She was sacrificing her tip to save me money. I wasn’t going to let that pass!
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I so rarely get poor service anywhere in the world. We’ve occasionally gotten something like yours. So wonderful. And I make sure to seek out the owner/manager to praise the praise-worthy person. (Maybe not elaborate that she was ‘giving away the store’ - lol. Just high praise.)
I have mentioned both her and many of the other staff there to the manager before. Judging by his response to a table next to me having a mistake and his comping the meal I am pretty sure he is more interested in repeat business than one time profits. Good business model in my opinion.
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We had a similar experience - minor problem - that was dealt with so well. We actually ran into the owner/chef who’s a buddy. Having already praised the server and local manager, we sang all sorts of praises to our guy. When you take a problem and handle it very well, it’s better than the meal itself. IMneverHO of course 
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i’ll mention an observation made by roy choi of kogi fame to help explain why he was able to be successful; LA’s roots are not european based. as a result, european based culinary traditions which would include great service just don’t have much traction out here.
On the whole, I find service better in LA than in the SFBA, especially at more expensive places where good service is expected.
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I’m surprised to hear that. Why do you think that is?
Probably because too many waiter have moved to Portland, LA, and other places where there aren’t as many tech company employees driving up the rents. It’s hard to hire good staff and hard to retain them.
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VERY interesting comment. We had a convo with a couple of ex-SF’ers (our age) and, as almost always, it turns to real estate prices.
I actually have the opposite experience in regards to LA and SFBA. As far as lack of service goes, Hong Kong and Macau standards are almost non-existent even at some of the priciest restaurants.
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That might be what killed Crystal Jade Jiang Nan in SF.
I rarely every receive lackluster service at a restaurant in LA but then again I am in the industry and I do tend to go to places I feel are great restaurants already so maybe I just pick the right places?
If there’s a factor that may be a generalized factor in poor service it may be that in California there is no tipped minimum meaning waiters earn full minimum wage + tips unlike states such as New York where waiters earn a lower minimum wage and are allowed to make up the rest of their wages in tips (if they can’t reach the minimum hourly wage then the employer must pay the difference to meet the full minimum wage).
So basically in states like LA waiters do not have as strong of an incentive to provide better service because they know they will earn the minimum + tips in which most people do end up tipping.
Nothing in my post references previous threads (at least, not intentionally, since I don’t recall reading any of them).
What’s the difference btw how gratuities and service charges are handled?
As far as I know, at least in California, service charges are taxed and are not distributed to service or back of house staff. In some places here they are supposedly used to offset the cost of health insurance for employees, but that’s up to management. Gratuities are supposed to be for service staff and sometimes back of house. I think this has been discussed to death on other boards if not here.
I think that’s a story people make up.
There are a number of factors that might affect how a server waits on customers. Incentive to make up a few dollars an hour to reach minimum wage standards is definitely one variable. I’d hypothesize that’s a very minor variable. I’d bet on local culture, cost of living, management style, and workplace satisfaction as bigger drivers. Service in no-tip cultures seems to not suffer from lack of incentive to hustle for a few extra sheckles from customers. But I’m just guessing, too. It would be interesting to see if anyone has studied this.
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If you need to hustle for tips , you insure proper service for that need . If you want to keep your job even though their is no tipping. You give proper service or your out the door . You are a employee working for a boss. I don’t think any owner of a restaurant would stand for less . Just my 2 cents .
Service fees = go to house to figure out distribution
Gratuities = cannot be distributed to BOH staff
Ah thanks for the 2018 update
Thanks for the clarification. When you said that they were handled differently, I thought you meant that they were handled differently in a way that “faced” the consumer (rather than in financial statements/tax calculations).
Yes, I do believe that point has been discussed here a lot.
My point (which I didn’t make very clearly) was that, when a restaurant has a 20% mandatory gratituity, there shouldn’t be an extra line for an additional tip (IMHO).
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