Ignorant people are so funny! Read some other posts before you make stupid comments!
For the 100th time on this topic; Federal minimum wage in the Undated States for tipped employees is less than $3 an hour. Restaurants are not breaking any laws for paying servers this amount, which is exactly how your food is priced as low as it is.
Keep living in your dream would keico. If you have no experience on this topic you should not make comments. Here are some facts for you about servers. Servers make approximately $3 an hour, which is legal; this wage goes strictly for paying the income tax on their tips which they have to claim on their taxes. At the end of the night servers have to pay out tips to the other staff like bus boys, bartenders, dish washers etc because this is mandatory at all restaurants. This amount is determined by the amount of sales they did that night. If you stiff them then they actually lose money by waiting on your table because they still have to pay out a percentage of your bill. This is how you are taking money from the server. You are right that there is no law stating that you have to tip; its an unwritten rule in our society. However, if you cant afford a tip and go to a restaurant intending not to tip the whole time then you should stay at home.
You are exactly the type of person that made restaurants add mandatory gratuity. Keep tipping $1, you will continue to get bad service, servers always remember the great tippers and the bad tippers. By the way; from your excellent grammar I can tell that you need to go back to school also, maybe you should start around 8th grade!
I would like to add that I am not, nor have I ever been a server. I can just understand where they are coming from. While I was in college I worked for tips delivering pizza. It was a great way to support myself while going to school fulltime. My sister and her husband were also servers while in college. We have all now graduated and started our careers.
To all the people saying to find a better job; what the hell do you think servers are doing? I would say at least 95% of servers are enrolled in college. There are not a lot of jobs that would work around the schedules of full time students but a server is one good example.
I am not saying that you should tip 20% every time you go out to eat. Gratuity is greatly dependent on the quality of service. If you get horrible service then the tip should be horrible as well. However, nobody gets horrible service every time they go out to eat. If you go to a restaurant planning to not tip the entire time, regardless of the service, then you should stay at home or go to a fast food restaurant instead. If you are experience hard times because of the recession or any other financial hardship and can not afford a tip then you should not be going out to eat anyway. If you can not afford a 15 or 20% tip then you have other more serious problems other than being a cheap ass.
