Nancy Young wrote:
>
> Over the years I've also seen printed menus where the prices haven't
> gone up in *forever* ... I'm pretty sure the bartender's bills have,
> though.

I sure haven't seen that. Since we are both retired, we don't go out for
meals as often as we used to. We had already noticed before retiring
that restaurant prices were increasing a lot. On the rare occasions that
we go out now I am shocked to see how much higher they have gone.


> Let's just say I believe in tipping appropriately. I wouldn't stand on
> principle one way or another. If you get good service, don't stick to
> a rule just because.


FWIW, we were out at a nice restaurant for lunch last weekend. It was my
brother's 40th anniversary. There were about 20 of us. Service was
slow. When the waitress came around to take drink orders, my wife asked
a question about the menu, which seemed to throw the waitress off and
she left without taking my order. I had a hell of time getting her
attention and finally someone else tagged her and told her that she
taken my drink order. She came over and I ordered a beer for me and a
glass of wine for my wife. It was a good 15 minutes before she returned
with the drinks.

That left me in a bit of a dilemma for me. The prices were pretty steep
and the bill came to almost $90, and I am expected to spend $15 on a tip
for someone who neglected me and spent all of 5 minutes dealing with me?
With 10 couples there, all paying roughly 15%, that would work out to
something int he range of $150 for the two hours she spent waiting on us.