One more server thread.

A monkey's ass could carry on this conversation....

We have much bigger fish to fry...

/yawn

I think it would be cool if all restaurants had like a counter you could walk up to and place your order if you chose not to have a server. Then your food would be walked out to you and you got your own water/soda if you wanted. I'd like this available at even high end spots.

I'd do this cause I'm cheap like that.

The truth is, you get what you pay for. Obviously, you're going to get better service at Jack Fry's than at Tumbleweed. What is not obvious is that this has nothing to do with the food, the ambience, the management or the ownership. It is directly related to the menu pricing and PPA. Good, professional servers go where the money is. Low dollar, casual dining concepts hire people with no experience and marginal skills. This seems like a no-brainer, but when I hear complaints about things like not being able to get a Coke with no ice, I'm betting that didn't happen at Seviche or Varanese.

I think your are oversimplifying here. There's a world of difference between lacking experience and possessing marginal skills. I can understand why casual dining places hire people with 1)no experience or 2)marginal skills or 3)no experience and marginal skills. But you've pretty must caste every non-fine dining server as having marginal skills, whether or not they have any experience.

Obviously I am taking this personally, because I served at a non-fine dining establishment with no experience and a lack of understanding of the skills needed to serve. That does not mean I had marginal skills. I merely needed to be thrown into the fire so that I could understand how to fine tune the skills I did have and acquire the ones I did not. This is also to say that it would be next to impossible to acquire certain server skills outside the context of actually serving (server discourse/language, use of POS system, table numbering systems, etc.)

It's clear your point was not meant to distinguish between different types of servers but, instead, to frame yourself as being better than certain servers. Who is the elitist now?

None of this accounts for the fact that no one rises to elitist server prick level without getting his feet wet somewhere first. Your post is unfortunate because, while it makes good points, it seems solely intended to piss people off. I'll skip the welcome and just say that I think you are a troll.

I can see how that might have come off as elitist. Maybe my breakdown was a little blunt. The difference I was trying to point out is that fine dining deals with the nuances of serving. Casual dining deals with the basics of serving. The basics have to be important in those concepts because they are dealing with a high percentage of new hires with little or no serving experience.

High dollar establishments don't hire people without proven experience, and therefore can focus on the little things that will make a guest's experience better. Have you ever returned to your seat at Applebee's and found your napkin neatly refolded? Probably not since they use paper napkins. HA!

OK, so I'm a little elitist.