NC study suggests that "race still matters" in dining out

Let me just go ahead and say it, and I really hate to even say this because it just sounds so terrible and I'm not trying to start a firestorm here, but servers do not like waiting on black people. There are a disproportionate number (compared to other groups) of African Americans that do not tip or tip very poorly and will run you ragged during a meal...

Interesting. I have a friend that worked at a Lexington restaurant affiliated with a movie theatre. The theatre was playing a Tyler Perry movie on a recent evening. I don't follow pop culture much, but apparently his movies are aimed primarily at an AA audience and the dinner crowd was composed mostly of the movie patrons. My friend's total take in tips that entire evening was $ 2.50 - unusually low for a given shift with similar number of covers.

Honestly, why hasn't our society moved beyond a tips-based model for paying restaurant servers? It seems to me that this model is far more likely to incentivize poor service for customers that you know are going to tip poorly than it is to incentivize good service for the sake of the tip.

I've never been in the restaurant biz, but I've worked commission-based retail jobs, and I know that no matter how much pride you take in your job, the impulse to tailor your service based on what you expect to get out of it is almost irresistable.

Why not just remove the temptation altogether?

[Robin Garr]

Why not just remove the temptation altogether?

Costs, I'd say. Pay servers a living wage and the industry's whole business model falls apart. In fairness, I don't think it's greed, I think it's close margins. If they're going to raise salaries significantly, they can't take it out of slim prophets, so it either has to come from diminished quality or increased prices. And increased prices lead to diminished business.

It's a tough challenge ... and yet, much of the rest of the world, particularly in Europe, Japan and Down Under - manages to operate a thriving restaurant business without our tipping model.

I'm just not sure how we get from here to there. There's an awful lot of inertia because (return to beginning, lather, rinse, repeat).

they can't take it out of slim prophets,

Was Malachi a slim prophet? I've got to be honest; I haven't see many photographs that tell me which prophets were slim and which ones were, let's say, pudgy.

[Robin Garr]

they can't take it out of slim prophets,

Was Malachi a slim prophet? I've got to be honest; I haven't see many photographs that tell me which prophets were slim and which ones were, let's say, pudgy.

D'oh! Seminary student syndrome strikes again ...

they can't take it out of slim prophets,

Was Malachi a slim prophet? I've got to be honest; I haven't see many photographs that tell me which prophets were slim and which ones were, let's say, pudgy.

D'oh! Seminary student syndrome strikes again ...

You're a good sport, Robin!

[And when i first wrote that, I wrote "god sport."]

[Robin Garr]

You're a good sport, Robin!
[And when i first wrote that, I wrote "god sport."]

I could have escaped the whole issue if I had only thought to say "נְבִיאִים" ...