The Blue Board

I'm more in line with you. 15% is my standard, 20% if exceptional, really low to make a point if awful.

My father always tipped 10%, until the day he died. That was standard until sometime in the '70s, when restaurant industry pushed to raise it to 15%. More recently they've tried to raise it to 18%. Several restaurants have included "automatic gratuity" of 18% due to the size of my family (2 adults, 4 kids), but I just have to take a few more minutes to make them change it to 15%. Gratuity/tip is *my* choice, not theirs.

When I waited tables we had the option of including auto grat on large parties or not. I usually opted not to because I thought I did a good job. Got burned by a few schmucks with verbal tipping though.

I'll tell you what I tell everyone I work with:

Take the guarentee. If they really thought you were that exceptional, they'll tip you over.

I honestly hate tipping bartenders. Not because they don't work hard or anything, but because if I'm at a bar, I generally take up about 4 seconds of your time per order (I'll get like a bottled guiness or guiness on tap).

I end up giving an extra buck as a tip. That time involved per dollar earned is crazy IMO.

That said over tipping your bartender is your best friend. It's how I never have bar tabs at some places I go

I can respect that.

If it's slammed and they go out of their rotation for me though, thats a whole different story

tipping at the bar depends on the bar... you are right

a fine eating place where the bartended makes a drink for you and caters you is well worth the tip..

having some barfly crack open a budlight and expecting a buck for a 2 dollar beer is stupid.

Bar tipping is totally different.

Never was shy to get bartenders good tips during college because some nights were just pure insanity.

Ended up a regular at one place in particular aaaaaand it was awesome. The line could be three/four people deep across the entire bar, and all I had to do was make eye contact with my bartender and give him the nod with a corresponding hand signal to indicate how many. The faces on most of the other people waiting to get served were priceless as he'd serve drinks to me over their heads. That kind of service is impossible without overtipping.

Bingo

I remember the LSU/Alabama game of the century.

Walked in after work, skipped the line of people waiting to get in. All the bartenders saw me walk in and stopped and handed me a beer.

People were like "WTF?? Who the hell is this dude?"

Ahh that explains it, you're in the middle of no where

Madison (where I live) is like 200k people I think.

But WI is the most beer-friendly state in the world. Basically no alcohol tax. Really straightfoward and cheap liquor licenses.

Keeps bar prices down.

That's awesome. Liquor licenses are a bitch in SC just bc it's bible belt and you better bring lube and your favorite toy if you wanna try and get a sunday license in Charleston, and iirc there are still places in SC where you can't even get a sunday license.

Yeah I have family in Tennessee and when they first moved there, the look on their faces when they couldn't buy beer on Sunday because it was illegal was pretty priceless.

Now they wised up and buy all their booze on Saturday.