Things You'll Need:
- Restaurant Gift Certificates
- Restaurant Dining Guides
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Step 1
Understand the difference between good service and hospitality; ideally, you want to feel like the restaurant wants you there.
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Step 2
Expect to be greeted by a maître d' or host who is efficient and friendly.
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Step 3
Know that getting good service does not mean having a waiter with no personality. Some dining experiences ' for instance, at traditional steak houses or old-fashioned diners ' almost require gruff or humorous service.
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Step 4
Note the time between ordering your meal and when it arrives hot on your table.
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Step 5
Pay attention to the alertness of the wait staff. You don't want to be forced to wave them over for water, but you also don't want them obsequiously offering to be your best friend.
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Step 6
Note how friendly and hospitable the maître d' and wait staff are.
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Step 7
Determine how informed the waiter is about the specials; your server shouldn't recite ingredients written on a notepad.
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Step 8
Keep in mind that the busboy or waiter should clear the table from the right of the diner and serve from the left.
Comments
angicandoit said
on 7/20/2007 What constitutes bad service? I believe the server should not only take my order correctly, but also serve it to me the way I ordered it. If I said no cheese, then they should notice that big slab of cheese on top before they served it. Or no onions, the list goes on. I believe its there job to know how the food is prepared, instead of the server just jotting down my order and bringing me my water. I almost always tip 30%, but it will depreciate every time the server does something wrong. And making sure that my food is prepared correctly before they serve it to me is one of them. So just saying "I dont cook it, I just serve it" does not cut the mustard with us customers!
Momathome said
on 5/1/2007 I have noticed in the prior comments that you state again and again how you rely on our tips to plump your pay checks.
With this in mind why do you treat your customers like annoying people with philenthropic hearts? Should you not be treating your customers like your boss.. don't bite the hand who feeds you.
scuba1988 said
on 1/4/2007 Oh, thank you for the enlightenment here in these comments. How ever did I manage to live as long as I have and not know that just because you serve food for a living that you automatically deserve my money, that I worked just as hard for as you have. I guess that in a perfect world, we would all have just tons of cash waiting to throw around to all that are near. I do know that you do not get paid as much as some, I also know that no one forced you to do that job. If you do not like dealing with the public and finding out that we are not all the ideal person to be near, get out and go find that perfect job.
Attitudes, like the ones shown here in the comments, are just one of the reasons I give a small tip. I do not owe you one damn dime. Tips are what I can afford to give, what I feel like giving and what I think you have earned. If you come at me with an attitude that I owe you, I will start subtracting from what I was going to leave.
I am blessed in that when I go out to eat, I can afford to tip well and when I walk in to a place, I start out at a 30% tip. I also know that there are things the wait-staff has no control over. I also know that there are things that they do have control over. You walk past my table a couple of times and “fail to notice” that my drink glass (which is set to the side of the table) is empty and I have to stop you to get you to see it and beg you to refill it severely cuts into the tip.
I know that the food is prepared in the kitchen, I know that you do not decide on what goes on it, but I do know that where you put your fingers is your choice. You bring the plate to my table and your fingers are on the eating surface your tip goes down again.
You take my order and if you smack your gum chewing in my face and the tip goes down again.
I know that a kitchen can get backed up, you have little control over that, but how you let me know that it is backed up is totally in your control. If you put your head down and rush past my table again and again and don’t make any effort at eye contact is a total snub and the tip goes down again.
I am not blind and I do notice things. I notice that you have plenty of time to get in an alcove with a co-worker and dramatically tell them about a complaint you have for 5 minutes or more. Meanwhile, the little something extra that I need is going unfulfilled.
On the flip side, there are many things that can and do add to the tip I leave. I know that you can not know every person that walks in, but to treat me like you want me there, that I am important to you and that I am wanted goes a very long way to a great tip.
I have been in places where the food was bad and the prices were a horror. My waiter acted like I was the greatest person on the face of the earth and was very attentive. His attitude more then made up for the failings of the food, the price and the atmosphere. His tip was twice as much as what I paid for the meal. He earned every bit of it.
To sum it up, yes, I do know that some folks do not tip well, but if you constantly have a problem with poor tips, maybe it is not the patrons that have a problem, maybe, just maybe, you have the problem.
Anonymous said
on 3/11/2006 As a waitress at an upscale restaurant, I amazed at how cheap people can really be. The minimum pay for servers in my state is $2.63, and I am required to tip out 10% of my earnings to the bus staff and another 5% to the bartenders. I would assume that if you are wealthy enough to eat out at a nice place you should calculate in your tip as part of the expense of eating out. A twenty five dollar tip is a really nice tip on a one hundred to one hundred fifty dollar check. A twenty five dollar tip is not acceptable on a two hundred or two hundred and fifty dollar check however. I am a good server, I am friendly, attentive, thorough, and knowledgeable. People don't realize that the tip they leave you is your paycheck, their tips are what you work for because you don't even get the $2.63 an hour at the end of the week because you are taxed on your tip and usually end up leaving with a zero dollar paycheck. I guess I just feel that people should figure in good service and at least a twenty percent tip into the expense of eating out.
Anonymous said
on 11/22/2005 People don't realize that we don't get the amount that you leave behind as your tip. At the restaurant that I work for, 4 percent of my sales are given to the bartenders and busboys who are getting paid far more than my $2.13 an hour. If you pay with a credit card, another percentage of those sales are taken out of my tip for the charge the credit card company charges the restaurant. We work hard for the money and we don't get all that you leave on the table. Be generous, please. If you have the money to go out to eat you should have the money to leave a good tip. What's another 2 or 3 dollars?