A Few Simple Rules for Dining Out

Hi everybody.  Sorry about the extended absence.  I’ve had a busy couple of weeks, which included a vacation in Puerto Rico where I ate some outstanding food, including one of the tastiest meals I’ve ever had in a deep fried whole red snapper.  I’ll tell you about it sometime, but first, I wanted to touch on something that’s been bothering me a lot lately.  And that is…

Restaurant etiquette.  There are many aspects of dining out to which too many people are woefully ignorant.  I’ve been working in and around the industry for over seven years, from the front of the house to the back, in chains and fine dining alike, and I’ve learned a few things.  Allow me to share some of the finer points, to set the record straight once and for all.

The big one: Tipping. Tip 20%.  Plain and simple.  Many people have these ridiculous equations and rules about doubling tax, or tipping 20% on exceptional service and 15% on regular service, etc.  Forget all that.  Tip 20%.  Most servers make roughly $2.50/hr, just enough to pay tax, and are presented with a void paycheck every other week.  Servers also tip out bus boys, bartenders and food runners each night a percentage of their sales, regardless of what they make in tips.  If you don’t tip a server, or you tip them badly, you’re forcing them to work for free.  That’s called “slavery”.  Slavery was abolished and made illegal in the United States in 1865, and there’s no sense bringing it back.  Tip 20% of your bill, and if you have a problem with your server, leave a proper tip, then speak to their manager about the problem.  If you don’t want to leave a tip, eat at home.

Here’s another peeve of mine, coming more from the customer side than anything else: changing up your order.  This one is not as black and white as tipping, and mostly depends on where you’re eating.  The way I figure it, if you’re eating at a chain restaurant, order your food however the hell you want.  The stuff at Applebees and the Olive Garden is pretty simple, and you’re not doing any harm by ordering your Sizzling Smokehouse Chicken Stack without its BBQ demi-glaze.  At better restaurants, chef’s spend a lot of time designing menus, and sometimes it can be complicated (or pointless) to change the components of a dish.  If you really don’t like something that comes with your entrée, you shouldn’t order it.  When you’re eating something created by a talented chef, every ingredient serves a purpose, be it flavor, color, contrast to another ingredient, etc.  When you start changing things around, your meal won’t taste the way it was intended.

            Lastly, there’s this:  be polite.  Treat the hostess, your server, and anybody else you encounter as you’d like to be treated yourself.  Smile.  Say “please” and “thank you”.  Sound obvious?  It should be.  And for most people, it is.  But the others haven’t a clue how to be gracious.  One time, while serving at a Houlihans, I stopped by a (miserable) family of four to check on them and ask if anybody needed anything.  A little girl, no older than nine, without looking up from the video game she was playing, held up her empty cup and shook it to let me know that it was empty and in dire need of a refill.  I glanced at the girl’s mother expectantly, assuming some sort of reprimand was in order, but I only got a blank stare as her little brat continued to shake her plastic cup in my face like a maraca.  It was soul crushing, and probably the last thing I needed during a stressful Saturday night rush.

            So, take my advice, or leave it, but just remember this:  Anything can happen between your food hitting the plate and the plate hitting your table.  Restaurant workers aren’t sadistic people, but they ARE people, and if you’re going to treat them like animals, they’ll behave like animals.  ­I’ve seen it with my own eyes.  There’s no reason why dining out should be anything less than a fun and even exciting activity, so long as we follow a few simple etiquette rules.