Here’s a tip
Friday lunch, originally uploaded by Brian Knight Photography.
A blog post about two very different dinning experiences.
Story #1, In which I experience very good service at a place that I don’t always expect good service… and how I ended up tipping the waiter.
I went to lunch at Ihop on Friday. I was waiting for my prescription to be filled at the CVS across the parking lot and knowing I needed to take my meds with food I thought pancakes would be just the thing. Everyone knows that a fork full of pancakes makes the medicine go down! Anyways, the service was great. I’d barely sat down before the waiter was there to take my order, the food came out fast, and it was so hot I could barely lift the pancakes up to apply the butter! He refilled my glass of water AND brought more Old Fashioned Syrup after noticing I was running low. The total meal cost just over $8 and when I went to the register to pay I forgot my sunglasses at the table. The waiter found them and brought them out to me before I could even finish paying! All in all, it was a very good experience at Ihop, and while I normally always tip 20% for all sorts of service, I couldn’t justify leaving less than two bucks so instead I left five dollars cash on the table. The 60% tip was well earned.
Story #2, In which I experience very poor service at a place where I expect very good service… and how I ended up tipping the waitress.
Last night at the Austin Grill on 7th St I left another $5 tip, only this time it was for on a $72 bill, and here’s why… First of all, our waitress was just a disaster. She seemed high and not at all in a good way. She was disorganised and disinterested. She wouldn’t look us in the eye. She took our drink order and then took about 20 minutes to bring them. Then she only brought half of what we asked for. Then she took our order. Then, after forgetting our order, she came back to ask us again. The same girl was working with at least four other tables around us and everyone else seemed to be having the same experience. When our food finally came out (over an hour later) my order was wrong, but I was too hungry to care. At this point we still didn’t have the right drink order either (and no, it wasn’t a complicated one, we’d each asked for waters in addition to our other drinks). It was the worst service I’d ever experienced at an Austin Grill and so when it came time to put some money down for a tip I did not at all feel bad leaving less than 7%.
One last thing. We did talk to the manager, but only after paying the full bill. The food, when it finally came, was actually not bad, so I had no problem paying for it, but the overall experience was unpleasant and we made sure (ok, E made sure), to let manager know about his surly little poor excuse for a waitress.
