This is more stream of consciousness than an organized memoir.
I was thinking about going to breakfast tomorrow (Sunday), at the Pine Mountain Grill in Whitesburg, and how much I was looking forward to it. This is something my husband and I do every Sunday, we only miss it if the snow is too deep or one of us is seriously ill. Part of the pleasure of going is how nice all the wait staff are to us, how cheerily they greet us, and always try to seat us at our favorite table in front of the great stone fireplace. Even if we show up on a different day and time, there is always several workers who recognize us and greet us warmly and treat us so well.
Part of the answer is to our treatment at Pine Mountain Grill is that we are both very respectful of people who provide us service, but it doesn't hurt that we established many years ago that we were great tippers. These days we try to tip 100% of the bill whenever possible. I started thinking, how and when did I start being a person who tipped more than customary, and realize it all began in Lexington in the 1970's.
When I went to live in Lexington, Kentucky in 1975, one of my favorite neighborhoods within walking distance of student housing was called Chevy Chase. In particular, I loved the little shopping district at the point where East High Street took a sharp bend and became Tates Creek Road (both major spokes of the wheel that was Lexington), and Euclid Avenue ended and suddenly became Fontaine Road.
The place was a tacky jumble of buildings, signs, and small stores and restaurants. There was the Tast E O Donuts, jewelry store, drug store, a used bookstore that one of my roommates haunted for paperback romance novels, a children's toy store, laundry-mat, and Jerry Spry's Hair Studio. Young men trained under Jerry Spry learned to cut hair using rulers and calipers, precision cuts they were called.
One of the most popular establishments in Chevy Chase, was Charlie Browns, a lounge and bar were on the first floor and restaurant seating was on the second floor. Interestingly Charlie Browns still exists and looks not much different than it did in the 1970's. As a poor graduate student I generally only ate at Charlie Browns when someone else was buying. Once in 1977, my best friend, Elise, from college had gotten married and her new husband was first cousins with the hottest weatherman in Lexington, Brad James. Brad, his wife, Elise, her husband and I the grateful friend, all went to see Star Wars (the original, didn't have a subtitle in those days) together and afterwards Brad treated all of us to dinner at Charlie Browns. Brad and his wife were really lovely, interesting people, and my friend Elise was always a great story teller so the evening was filled with great stories and good laughs and wonderful food.
Not too long after that fun experience at Charlie Browns I had another one, that I remember a little less charitably. I had a crush on a male faculty member who was not many years older than me. One time he asked me out to dinner and took me to Charlie Browns. I don't actually remember anything at all about the meal, the conversation or anything else, except how it ended. This fellow gave a little speech about how the restaurant industry exploited its workers and paid them less than minimum wage, and expected tips to make up the difference, all of which was true, and restaurant owners should pay their workers more. But then this man used that as an excuse not to leave any tip at all, saying he wasn't going to prop up the capitalist class. I was deeply embarrassed and ashamed and if I'd had any money at all I would have left it as a tip, but I didn't. The only person who suffers when you don't leave a tip is the wait staff.
Around the same time I remember reading an article about the "feminist tip", probably in Ms. Magazine one of the few subscriptions I paid for in grad school. The article argued that women were more likely to work breakfast and lunch in restaurants, while men were more likely to work dinner, as a result because breakfast and lunch were cheaper than dinner, women made much less in tips for the same amount of work. The article argued that while 15% was fine for an expensive dinner out, that one should pay 20% or 25% tip for breakfast or lunch. I took that article to heart, and when I started working full time and had income enough to start eating out regularly, I began making my minimum tip one dollar, this was back when breakfast might cost you $2.50 or less.
My first (ex) husband, in the 1980's worked in the restaurant business, first as a waiter then as a chef; his mother worked as a waitress for decades. We often went out to eat together during our marriage, and I admired how they treated those that served them, and how they tipped. That marriage may have ended more than 40 years ago, but the lessons about how to treat restaurant workers and how to tip stayed with me.
When my husband and I first started going out regularly for Sunday breakfast it was fifteen years ago and most of the wait staff at Pine Mountain Grill were students of mine. It was the semester that my introductory sociology class had two Tylers, and one of those two Tylers (whose last name is unfortunately lost to the fog of memory) worked the Sunday morning breakfast shift. He was a really good student, an A student, outstanding in the class. It was also about the time that people first started talking about raising the minimum wage to $15 (of course now it should be $20 or more for the same buying power). At the time breakfast for both of us cost just about $15, so I started giving $15 tip. I had two things in mind, that at least for one hour of the day, our waiter would earn $15 an hour and also, I thought that if I tipped well, no one would think that I gave him a good grade because of how he treated me as a customer (I know that last little bit is pretty convoluted, but sometimes that's how my brain works).
Over the next six or seven years, I saw a half dozen of my male students take jobs on the wait staff of the Pine Mountain Grill, and we tipped them all the same, about 100% of the bill. As the bill rose so did the tip. Not long after I retired, I stopped seeing young men working as waiters. Instead middle aged women have taken over most of the breakfast waiting duties. I still tip 100% of the bill, even now when it's gotten to $25 for the two of us for breakfast. It will probably go up again soon, even if just to cover the cost of coffee which is skyrocketing with the tariffs.
I don't expect everyone to tip the way I do. But I do expect everyone to tip, I don't care how your service was, or how grumpy your waiter was. You still should tip at least 15%. If you can tip more than do so. But you should also lobby your legislators to raise minimum wage for currently tipped workers. You should vote for people who want to raise the minimum wage over all and especially for currently tipped workers.
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