactly what is happening nationwide. You see, regardless of whether the customer leaves a "gratuity" or not, the server is being charged a minimum of 8% of the cost of that meal, consumed by the patron. When the server is being 'paid' a scant $2.32 per hour for his/her service, and charged upwards of $8 - $10 per hour depending on the number of tables they serve per hour, I'd say that the practice is far and away beyond cruel and unfair. I say pay the servers a living wage, and the cost of the meals needs to reflect an honest  increase to cover the change. I don't want to walk into a restaurant that I have cherished, with prices that are fairly low (like Waffle House for example) say a $4 breakfast, and have that same meal become $10. Why? I have no problem paying for my share of the servers pay but don't expect or use each customer to pay the full amount of the servers hourly wage when we all know that is not what that server would actually receive. There is no employer that I know of that wouldn't attempt to expunge just that sort of pound of flesh from each customer and then turn right around and say that they can't afford to pay their staff more than $6 an hour. I've seen too many of them do it. If a legitimate system could be worked out that added a small cost to each meal, and that exact amount given to the server according to the cost increase of that meal, then the number of tables that the server waits on becomes a viable incentive to enhance service. JMO