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It might get messy.Mary Hill writes, “In recent years, restaurant employees have worn gloves. I have often wondered why, since they often perform the same actions as they would with bare hands: i.e. handling money, wiping dirty tables with dirty cloths and then handling food items. Where is the logic?”
Reader rant
Joyce Roberts Miller-Alper : Portugallia, 12126 Westheimer, 281-497-8012
“The recent experience of my group of friends at Portugallia Restaurant was most unpleasant. I made numerous calls to the restaurant and to the general manager to discuss the experience. Unfortunately, there was some phone tag, but once I explained the topic of the call (via voice mail), she never called back to discuss my concerns.
“The meal took one hour to be served. One person ordered a glass of wine that never came. One person ordered white meat chicken, and after an hour’s wait, the chicken came out with dark meat. She was told they don’t have just white meat.
“When most of the party had empty glasses of water, I went and grabbed the water and started serving my friends. The action finally got someone to come to the table to fill glasses.
“There were mixed-up orders, as well as other errors, but you get the drift.
“Although the menu does say tip would be added for parties of five or more, I thought if I was dissatisfied with the service I had a right to object to the tip. I was told I did not have that option and I had to pay the tip. Is that legal.?
“By the way, the restaurant was virtually empty on an early Sunday evening.”
Reader rave
Larry Winfield : Country Kitchen, 4840 N. Shepherd, 713-694-8839
“Thought I’d let you know that the best peach cobbler on the planet is at Country Kitchen. They serve it on Thursday only.
“It’s perfectly spiced and not too sweet with a butter hint.
“I’ve tasted peach cobbler everywhere in my 64 years, and this is absolutely the best. Try it.”
This reader’s forum is a chance to become a restaurant critic or ask other dining-wise readers for suggestions. Letters may be emailed to syd@29-95.com or mailed to Syd Kearney, P.O. Box 4260, Houston, TX 77210. Please print your full name and a daytime phone number.
From now on, when I even SMELL that I am going to receive sub-par service at a restaurant, I'm going to politely excuse myself. It's ridiculous and I'm never THAT hungry to where I can't go find a place with better service. It's ridiculous!
I cannot agree with you more! And have done that to several restaurants over the year here in Houston....
We once went to the Melting Pot, where they added the gratuity unbeknownst to us. When told we didnt want to pay that amount, they indicated we could add a negative number to the tip to bring it down. Which we did.
I remember a time when I could go to Luby's, get a Lu Ann Platter with Baked Haddock Almondine, A loaded baked potato,steamed broccoli or asparagus and a wedge of jalapeno cornbread for 4.25 and it later went to 5.25. Tipping was discouraged and not common. But those days are gone.
We went to the Brazilian steak house on Montrose at Richmond (near the CVS -- the name escapes me). It was fine but they added an automatic gratuity of 18% (!) and there was only two of us. How ridiculous is that?!?!?
The name of the restaurant is Nelore Churrascaria - it's one of two locations (the other one is in Orlando, FL).
An 18% gratuity charge does seem ridiculous, especially given the fact that it's similar to Fogo da Chao, where you serve yourself from a buffet and get tableside meat service.
Next time try Churrascaria's on Shepherd at Westheimer. Much better food and ambiance.
18% IS not a bad tip. If you liked the service, its appropriate. They are making a living as well.
My husband and I have been to Nelore on Montrose many times. We have never had gratuity added to our check. That must be a new practice (as in, within the past 5 months). We love Nelore. So much better than Fogo - more intimate, no high ceilings to send everyone's conversations echoing all over the place making it impossible to hear anything. Also, the food is just as good as Fogo's, but it's less expensive!
An easy fix, pay cash for the amount of the meal and tax, then drop whatever you feel on the tip, they cannot do anything about it....
No credit/debit card fee that way. Cash is king.
Eliminate restaurant tipping altogether. Just call it what it is, a "service charge" that charges 20% over the listed prices. You are subsidizing the restaurants staff wages with a line item direct on your bill. The tip is no longer connected with exemplary service, so just dump it already.
Oooohhh, I'll bet you're a dream to wait on. Stay home if you don't get the concept.
The questions still remains... is it legal to object to tip and pay whatever tip is merited by restaurants service? Is paying for meal and tax enough with small tip. I've never had this happen but would like to know what to do if this ever does.
I rarely tip less than 20% unless it is added in automatically or I receive bad service. The waiters loss. Plus the restaurant goes on my do not visit again list. Gratuity is a gift and being that does not make it a requirement. Any place requiring the "service charge" is not a place I care to ever visit.
Actaully you can walk the whole tab and at worst get a ticket from HPD. Ive had people walk into my restaurant, order and finish a meal, then say - "You have to call the police, I dont have any money." I call the police, they come out and write this guy a TICKET that he will never pay. The restaurant owner gets NOTHING! I doubt you will get in any trouble with the law for not wanting to pay a tip if you can walk the whole tab without recourse.
"Walking the tab" is NOT the issue here. I PERSONALLY don't totally agree with tipping someone for doing the job that they are already being paid to do. I mean, I don't tip the grocery store cashier, I don't tip the cashier at the McDonald's drive thru lol. That also goes for when I go to the salon, etc. However, I will go ahead and give them a little something for a job well done.....as I see fit. While I do realize and have been told that waiters "don't make much money", I find it hard to believe that they are paid below the minimum wage, is THAT even legal?? Has anyone researched this theory?
before making ignorant comments you should check facts that youre asking the rest of the public to check for you. minimum wage is built to create a standard of income that the government believes is the lowest level someone can survive properly. waiters in texas are paid 2.13/hr (normally) because the government allows a corporation to claim their staff is supplemented by other means to bring their overall pay up to minimum wage. is it slightly shady on the every restaurants part that they do this? perhaps, but it is completely legal. compare it to a traditional sale position, where someone with 10 years of experience in the field signs up for a paltry 25,000/year base pay, but then contractually agrees to 6% of all their sales. they could easily make 6 figures by the end of the year depending on the industry they are in. do you not think the cost of those products basically includes a "tip"? the company profit margin would will stay the same no matter what, so all they are going to do is pass the added expense to the consumer, which is what is almost always done in business and no one complains. reality is that the tips ARE the waiters living, because most never see the 2.13/hour due to taxes being taken out of the check. you're complaining that you have to tip with food, but not other services that already have the service fee built into the initial cost. realize its 2012, and the restaurant industry is in fact a SERVICE industry, one in which you pay not only for the product you consume but also the service that is conferred upon you. you dinner cost IS food+service, and if you cannot afford (or choose not to afford) the service, you CANT afford the dinner.
while your statements ring true, the issue here is about a place adding a tip to a small party then telling them they have to pay it, at this point, screw the waiter, he should have done his job better...
Speaking of ignorant comments, yours certainly qualifies. Tips *are* a gift from the patron to the wait staff. If the wait staff doesn't provide the patron with a high level of service, then they do not deserve a tip, no matter how poorly they are being paid.
Put simply, it is not the patron's job to ensure that the waiter makes minimum wage. It is the waiter's job to do so. And he can make that happen by providing excellent service.
Putting it simply, waiters are paid $2.13 an hour. It is legal to pay them less than minimum wage because the LAW expects that the tips they make will get them up to minimum wage per hour. So people like you are keeping the waiters from making minimum wage by not tipping.
No, the *waiter* is keeping himself from getting minimum wage by providing poor service.
The Laffr didn't say she didn't tip when she got poor service; she stated she doesn't know why she has to tip waiters at all "for doing their jobs." Therefore, my comment still stands. If you get poor service at some point, it's your perogative whether to tip. But when people get good service, they should tip because that is how waiters get to minimum wage.
IMO, if the service is bad the customer should have the right to refuse to pay the full tip added to the tab. I have always heard this is the rule of thumb, 10% tip for bad service, 15% tip for good service, 20% or more tip for excellent service.
And to the person who commented about walking a tab and the worst that can happen to them is to get a ticket from the cops. That is not entirely true. I have had customers walk a tab, cops are called, charges are filed by owner or manager, police report is filed and if found the customer is arrested for theft of services. Walking a tab is no different than walking into a store and stealing something from that store. And if the customer refuses to pay the tab claiming there is no money, same thing, theft of services, customer is arrested. In all my years of being a waitress I have never seen a cop just write a ticket for non payment of meal. The customer has a choice, pay the tab or go to jail.
I am wondering if the customer at Nelore used a coupon of some sort. Often, Groupons, Restaurant.com certificates and the like state that they will add a tip.
In the state of texas servers are only paid $2.15. If your really good or been there a while you might get $3.15. After taxes pay checks a generally $0.00.
Dave, I don't believe it, not at all.
I doesn't matter what you don't believe, this is the truth. Seriously, for someone who apparently likes to troll the comments sections, you would think you could do a little research before showing everyone how ignorant you are. Check out this page and pay attention to the column that says the minimum wage for waiters in Texas is $2.13 an hour: http://www.paywizard.org/main/minimum-wage/tipped-workers
That's a little like not believing in oxygen. It's the law, it actually exists. Subtracting the tip for lousy service is one thing; depriving a hard working waiter of a wage is another. A handy chart from the Department of Labor breaks down the minimum cash wage. Federal minimum wage is assumed to be met when the maximum tip credit is applied to the minimum cash wage - in other words, the employer gets to assume that your tip makes up the difference. It's ridiculous, but teh only way to change it is to get rid of legislation that allows tipping, not to short your waiter:
http://www.dol.gov/whd/state/tipped.htm
The minimum server wage in Texas is $2.13 per hour as read from the Department of Labor website. Cash and tips combined must come to at least $7.75 per hour or the restaurant must make up the difference, but they won't do that for long before firing the server. My daughter is a server. I know what I'm talking about.
great post hugh. im a law student who paid my way through undergrad waiting tables, so speaking from 8 years experience, yes, waiters make 2.13/hr. its completely legal, and mr. laffr is delusional if he somehow thinks that its illegal. that would mean roughly 90% of food service businesses in texas set the same low standard for hurly wage, thus basically all involved in the exact same racketeering model.
.........last I checked, I'm female......and if it's not illegal, it should be.
Well, that's just pathetic. I wonder who came up with that GRAND idea?! SMH.
Now that you've FINALLY been educated, I hope that you can see why you don't tip "a grocery store cashier" or "the cashier at the McDonald's drive thru" (as you stated before). These employees are paid minimum wage - unlike waiters who depend on your tips to make mimimum wage.
1991 - 2.13/hr put through by reagan. its a 20 year old reality. seriously, read a newspaper, pick up a book. before you rant in a public forum about PUBLIC policies maybe you should know about them
My husband and I had to be out on the so-called Black Friday to replace a suddenly nonfunctioning dryer. We had our clothes done at a laundry mat while we went looking for a washer and dryer. Afterwards, we thought we would try an Indian restaurant in the area. We had not eaten Indian food since a friend we knew in the 80s would cook it. We never got to even order. The owner got on the phone with someone he kept asking "this is my problem?" so we just walked out. There is just nooooo excuse for poor service, and there are just toooooo many places to eat in Houston....
I guess the reason for even being out was TMI. A slice of my boring life. But it was certainly great getting the laundry done professionally. Did not mind paying...
Look, my views are MY views. I don't care about the research blah blah blah...if you all know so much, why don't you have a restaurant of your own? LOL!!!!! Poor service = no tip. PERIOD!
so you hold a table for an hour and the waiter is getting $3, after all let's be generous. You've eaten a relatively cheap meal and only had tea and or water. Your meal is 40 bucks. At most, according to some of you, this waiter will make $11 off your meal. Now and I know this to be true of a table of eight that held that table for an hour and half and left 4 bucks on 250 tab. And this is not that uncommon. Be fair to your servers. If I don't like a server, I let the hostess and ask for the server that I want. If he/she is not there that night, I say 'anyone but ...'. Too bad if it is the owner's child.
Wait staff generally manage 3-6 tables in a restaurant if all of them tip 11 dollars then that is 66 dollars for that hour. There is some tip out but its not uncommon for a waiter to make the same as an office person working less hours. The work is more physically demanding but that is the trade off. If a waiter balances his slow periods with busy ones and has offers good service then everyone wins.
To these people who say that you should tip no matter what that is just encouraging crap service.
To those who want to hang a tip over someones head and want their butt kissed or cut a person off a hard earned tip because of a mood or their ego need to grow up.
Save the drama and use some good sense. :)
Solving the tipping issue is right up there with peace in the Middle East...we'll never solve the problem and everyone has their on opinion. The patrons have their view the servers have their's, and hopefully at the end of the day good service will be rewarded with "TIP." TIPS are not an entitlement, they are EARNED by providing a minimum of GOOD service. Just delivering food doesn't earn a tip (that's what the $2.13 is for), providing SERVICE beyond food delivery earns the tip. We hear from servers to "stay home if you can't tip," well my reply is "get out of the business if you can't provide great service." OR be satisfied with meager tips. I do a lot of business entertainment and eat out often, I tip according to the level of service and don't have a problem with calling out a rude or poor server to the management. I'm not going to let a poor service person get away with ruining my meal. Servers: Poor servers, get it right or get out of the industry. Good servers, you're not complaining because you are being rewarded for you efforts.
Barbara, what restaurant. I could take a guess.....and probably be right. But I like to know where not to go!
I honestly do not remember the name of the place. But it was in a strip center off Murworth, where a Best Hair and that gas station that begins with a V are. There are two Indian restaurants there, one with white tablecloths and one without and with a bar. The latter one is the one we walked into and out of, guy still on the phone.
Everyone,especially the servers FORGOT to talk about the "tips" received from which NO TAXES are paid, NO INCOME TAXES, NO SOCIAL SECURITY TAXES, NO MEDICAL....NADA!!! Over the years I've have several friends who worked in the industry (including relatives) and they would brag about the "cash" they received with out being taxed. The rampant use of credit cards has put somewhat of crimp on this, but none the less cash tips never see the tax man.
The wage law states that any job where tipping is customary the pay rate is 40% of the applicable minimum wage, which today is $3/hr. In my college days (when I waited tables) it was $2.13 when the minimum was $5/hr. With over 8000 places to dine in Houston, no diner should be required to pay a tip and by law they aren't. House policy for some places will add it in for parties of 8 or more which is fine, however if the service was bad they shouldn't feel obligated just as if was only a 2-top. I haven't forgotten my salad days waiting tables for a living but I won't tip for lousy or nonexistent service, and I didn't blame my customers for stiffing me if I did a bad job. Think of it as the cost of doing business...
In my opinion, THELAFFR is going to look for any excuse not to pay the gratuity. SHE is the same person that is going to ask for the world when she orders. SHE is the person that should stay home or drive through if she's hungry. SHE is not going to tip!!! No matter what!! There are alot of those people, unfortunately.