2009 was a rough year for restaurants in San Francisco and (if January is any indicator) 2010 isn't going to be a bed of truffles and lollipops either. As a 20-year veteran of the restaurant industry, I cringe.

Have you taken a look at the list of restaurants that closed their doors in the past year? It isn't pretty. Browsing through SF Weekly's SFoodie blog and looking at all of the fallen eateries the other day, I felt like Scarlett O'Hara listening to a long roster of Civil War dead, hoping that none of the old soldiers I truly loved in this city were among the dead or wounded.

Some of the casualties were no big surprise. For example, my reaction to finding out that The Carnelian Room (sorry, Dad) atop the Bank of America tower had closed was like hearing that Abe Vigoda was really, really dead this time. My only surprise was that it had held on for so long.

I am, however, wearing my widow's weeds for some of the other, smaller restaurants that have left us, like Old Krakow, The Palace Steakhouse , and Clementine, just to name a few.

Many restaurants that have survived the 21st century economy thus far have resorted to luring guests into their dining rooms with 2-for-1 specials, happy hours, and (sigh) coupons. Even the once-mighty Aqua and The Dining Room at the Ritz-Carlton are offering 1,000 Open Table points if you would just pretty-please come for a visit. That's pretty much the online equivalent of begging.

In terms of restaurant workers, I'm one of the lucky ones. I work in a place that is still (author makes a hurried sigh of the cross) going strong. And there are fortunately several other venues in this city which are doing the same. That doesn't mean, however, that my fellow waiters and I are not feeling the pinch like everybody else. Like maybe you, for example.

These days, a lot of diners are cutting corners where they can. Some of those who do come into our places of business are either coming less often than they used to or are simply spending less. Often, I see couples either sharing one main course or foregoing them altogether and sticking to appetizers. If wine enters the picture, people are drinking more wines-by-the-glass than they are bottles. On the weekends, I see almost as many guests bring in their own wine as order from our wine list. And, of course, those wines aren't usually the ones listed on the reserve menu. As a result, our sales our down. Just like everyone else's, with the possible exception of pharmaceutical companies, undertakers, and bank executives.

Yesterday, for example, I overheard a very well-dressed business woman who works for a high-profile company mention to her lunch partners, "I don't go out much anymore. I've started brown-bagging it at work. I even stopped getting my Starbucks every morning, for God's sake, so today's a real treat!" It's a sensible, Depression Era mindset and I can't say that I blame her one bit.

What I do blame her for is leaving me a 12% tip. And I blame the business guy sitting ten feet away from her discussing how his children don't appreciate how expensive their ski weekend in Aspen really was who gave me even less. And, no, I wasn't having an off day. I was clean, neat, welcoming, informative, prompt, and all the dozen-or-so other good things I have to be to each and every table I take care of. I happen to see it as a trend-- and an ugly one at that.

Don't worry, you won't be hearing violins and I promise not to go all Sally Struthers on you today (though we do share the same birthday, Sally and I). But it is a bit of a rant.

I've said it before and I will say it again, if you leave a (expletive) tip to a server, there had better be a good reason for it. If she is rude or hostile, don't leave one at all. If he screws up your order and blames everyone else, then disappears for a cigarette when you need to pay the check so you can get to the airport like you said you needed to at the beginning of the meal... stiff him-- he deserves it.

But leaving $20 on a $500 bill to a waiter who has orchestrated your meal, told you when you are ordering too much, selected a wine for you that you absolutely rave about, and who makes you look good because your guests are all raving about their experience is an outrage. All the more so because that waiter can't say or do anything about it without losing his job. There is a special dining circle in hell reserved for just this kind of diner.

Not that I feel very strongly about it one way or the other, of course.

Nearly a year ago, I explained in detail exactly what happens in such an extreme case of (undeserved) bad tipping. I mention it again because I've just witnessed another co-worker be treated in the same manner on a similarly-sized check.

Granted, the above is an extreme case, but people are leaving $3 less here, $5 less there. It's alarming to those of us who earn our living depending upon the unreliable tipping habits of strangers. $3 might not sound like very much, but it is. If a server waits upon ten tables in a night and they all sought to save a little money by leaving $3 less, that's $30 out of a server's take home pay per shift. If a server works five shifts per week, that's $150 less. Per month? Around $600. Per year? I think you get the picture. I'm being conservative in my estimates. And remember, sales are typically down all over town, so a server's losses are frequently more when you consider that tips are based on sales.

If you do need to cut down your dining expenses, don't take it out on the good servers. Of course, if you come into my restaurant and want to spend a lot of money, make no mistake-- I'll help you spend it. You'll have a great time doing it, too. But if you come and don't want to blow your whole pay check, I will go out of my way make sure you don't. I'm not going to make you feel like a cheapskate and you'll have just as good a time as the Fat Cats sitting next to you (if not better because, hey, you're more relaxed since you haven't just spent your rent money trying to impress your date).

When the bill comes, be kind. Remember that I found you that beautiful bottle of wine from a region you've never tried before that was $20 less (and much better) than the one you were asking about. It made you look adventurous. Do keep in mind that I suggested our rib eye steak was big enough to feed the both of you. That made your dinner a little more intimate, didn't it? And when I served it all out table side? Ah, that was a nice touch, wasn't it? And when I sent you that dessert for no other reason than "just because," well... perhaps you might bear in mind that I just cut about $50 off of your tab when you are leaving me a tip. Great waiters are worth their weight in gold.

My assumption here is that most of you reading this are savvy enough diners to not make your servers take one in the shorts. You are more than likely sophisticated enough to know good service when you experience it. Why do I know this? Because you're reading a food blog, that's why. I'm not saying it's you. Really. Except those of you who are invariably going to comment that I am being whiney or that I should "get a real job" (I've heard that one before). I'm saying it might just be your mother, or your husband, or your best friend, in which case I hope that you might pass this post along to them after you've given them a nice big hug and told them you love them, even though they are embarrassingly cheap.

The next time you go out to dinner and you've had a great meal and and even greater server, make sure he or she is taken care of. In the words of the mortal Canadian (and you know how Americans make fun of their tipping habits) pundit Nicholas Demeda, "If you can afford to dine out, you can afford to tip well."

Tipping for good service is the one place you should never cut corners.

Watch This Week in Northern California tonight, Friday January 29 at 8pm to see Leslie Sbrocco, host of Check, Please! Bay Area in a new segment on local food and wine trends. This week, a conversation about restaurants and the recession and underground food markets with Bay Area Bites bloggers, Michael Procopio and Stephanie Rosenbaum.

Things are tough all over. This isn't exactly news. I can't think of a single person I know who hasn't been hit on some level by the mess our economy is in. Everyone, it seems, is scaling back on spending.

And who can blame them?

In a city that prides itself on its food scene, San Francisco's restaurants have taken a very hard hit. With fewer people lunching and dining out these days, many places in the city have either laid off staff or cut their hours. Some once-favored haunts have decided to close their doors for lunch, some have chosen to to hang out the "Now Open for Sunday Brunch" sign (which is usually an indicator of fiscal desperation), some have been forced to shut down permanently.

As a professional waiter, I consider myself very lucky to be working in a popular and (blessedly) busy restaurant. Hell, I consider myself lucky to have a job. Period.

Tipping Down

The current trend in dining these days seems to be downsizing-- from the price tag of the wine purchase to the amount of food ordered. Perfectly understandable. Not a single server I have talked to about the situation was unsympathetic to the current, collective economic plight. People are ordering fewer bottles of wine, and more are going for what some refer to as "non'trées"-- the ordering of appetizers in lieu of main courses. It's a hit to our wallets, of course (I have personally seen an average 30% decrease in my own sales), but we know were not the only ones. It's been openly discussed at our staff meetings that the guests who were dining with us in the fat times are still here with us in the lean ones, and we should be ever mindful of that. Which, for the most part, we are. The goal is to keep them coming back. We are making less money, of course, but we are working harder for it.

And that's fine.

What isn't fine is the much more alarming trend that seems to be running apace with the downsizing of dine-out meals-- the downsizing of tips. Along with decreased sales, servers are seeing a general lowering of their gratuity's percentage. And this is not okay. Not at all.

Tipping Out

I've always wondered if people who have never worked in the service industry know how restaurant tipping actually operates. It's a subject that most people probably don't give much thought to. You tip your server, she pockets the money, and goes home with it at the end of the shift.

But that's not how it works.

In a recent phone interview with a reporter from a major national newspaper, I was asked about the current economic situation and how it was affecting San Francisco restaurants. In relating my own experience, I told her roughly what I sell on an average night and what my tips are like. When I told her where exactly that money went, how I am taxed on my sales, and what I actually walk out the door with, she was surprised. She explained to me that, in all the years she had been covering restaurants, she had never even thought to ask about the process of tipping out. I respected her for that admission. And it dawned on me that, if she didn't know, how many diners do?

If I am given a $50 tip, on a $250 bill, that's wonderful, but it's not exactly all mine to keep. In most restaurants, especially high-end places, a server is not simply working for his own tips. In my place of business, the gratuity I receive from any given table goes towards supporting nine other employees. Ten, including myself.

Here's an illustration of what is occurring with ever-increasing frequency in our restaurants. Possibly just a bad turn of luck, but it illustrates what really happens when a good server receives a bad tip:

I'll use the example of a fellow waiter who took care of some regular guests and four of their friends. The waiter in question is extremely professional-- fun and chatty at the right moments, formal and efficient at other times, or any combination of the above-mentioned, as each case necessitates. And, above all, he actually cares about what he's doing. He puts his heart into his work.

The regulars and their guests were treated to a few complimentary appetizers and were well taken care of, as usual. When the bill arrived, it was not the regular guests who paid, but one of their tablemates. On a $500 check, the guest left the waiter a $20 tip. Needless to say, the waiter was upset, but could say nothing, except to his co-workers and manager. Vent it, shrug it, face it, let it go. Hopefully do not repeat-- that is often our sanity-saving mantra.

His tip may have been $20, which is insult enough, given his high level of care and service. The financial damage, however, is far worse in such cases.

The Break Down

Granted, the "tip out" (what a server tips out to his support staff) varies from restaurant to restaurant. Some houses pool tips, others ensure that the kitchen staff receives a percentage. The permutations are endless, but all enacted with the goal of supporting the other, no-less-important members of the service team. This is how it works at our place of business:

Tip outs are often based on sales, not the total amount of gratuity.

On a $500 sale, the waiter must give, at the very minimum:

Busser: $15 (3% but usually closer to 4% since a busser is a server's chiefest ally)

Food Runner: $5 (1%)

Hostess: $5 (1%)

Bartender: $6.25 (1.25%)

Our stocker receives $5 per waiter as a flat fee every shift, our barista receives $10.

We do not ever decrease the amounts given to our support staff.

Having been given $20 for his services, the waiter actually lost about $12 taking care of these guests. And that's just on the surface. The IRS calculates roughly 8% of a server's sales as taxable income, owing to the variability of tipping. 8%, in this instance is $40-- more than twice what the waiter was paid.

Clearly, I am biased. I have a vested interest in people tipping properly. And by properly, I mean 15% at the very minimum for basic service. Good service deserves 20%. That is our custom.

The goal of this post isn't to shame people into tipping more. My readers are, by and large, pretty savvy in these matters. I just have the feeling that, if more people understood where that tip money goes and what the consequences are to those who bear the double brunt of lowered sales and lowered tips, they might think twice about saving that extra few dollars by leaving less money to the people who take care of them.

If you are well taken care of, take care of your caretakers.

Amen.

And pass it on.

Today's post is directed at my waiter brethren, should there be any reading. The rest of you, of course, are most welcome to read.

The other night, I waited on a rather handsome European couple. Spanish. First time in San Francisco. They were youngish, well-dressed, and very polite. They ordered wine, three courses of food, and bottled water. So far, so good. When I checked in with them at each course, they seemed happy. The temperature of their wine? Excellent-- they even thanked me for asking. My dessert suggestions? They took them and loved them. These were not menu-pointers, miming their way through a meal because they lacked the local language skills.

When I brought them their check, they examined the bill, slipped in some cash and said, "Thank you, that's fine," indicating that they would not need change.

I examined the cash inside the bill folder. $130. Their meal was $126.25. I rushed to the bar and rather hurriedly asked one of our bartenders to make me some change, and quickly, because "I'm about to get "f---ed by table 10," I said. In front of my boss.

I received the change and gently placed the remaining $3.75 back in the bill folder with the three little bills neatly peaking out of the corner back on their table. Perhaps, I thought, there had been a mistake in their calculation. They might examine the contents and increase the 2.97% tip they were unwittingly leaving me. During the next half hour, during which I refilled their waters, folded their napkins, and asked if they had suitable transportation home, they never re-examined the contents of the folder. As they stood up to leave, I felt the anger swelling up behind my eyes. But I smiled, tilted my head and knitted my brow in such a way that would indicate that I was slightly perplexed to the marginally perceptive, and said, "Good night," with such a subtle questioning at the end of it I am uncertain as to whether typing a question mark is deserved.

They didn't so much ignore me as act oblivious to my words. I thought the best thing for me to do was walk away before I did something foolish, like stick my foot out as they approached the steps to the exit.

I stood by the hostess stand at the front door as they approached, giving them one more chance. I tried to obtain eye contact with the man, but he would not meet my eye. Instead, he held out his coat check. Fortunately, the hostess on duty took it before I had the opportunity to ignore his gesture or reply to it with one of my own. I followed her to the coat closet.

"Spit in it," I said. "I think you should spit in his coat." I'm sure she thought I was joking. "Or, at least, drop-kick it when you hand it to him." The sad thing is, I wasn't joking.

Well, that moment at the coat check served as a little reality check for me.

At our shift meeting earlier in the evening, my boss had warned us that summer was approaching. Our regular customers would be crowded out by out-of-towners, both of the American and foreign variety. Cranky travelers and people for whom American-style tipping was, well, a foreign concept. The announcement brought down the mood of the staff, but he was speaking the truth, and the point of his little speech was that we needed to basically suck it up and treat these new guests with the same warmth we treat our regulars. We needed to kill them with kindness, regardless of what kind of tips a Spaniard, German, or Canadian might leave. I briefly wondered which type of insecticide added to coffee would be considered kind.

He was right, of course. So what was I angry about?:

1. The money. My service merited at least another $20 in gratuity.

2. I let these two people get under my skin on the very night my boss had warned us, as though he had somehow jinxed me.

3. The fact that I let any guest get under my skin.

I consider myself fortunate in terms of my experience as a professional waiter. I work at a wonderful restaurant. It's upscale without being over-the-top, has a fun vibe, and is always packed with people-- it's not easy to get a last minute reservation, though we will bend over backwards to try to accommodate. The guests, by and large, are either affluent and willing to spend money or, at the very least, enthusiastic about dining with us. I almost never just wait on people, but act more like the host of a dinner party at every table in my station-- offering my suggestions, painting verbal pictures yet-to-be-seen food items, getting people to relax and open up. I work in a place where a handshake normally accompanies the "good nights", and a hug or even a kiss from the women is not at all uncommon. "Goodbye" is almost never said, but rather "see you again, soon."

And, normally, my tips reflect my service. Twenty percent is the norm, but twenty-five or thirty is not unusual, either. Am I spoiled? I don't think so. I work hard at what I do, and I am frankly very good at it.

But I allowed the two idiots who gave me a 2.97% tip to get to me. I had tied my own sense of worth to money. $3.75, to be exact. It colored my outlook for the rest of the evening. Fortunately, they were my last table, so I brought no thundercloud to my other guests.

I sometimes find working exclusively for tips a bit harrowing. There is a vagueness of income that is frustrating-- never knowing exactly how much one is going to earn in a month makes budgeting difficult. Waiters have nights when they're on fire and making money hand-over-fist, others when their sections are populated by women who bring photo albums with them and haven't seen each other in years-- splitting salads and making two hundred substitutions.

The fact that my income is wholly dependent upon how much a stranger feels I am worth is rather frightening if I stop to think about it for long. So I don't.

The fact that I sometimes allow my own sense of worth to be determined by strangers is even worse. I feel validated when a group of business guys leaves an extra hundred dollars on top of an automatic 20% tip. I feel utterly deflated when Spaniards screw me.

It's crazy-making. I do the same thing every night with mostly rave reviews. Sometimes, I get the shaft. And in my calmer moments, I can shake it off easily.

But the summer season is upon us, complete with the usual unprepared tourist who freeze their asses of in their shorts and hastily- Wharf-bought San Francisco sweatshirts in the middle of July. As a member of the hospitality industry, I need to remind myself that I cannot give lessons in tipping etiquette to the ignorant, but merely accept them as they are. I'm not a bad waiter if I receive a 2.97% tip, I'm a bad waiter if I am, well, inhospitable. In the meantime, I'll have to accept the occasional bad tip along with all the good ones and dream of the day after Labor Day, when our summer really begins and the tourists go back to the non-tipping lands from which they came.