Getting Tipsy

While in a restaurant the other evening, I was slightly taken aback by a prominent notice on the menu which informed all diners that an 18% gratuity would be added to the bill for all groups of six or over. Our group quickly broke into two groups of four to avoid this penalty for dining out.

Recalling many years ago when I first dined out and learned about tipping, the going rate was up to 10%. TIPS – To Insure Prompt Service – was a way to express your pleasure at the service (and food) you received in the establishment. The days of the 10% tip have long gone as diners now subsidize the owners of restaurants by automatically adding 15% to the bill, whether the food was palatable or the service indifferent.

I suppose it is some kind of an imposition for the owners, servers and bussing people if you show up at their place of business in numbers beyond 5 people. Silly me, I thought they were there to make money, and the more people who came to dine, the more money they would make. Not so, it seems. Maybe the waiters and waitresses complain to the boss about the work over-load for larger groups of people (who ordered the burnt steak?) for the minimum wages they receive.

Perhaps larger groups, when they see the astronomical bill for the extra bottle of wine they consumed, do not have enough money to make the 15% tip. Maybe the pressure on the chef and chef-sou to get a dozen dinners ready at once is more than the kitchen can accommodate. (Okay – that should be sous-chef, but that is not what my wife calls me.)

There are some restaurateurs who oblige their customers by adding the 15% gratuity right into the cheque. These restaurants have the table cloths and thus meet my criteria of 15%. Those places that are a little down-scale and have you dining off paper place mats fit into my 12% range. I expect better service, even more pleasing presentation of the food in the tablecloth establishments. I pay more for the food, and am willing to pay the staff a larger tip because they have taken extra training in how to serve your soup sans thumb. For an 18% surcharge you get silverware, not stainless flatware.

But I have learned to be wary of the added-in tip. My father urged me to learn the 15 times table when I was in school and it comes in handy for my tipping calculations. But I do not tip on the sales tax on the meal, only the food and beverage. Damned if I will tip on something I did not order with my meal. But some places will try to add the gratuity to the taxable amount, as if they were going to give Dalton the money!

I am sure the restaurant lobby against brining your own wine to the table was based on the fact that although the restaurant triples the cost of the wine, it is the tips that the servers receive on wine that makes them happy to sell you their wine. And the more beverages they can sell you, the more tipsy you get. Sometimes to the point where a good-looking server gets a larger tip for appearance than service!

Heaven forefend that you should complain about the food or service when the server asks if everything I okay. Sending back something for a little more heat to be applied to the under-cooked fish is only asking for trouble. Once that plate disappears behind the swinging doors, anything can happen to it. Better to leave the food uneaten and adjust the tip accordingly.

Not fair to penalize the server for poor food? Unless you can corner the owner and get a free liqueur from him, to whom else are you going to express your dissatisfaction? Maybe the full-service restaurants should take a tip from the fast-food places and pay their staff enough so they do not expect a tip. And I will bet hardly anyone who gets a Big Mac complains about the quality of the burger.

The snob appeal of printing the price of a pickerel (walleye) fillet at twenty five dollars instead of 24.95 may indicate haute cuisine, but the best restaurants now give you a very limited menu without any prices. I suppose it is the surprise factor at the end of the evening that adds to the ambience of these old converted homes or mills. But nothing I have seen yet has topped the posted menu at Chalet Suzanne.

An old place where supposedly many famous people have dined, the Chalet offers a dinner for two for $201.65. Alcoholic beverages extra, gratuity included. No fussing about groups of six, just a nice flat rate for your diner, choice of fish, poultry or beef. Lunch is more reasonable; a soup and sandwich being only 19.95 – bus tours welcome.

An acquaintance who splurged on a special evening out at the Chalet to make amends for a missed anniversary said the food was not that good. He had a grilled cheese when he got home. He gave himself a gratuity of a bottle of cold beer to go with it.

I suppose the custom of tipping food servers was established somewhere in our earlier society, but what about tipping other service providers? Barbers get a tip, hair dressers a gratuity, but I did not tip the fellow at Home Depot for setting me straight on the exact type of washer I needed for a plumbing repair gone amok. What about the mechanic who fixed the brakes on my car? It is certainly a service as important as the person who served the soup. The snow plough operator who is out a five a.m. might appreciate a tip, too. Before this tipping gets more out of control, we ought to be re-thinking the whole idea.

Perhaps it is time for restaurant owners to pay their staff reasonable wages and drop the tipping altogether. Put the cost of the goods (food and beverages), labour and overhead right there on the bill, just like my garage owner does. Just like they do at Tim’s and McD’s. At least when the gratuity is on the bill, you know that the accountants will have to report it as taxable earnings.

The best tip I received lately was from my son. He had some inside information on the fifth race at the Downs. Do not bet on any horse other than Dark Shadow in the fifth. Dark Shadow was scratched and I saved five dollars.