What is criteria for determining when you have to leave a tip at restaurant?
For lunch today, the saddest Chinese girl in the world took my order at the carry-out restaurant. I swear that she was kidnapped from her family home in China and smuggled into America and forced to work in this tiny restaurant with three tables.
Ordering at the counter, Chicken w/ Black Bean sauce, Sweet and Sour Soup, and a water, and I decided to eat in, instead of taking it back to the office. And she begrudgingly took my order, looking very forlorn. After a while she brought my soup out in an open styro-foam carry-out container with a bag crunchy noodles and hastily set it down on the table I was seated at without saying a word. She did not bring any utensils or napkins, or mention where I could get them (or maybe she never noticed they were absent). After I scanned to room for a while, I figured that it must be up to the dine-in customer to retrieve there own plastic cutlery from the box that the carry-out customers grab from, so I got up to grab a spoon and napkin. As I did so, I noticed the girl had taken a seat behind the counter, with her forehead resting on the lower counter.
After 5 minutes or so, she brought out my Chicken but didn't bring a water and didn't mention anything about the water, and quickly retreated back behind the counter. After a few minutes I figured out that I was supposed to just grab a bottle from a cooler up against the wall.
So I finished my meal and cleaned up my table and took my tray and all the dirty dishes up to the counter to her, and when I did so I noticed a tip jar.
Now maybe I looked like a regular and she figured I knew the drill, but she didn't do anything more for me than for a carry-out customer. Only difference is that she walked 10 steps more (x2) and my meal wasn't in a paper bag. So how do you determine when to leave a tip, and for what restaurants do you leave a tip. Do you leave a tip at a Chinese Buffet? I've left tips at sit down restaurants where the waitress dropped the food off and never returned to offer a refill on coffee or sodas, so if I did that why wouldn't I do that here at this carry-out restaurant? Either way it seems like the waiter/waitress should do some effort. The tip really makes up a bulk of the salary here in America, but it by definition it is a gratuity and the customer should be gracious about something.
In the end I left her a generous tip on the table, because I felt sorry for her and I didn't want to feel like a douche.
This restaurant advertised no MSG, and the food was OK, but I miss the MSG because it's brilliant. It a shame that just because a few people got headaches from MSG, everyone gets deprived from it's awesomeness. I suffer from migraines, so I'm getting a headache anyways, so I want MS-Flippin'-G on my Chinese food. I think MSG has got a bum rap do to a lack of marketing. If it has a cool name like Tasty Spice or something more Asian, instead of only being referred to only as mono-sodium glutamate, than maybe people would be more accepting.
Also, why is extra white steamed rice so expensive when it's the least expensive item for the restaurant to produce? Just give me more rice and less meat and veggies in the first place , like a more traditional asian meal, because I'm going to over-eat anyways.
For lunch today, the saddest Chinese girl in the world took my order at the carry-out restaurant. I swear that she was kidnapped from her family home in China and smuggled into America and forced to work in this tiny restaurant with three tables.
Ordering at the counter, Chicken w/ Black Bean sauce, Sweet and Sour Soup, and a water, and I decided to eat in, instead of taking it back to the office. And she begrudgingly took my order, looking very forlorn. After a while she brought my soup out in an open styro-foam carry-out container with a bag crunchy noodles and hastily set it down on the table I was seated at without saying a word. She did not bring any utensils or napkins, or mention where I could get them (or maybe she never noticed they were absent). After I scanned to room for a while, I figured that it must be up to the dine-in customer to retrieve there own plastic cutlery from the box that the carry-out customers grab from, so I got up to grab a spoon and napkin. As I did so, I noticed the girl had taken a seat behind the counter, with her forehead resting on the lower counter.
After 5 minutes or so, she brought out my Chicken but didn't bring a water and didn't mention anything about the water, and quickly retreated back behind the counter. After a few minutes I figured out that I was supposed to just grab a bottle from a cooler up against the wall.
So I finished my meal and cleaned up my table and took my tray and all the dirty dishes up to the counter to her, and when I did so I noticed a tip jar.
Now maybe I looked like a regular and she figured I knew the drill, but she didn't do anything more for me than for a carry-out customer. Only difference is that she walked 10 steps more (x2) and my meal wasn't in a paper bag. So how do you determine when to leave a tip, and for what restaurants do you leave a tip. Do you leave a tip at a Chinese Buffet? I've left tips at sit down restaurants where the waitress dropped the food off and never returned to offer a refill on coffee or sodas, so if I did that why wouldn't I do that here at this carry-out restaurant? Either way it seems like the waiter/waitress should do some effort. The tip really makes up a bulk of the salary here in America, but it by definition it is a gratuity and the customer should be gracious about something.
In the end I left her a generous tip on the table, because I felt sorry for her and I didn't want to feel like a douche.
This restaurant advertised no MSG, and the food was OK, but I miss the MSG because it's brilliant. It a shame that just because a few people got headaches from MSG, everyone gets deprived from it's awesomeness. I suffer from migraines, so I'm getting a headache anyways, so I want MS-Flippin'-G on my Chinese food. I think MSG has got a bum rap do to a lack of marketing. If it has a cool name like Tasty Spice or something more Asian, instead of only being referred to only as mono-sodium glutamate, than maybe people would be more accepting.
Also, why is extra white steamed rice so expensive when it's the least expensive item for the restaurant to produce? Just give me more rice and less meat and veggies in the first place , like a more traditional asian meal, because I'm going to over-eat anyways.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
blackheartdown:
5x5, Generally I'm a very good tipper, bordering on overtipping. But my father-in-law is horrible, and I'm always afraid I'll be pegged guilty by association. Whenever we go out to eat, and I pay, but he insists on leaving the tip, he usually shorts the waitress. I can't stand it. So either I have to slip some extra cash in when he's not looking, or think of an excuse to go back to the table after we've got up to supplement his poor excuse for a tip. ha ha. I really should just call him out on it before he bust me adding the cash. But now it's more like a game. 
synersex:
I don't eat out very often so I usually tip rather generous. And upon occasion, I'll tip obnoxiously excessive just to see the look on the waitresses face. It really makes their night. Hey, it's only money, right?
