A little more on how tipping has changed in america. https://qz.com/730315/squares-design-guilts-us-into-tipping-basically-everyone/ "If you’ve paid with your credit or debit card at a food truck or local independent coffee shop in recent years, you’ve probably been confronted by the rounded, white Square terminal—and text asking if you’d like to tip a percentage of your total, perhaps 15%, 20%, or 25%. Moment of truth. “No tip” is an option too, of course. But when you’re being asked directly, under the expectant gaze of service workers, declining to offer something extra can feel petty. The New York Times calls this phenomenon “tip creep.” Fast Company opts for the phrase “guilt tipping,” reporting that, “Square is facilitating tips at non-traditional venues—ice cream parlors, coffee shops, bakeries—places where tipping 20% (or tipping anything, for that matter) is not terribly common.” According to Fast Company, “Square is on track to facilitate roughly a quarter billion dollars in annual tips”—mostly at shops where customers would not have tipped before, or might have only tossed spare change into a jar."
IDK anymore. I usually just get coffee. $4 bucks is usually more than enough to cover coffee twice over.
Key Wot, an Ethiopian beef stew. Actually made it last night, but it's even better reheated the next day.
I visited state restaurants in what was Czechoslovakia in 1990. The staff couldn't understand why anybody would visit a restaurant. The state restaurants were provided 'obviously' to give people jobs, but nobody would eat in a state restaurant. They just had to stand there 8 til 3. Nostalgia, and god bless Communism. The food in the houses/college was wonderful, just the 'state' restaurants. All gone now. Tonight, my own cooked fish & chips was disgusting and dull.
The only time I've ever sent anything back like that was once when I was in a particularly bad mood and I ordered a steak blue rare but it came to me medium to well done. I had to imagine that would have been annoying for the staff considering it wasn't something they could exactly throw back on the grill for a couple of minutes, but it was a nice enough place I figured they should have gotten it right the first time.
So you're saying that by not sending my steaks back I've been making sure some poor kitchen staff hasn't been able to eat for the evening.
Haha... is this a real question? Obviously, I'm biased since I've lived on tips most of my life (and done pretty damn good) and have to take a massive pay cut to work hourly/salary in management. I can't speak too much on the European model and how that compares from a business or standard of living perspective. Apples and oranges really when it comes to taxes and social services and what constitutes a "good" income... or a good quality of life for that matter. Tipping is an American thing, in my opinion, and, yes, it is often seen as obligatory and that leads to plenty of mediocre service in the industry. I'm not a fan of the Square terminal either... or printing the suggested tip percentages at the bottom of each check. I kill that policy everywhere I go if allowed. From a business standpoint, though, the industry falls apart without tipping because owners cannot afford to pay their servers a living wage. NH servers make $3 a hour, and most states are near this threshold with a few notable exceptions (I think California does $8, and some individual cities go even higher... I can't speak on that, but I'm sure they have to charge dramatically more on the menu to make up for this). In essence, the servers are free labor for the owner. They're independent contractors who can (in theory) work anywhere and a take a 15-20% rake of anything they can sell. This is the most beautiful, elegant, and simple business relationship ever devised: if I get paid, you get paid. I take care of everything from the food to the decor to the marketing... all you have to do is go sell the shit and try not to piss anyone off in the process. Simple. And for the guest, they're (again, in theory) tipping for dining experience and for having a good time. I could crash the WF server with what I think goes into all that, but suffice to say that by eliminating tips the experience will suffer. A lot. Restaurants are cutthroat, bodies-on-the-roadside competitive, and so are good serving jobs. I've worked in places that paid out over $1 million in tips annually and would have a file of resumes fifty deep at all times. I even wrote a little speech about that, something along the lines of "Okay, people, we're going to be handing out a million dollars to you this year, so if you don't want a piece of that pie, make room for somebody who does!" But take tipping out of the equation, and dining experience (and the people who provide it) will lose its edge. There's no more incentive for the servers to be their best. Quite the opposite. And the menu prices will go up. A lot. Like a real fucking lot. Like way more than the 20% you would normally add for gratuity. I think I'm going to pull some reports when I get into work tomorrow and figure out exactly how much we'd have to increase menu prices to maintain our current level of profitability if tips were removed from the equation. I'm fairly certain that it's lose-lose-lose for the guests, employees, and owner. ETA: I should add that efforts to eliminate tipping have failed miserably in the past. There was a big "experiment" with this a few years ago in NYC, I think, and it was an unmitigated disaster.
The state of Illinois has legal definitions of rare, medium rare, etc that I later learned differ from the culinary ones. "Rare" is illegal there, supposedly for health reasons, so I was used to ordering "as rare as you can make it" in an attempt to get what I now know is probably medium rare. Then I uttered the same words in Texas and was introduced to a pound and a half of blue-rare steak.
Thanks, Homes. That puts a couple of "but I can't eat anything there"'s back in play! You know you're going to write a Restaurants for Dummies style book someday, right?
Not a chance. The business is already saturated with dummies. I can't afford to have more of them dragging the rest of us down. There seems to dozens of them already: https://www.google.com/search?q=restaurants+for+dummies&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1
I always tip cash, that way the busboys, rather than management or the IRS, are the only ones who can steal the tips.
And here I thought I lived in a weird state, where a horse cannot be refused a drink in a bar. Of course the the majority people in the state live further south and cook themselves alive, so I am not all that surprised, that there is a state that does not offer rare steak. Having said all that, why not go to a bar and get drunk with your horse. (At least that is still legal.)
I've had waitstaff try to talk me into a white after saying I'm not a fan of whites. They'll say something along the lines of "this particular white" being a good choice and I should give it a try. But I never do, because chances are great I'm not going to like it. I simply prefer reds, and I don't care if the food I'm eating is supposed to go better with a white wine. I once had someone try to talk me into a "particular" moscato after I pointed out I don't like sweet wines, on the theory that the moscato they had wasn't really that sweet. No thanks
Yeah, that's just silly. Whenever anyone asks me for a pairing I ask them what they like first and then make a recommendation based on similar body, acidity, and profile.
Yeah, that's what I like. And you can always tell when the person knows a bit about the restaurant's wine selection versus is bullshitting.
I know fuck-all about wine, so I rarely drink anything but house white or house red in restaurants. Dunno if they still do it, but Gallo used to put a chart on the back of their wines with suggested pairings. Scoff if you must, but when I was just 21, I knew even less than I do now, so it helped me learn the basics, like beer doesn't go well with tiramisu, but it can if you're thirsty enough.
I don't know a ton about wine. Not an expert by any means. I do know what I tend to like, though. Cab, cab franc. Certain blends. Some zinfandels (I had one from Rabble, in Paso Robles, and that's very good). I also like amarone.
That's an easy one: classic Bordeaux (cab, merlot, cab franc blend). After the Islay scotch aperitif, of course.
Fish burritos with oven-roasted salmon, cheese and homemade tartar sauce. I am so damn full right now!
OK, @Homer Potvin I picked up the wine pictured here. It was low- to mid-range in price. $16, and the bottles of Bordeaux ran from $5 to $60. I've found some good California blends in that price range. Whether that holds true for Bordeauxs, I don't know.
