babe. they DONT make minimum wage. average server hourly wage is usually $2-5/hr.

the degrading part is you implying serving is “just” bringing food to a table. it is much more involved and difficult than that, both physically and mentally. it combines the difficulties of regular customer service with the difficulties of manual labor all rolled into $2 an hour.

again, i agree it shouldn’t be set up this way. and trust me, most servers don’t give a shit about actually getting 20%, we just don’t like when people leave $3 on a $90 tab. also, the reason it is a percentage, however, is because generally the more you’re spending the more work you’re creating for the server (ie more food running, more people to take care of) so they should get paid more for that service.

Not that I think the current american tipping system is great, but your tone here is pretty degrading to servers. a LOT of places split tips with front of house and back of house, so the chef does get tipped out, but the server is the only one making less than minimum wage. i agree the wage of the server shouldn’t fall on the customer, but that’s the way it is right now and taking your anger out on the server by not tipping isn’t going to change that fact.