couple arrested for not tipping

Not necessarily. YOU can talk it over with management. Usually a large group are told they will pay a certain tip but I would attempt to negotiate first. Many times they are making far less of a tip than if I just gave what the service deserves.

I agree, and had I been the manager handling the problem; I would have given them some comeback coupons and kissed their butts on the way out.

I am just saying I believe legally a contract, be it one sided. But neither of us were there....servers, managers, and customers never fail to amass me with some of the stupid things they all do.

I worked for many years as a spring break bartender and during the summer and winter months as a server. When I first started at this spring break headquarters, I was told by a lot of the other servers that I needed to grat all the six tops or more especially the Mexican Nationals during Semana Santa the Mexican holy days. Not once did I grat, my service spoke for itself, some days I would have bad days, but not very often and it always more often than not equalled out. Sure sometimes I needed to bend my knees a little deeper...but hey I was there to make money and provide a quality service as a representative of the places I was employed as a server. Auto grating in my opinion is nothing more than a tool marginal at best servers use to make up for their lack of care and performance. You do not deserve a tip for merely being there and slapping drinks or food on the table. T.I.P.S. = To Insure Proper Service

In my opinion I just simply would not work there, nor would I patronize such an establishment. My contract is between myself and the customer, its unwritten. I give them a service that says I will make sure your drinks are full and fresh, your appetizers are brought to you in a timely fashion, your food is served when it is ready and you are ready for it, you are offered dessert and when you are ready to pay and leave I'm not screwing around somewhere causing you to maybe miss a movie or play whatever. I know the menu and can offer suggestions. In return you tip me for my knowledge and the fact that I help make your dining experience enjoyable.

Now I have worked events where they have paid extra and that money is used to be spread out among the workers. For example we catered the Miss USA Pageant for a number of years. We also catered concerts at our Convention Center the place I worked for had that contract. But we always received tips while bartending or serving and then the extra was always distributed among us. Sometimes there was no extra, we catered a Sammy Hagar concert...the guy was an ass. Not for not leaving us extra, but he threw a tantrum because he wanted dates, dates were out of season and they could not be obtained fresh. He made sure everyone had a miserable time, think he was the only real bad experience we had. Enrique Igleses and Crystal were class acts, after the concert he went to everyone that had worked the concert and personally shook our hands and told us what a great job we had done. It all balances out.

LOL thx its really not that hard of a job...especially if you remember why you are there.

buttzie it is printed on the menu and usually pointed out by the server, before you start your order, by ordering you committing to the terms of the menu(contract). It then just becomes an additional charge. I am not a lawyer, I am just stating my belief from having writen several menus and handbooks.

I personally believe that it is a bad practice, I think a decent server will make a better average tip, by taking their chances with the customer, some will under tip on a large bill, others will over tip.

Yup a lot of places do have it printed on the menu, and some even on a hosting station it usually says something to the effect of "A 15% gratuity on parties of six or more." But at most places it is still optional and the server usually has the discretion. As stated I never did, I always felt I would lose money by engaging in this practice. Sometimes I received higher, sometimes I received lower, in the end it evened out.

taao I personally have never seen it optional, and as a manager I had to enforce it across the board, no choice in the matter....but then in the last few years I have not had to deal with it.

Again I do not like the practice, I think a decent server will come out ahead, the other way.

We myself included have posted this to death, but we really only heard one side of this story....that may have been the table for hell....I have had them and your have too.

Customers will do the stupid things, but then so will servers and managers. Like the time I had to tell a young man the roach he was showing was from the deep South and not the upper Midwest, and yes it could have come in one of my shipments but this poor roach had been in someone's pocket, and when I said something to him, he turned bright red, then paid his bill. Hows that for the longest sentence.

Yup I've managed casinos and restaurants as well as being director of operations for a cruise line. Where I and my wife live now with the exception of one restaurant 25 miles out of town it seems like customer service is a dead issue. We went to Outback one night, I had the prime rib my wife ordered a sirloin. When the server asked about our salads my wife asked if their Caesar dressing had egg in it...he responded no it didn't. My wife has a severe alergy to eggs. She asked if he could go back and please check, he insisted that it did not contain egg. After the fifth time she asked again, and he irritatingly replied he would go check. We know that all he did was walk around the corner leading to the kitchen, sat there tapping his foot then returned to the table and informed us that it did not contain egg. My wife thanked him at the time and told him she would try take the Caesar dressing, because at that time we believed he had checked. By the 3rd bite my wife knew something was wrong and had already started to swell up and started to get sick. We left immediatly not even receiving our meal to rush my wife to the emergency room, we paid for our meal even though we had not received it...thankfully the manager wanted to make it up to us by offering us a free dessert to take with us...we politely declined. My wife was seriously sick all night, thankfully she was able to get through the job interview she had the next morning and was hired. We then moved from the state where we had lived for 10 years and have never gone back to that restaurant again.