The Triple Threat

The check at a very pleasant but not particularly fancy new restaurant in Manhattan came to about $500 for four of us. About average. The wine portion of the meal was less than $100. About average. Service was agreeable but not especially attentive or graceful. Better than average. We were there a little more than two hours. About average.

I realized, with a shock, that I was probably supposed to leave a $100 tip. That's 20 percent, what many waiters in upscale restaurants expect these days.

A lot has been said recently about the prices of main courses surpassing $40, but I've seen nothing about the commensurate rise in tips that has gone along with that.

I think the days of tips being based on a percentage of food and wine costs has got to come to an end. It no longer makes sense.

I really don't think the efforts of the restaurant staff were worth $100.

I think I can anticipate the response to this: I'm going to hear that I'm cheap, I'm heartless, I don't understand what waiters do.

Say what you want, but I'm only going to be convinced if I can grasp what this staff did to expect $100.

I do understand that waiters get paid nothing of consequence—a few dollars an hour—and that they must depend on their tips. I know that in most restaurants they are obligated to make payouts: a percentage of the wine cost to the sommelier, a percentage of their total tips to the bartenders and to the most underpaid people in restaurants, those who bus tables. I know that few waiters get rich.

I know there's more to what they do than take orders and bring plates to the table. I figured they spent about 30 minutes doing that. If that's all there was, that $100 tip would mean I paid about $200 an hour for service.

Awhile ago, Thomas Keller instituted the French system at his famous New York restaurant Per Se. He established a flat-service charge that adds about 20 percent to the bill, actually a little more when you add in the additional sales tax, which is required with a service charge. He said he did it to equalize pay in his restaurant, where waiters were taking home far more than members of his underpaid kitchen staff.

That sounds high-minded, and I suspect Keller's intentions were good, but it doesn't make sense. Presumably, he could have distributed a portion of voluntary customer tips to his kitchen staff just as easily as a portion of his new, involuntary customer tips. If a waiter has to give a share of tips to sommeliers, bartenders, and busboys, why not a share to line cooks, too?

In addition, Keller did something I truly find objectionable. When I ate there not long ago, a line on my credit card receipt read: "Additional Gratuity." He wanted it both ways, involuntary and voluntary, and that's no good. I suspect any customer who doesn't leave an "additional gratuity" will feel like a cad. I left $50 extra on a lunch for two, and that was after enduring terrible wine service.

With the "additional gratuity" tossed in, I wouldn't be surprised if the total service charges at Per Se now average close to 30 percent.

I don't like the French system. Nor do I like Keller's modified French system. I like the American system, where you pay more for good service than for poor service, and where you make up your own mind.

I'm still trying to figure out exactly how it should work—but I think the answer lies not in how much money customers spend on food and wine, but how long they occupy the table and how much attention they get. I'm not trying to save money. I'm trying to be sensible.