Shouldn't the cost of the meal go up more like 15-20%?

I mean, I'm no math whiz, but I don't see how you losing a 20% tip on the cost of a meal and moving the weight to your employer would suddenly cause the price of the food to go up 100%.

How on earth can it take someone 2 hours to eat their food? That is pretty inexcusable but you should be more mad at your managers for not telling them to get the fuck out. I work at a grocery store, so we deal with customer service. But the managers would never let someone loiter in the store more then a half hour after close. And we don't even have as much to do as a restaurant after close.

Funny you mention Noodles, I have a friend who works there. Yeah they don't accept tips, at all. They'd get people that won't take no for an answer and would slap down a tip and run out the door. Yeah, good going cause the manager is going to pocket it, not the person you gave it to.

Yea, that's unreasonable. If I notice a place is close to closing up for the night, I usually DO in fact rush things. BUT:

I didn't say IGNORE your closing duties, Melo. I said it's rude to vacuum when a customer is trying to enjoy a meal DURING business hours. DURING business hours, I mentioned that people should maybe possibly find more quiet back work to do until the place is sufficiently empty

After hours, I think it's fair game.

And DarkMage, when I go out with friends or family, we can sit there for up to four hours. People enjoy talking over food, knowing they don't have to get up and serve others around the table during a conversation. I PREFER those sorts of meals.

I'm sure you don't do that after the restaurant is closed though. Honestly I've been to places that don't let you order anything after closing hours. So if you stayed past and want dessert you're SOL.

I generally want to eat and leave. Since whoever I'm with is probably hanging out with me outside of being at the restaurant anyhow. Course if I had a girlfriend, I'm sure that would be alittle different.

At least no one does (or do they) a trick some people I knew from England did.

It would be near closing and someone would come in and ask for something. If it was something they alreayd had prepared, fine. If not, they then "accidently" gave them something else they had prepared. They would then say "Oh sorry. we can fix it but it will take us about 20 minutes" in which the customer would generally just go with what they have.

I work at a corporate restaurant. Our managers would get fired for sending the guests away. There's a BIG difference between working for corporate and a local restaurant. You can get away with a lot more at a local diner or something.

For people telling 'me' to get a different job if I don't like it, that's BS. I do like my job, for the most part I love it. Like any job though, it has it's negatives. I'm sure servers aren't the only people who sometimes dislike their jobs. For the most part, servers are upset when there are jackasses that think they have a right to treat other people like shit, etc.

So basicly what you're saying is that someone could decide they don't want to leave til 6 am the next day and there is nothing the managers can do about it?

Does it really take them that long to deep fry a whole cow for you?

that would be a good question. I could see higher ups who don't run into those issues themselves saying "Our customers come first, no matter if they are here 6 minutes after closing or 6 A.M.".

I wonder what the official policy is that distingushes between "conducting business" (namely buying and eating food) and "standing around" (or whatever the term is). The problem is, even if there was a nice "line" most companies would be afraid of a bit of bad rap of actually pushing that line.

I do know though SOME companies draw the line. One of them surprised me. At CiCi's (and all you can eat pizza place), one friend told me there was a kid who could really pack it away. The manager came out and said "That's enough. You have had your share" or something like that. Then again, they might be able to get away with that as they are not quite a nation-wide company (at least from what I last heard...they have multiple stores but not to the degree of McDonalds or such).

All I'm saying is, when I go to a restaurant and I'm done eating, if I happen to have my laptop I'm gonna have a few drinks and get some work done. After all, my work is almost directly paying your salary; which you're complaining about.

Unless you're continuously/constantly ordering drinks while you work, you taking up a table / seat is actually costing the restaurant more than you think. If you're done eating, satisfied with your meal, had the pleasure of enjoying your meal with good company and have throughly satisfied yourselves with your conversation, then it is more polite for you to leave the restaurant and open up the table / seat so the restaurant can offer that seat to another customer. More customers = more sales opportunities = more revenue = more tip/income.

You taking up a table for an overly extended period of time (basically past the point where the restaurant has no revenue opportunity out of you) is just you being a jackass (unless, again, you're ordering a beer every 5 minutes or so).

See, Wing Leader, you're a damn good tipper, so it isn't an issue.

OK... You've, like, seen me drink. Do you honestly see that as being a problem for me to be ordering a beer every 5-10 minutes or so?

In two hours' worth of time, I will write lesson plans for a whole week, finish a couple of designs, dust about 3 pitchers of beer, pay my tab, tip my server in cash, stumble to my car, drive home, talk my way out of a ticket and be home in time for House M.D..

Who's kidding who now?

lol we very nearly did that one time. Of course, we were trying to tip the manager, because we had a tasting and it was all free. They put up a really excellent spread too. Good place all around.

Which would be true if minimum wages weren't described in terms of pre-tax earnings. If your gross wage, before any tax or other deductions is more than the published hourly minimum wage (Which it will be, otherwise you'd take your employer to court and win) then you're earning above minimum wage. Also, the beauty of any system where tax is expressed as a percentage of income is that there is no possible way you can take home less by earning more.

What you meant to say is that as waiters get taxed on their tips (As they do in the UK), then if you don't give them a big tip they barely earn more than minimum wage. The problem therefore lies with their ability to get a job paying more than minimum wage.

Someone said on an earlier page that if you were too cheap to tip then most restaurants will prepare your food to take away instead. I can't think of anywhere that I'd describe as a restaurant rather than a fast-food joint that'd prepare you food to go. I guess I have a different idea as to what constitutes a restaurant than some of you guys.

So you consider Big Boy, Bennigans, IHOP, Red Robbin, Chinese Restaurants(Not just the carry out ones), and Coney Islands fast food?

Just because you've never tried to order a carry out meal at a restaurant doesn't mean it's not available. Just about any restaurant that has boxes to put your left overs in will let you order your meal to go. You just obviously wait longer then you would at a fast food place.

Alright, fair enough Chinese and Indian places often offer a takeaway service but from Googling those other places, they're not the sort of places I'd tell people I was going to a restaurant if I was going there, no. They're diners if anything, glorified cafes. When I talk about going to a restaurant I mean places like these, all of which with the possible exception of Lazzatis if you asked really, really nicely would laugh at you if you asked for takeaway food (Those are the last four restaurants I went to, in case you were wondering). I guess it's a cultural and language thing but I generally think of something a little more high-brow when I'm talking about restaurants rather than a burger joint or chain pizza shop.

See we basicly have a different idea of what is considered a "restaurant" because we don't really have many fancy places like that around here.

It's a matter of definitions for restaurants. In the US, nearly every place that serves food qualifies as a restaurant, be it a chain of diners or a fancy place like one Ramsay's places. In Europe, the definition for restaurant isn't nearly as broad. A restaurant here implies a place where you can enjoy an entire evening, where you can sit for hours after finishing your meal, where the focus is on enjoying the food and company, instead of on filling up, and serving as many customers as possible, as is the case in most diners (from my experience). We don't really have diners like in the US, let alone whole chains like the Olive Garden, but just small, independent places where you can get a quick meal (brasserie), but where you can still sit at ease.

On the discussion of closing hours, most restaurants here only have a closing hour for the kitchen (10 PM for most places), so people can sit and enjoy the rest of their meal, but they can't come in at 10:15 and expect to be served. I think that this is the best method to deal with closing hours, this way the kitchen can clean up, whereas the waiters will still be busy serving the guests drinks and whatnot, all while cleaning up without causing any disturbance.

Seems that way, yes. :)

I just find it hard to imagine walking into a restaurant that wasn't a take-away place and asking for food to go, it's just not something you'd do in my experience.

And call me a snob but asking for a bag to take away the leftovers at the end of a meal is really chavvy.

Additional Spam:
What he said, except obviously our draconian licencing laws means places only stay open about an hour or so after food service ends.

Well, in some cases restaurants often give larger portions than what you're willing to eat at the time. And lets say you drop down 30 dollars on a meal that you've only half eaten. Call me trashy all you want, but saving 15 dollars worth of food for later takes priority over looking high-class.

Besides that, that's un-eaten food gone to waste. It's not like they can recycle that steak you didn't eat; it just goes straight into the garbage. That should be considered a CRIME.

Shin, to clarify, I was talking more about the average place here in the U.S., and not a high-brow restaurant. I wouldn't walk into a place like that and ask for my lobster to go. I would assume if someone wanted food from a restaurant, but was being too cheap/broke to tip, they likely aren't going for a place that requires wearing a tie.

I agree it sounds awful to ask to take home the scraps off your plate, but in the U.S. the average restaurants serve you so much damn food you more often than not can only finish about half. It's disgusting. The leftovers issue has become very common here because of it.


Edit: Sorry for the repeat. I was being really slow and Seris posted before I finished.

heh, that's what you get for living in a nation of drunks and chavs xD.

I have never had anyone ask to take their leftovers, not even for their dog. I fear that I wouldn't be able to resist ridiculing anyone who asks for that. This is mostly because the enjoyment of the food is important, you don't need to have huge piles of french fries or a 2 pound steak to enjoy a meal, it's about taste and flavour. Even if people would take their leftovers in a doggy bag, it still would not be the same experience, as having it freshly served in a restaurant, and if you are that desperate for food, perhaps you shouldn't eat in a more expensive restaurant in the first place.

There's also some rad restaurants where you get huge portions and it's really tasty. There's this one place near me I like to go to since you get dinner for $10, they've got a fantastic salad bar (two soups, lots of fresh fruit, and tons of other stuff) that I like to fill up on quite a bit, then I can only eat about half of my meal. I save the rest as a snack for later at night (If I'm going to be in the office) or as a quick lunch the following day.

Also, there are definitely some foods which get better as leftovers. I remember my girlfriend and I went to Applebees one time and she didn't finish her burger because it was kinda mediocre. The following day we reheated it and it tasted a million times better since all of the flavors had melded together a bit.

Yes.

Because they are paying your bills. Without them, you wouldn't have a job. You may not like it, but that's the fact.

And, why do you vacuum at night? Dust flies. It's not the fact people don't want to hear the vacuum--they don't want crap in their food.