So, you go into your local bar after seeing a drink special on their street-side electronic billboard. $2.50 drafts! If you know the Sports Depot, it's been a long time since there have been cheap beers served for local folks. This particular special was for Miller High Life.
First beer comes and goes. $1 tip. Not bad, I think - 40% tip. Call me an old schooler. But I still tip my bartenders 20% if they do a good job. Maybe a tad less if the drink served is an over priced -tini.
Anyways, Miller High Life-tini #2 comes along. With tax, the drink comes to $2.65 or something like that. I tip the bartender 60 cents. Not a grand tip, no kidding. But over 20% - for a cheap drink. No one said the bartender detailed my car and got my kid his shirley temple with an extra cherry. He just poured a beer. High Life. Cheap. Drink special. Brought it over.
I put the 60 cent tip down, figuring it added to the dollar tip from before. He takes it. He remarks: "Thanks - thanks for nothing." Thanks for nothing. Hmmm.
I turn to the bartender and ask him what he just said (since the old waiter in me knows I reached the 20% + mark on my tip). He replies, "Nothing sir - thank you - no problem, sir, thank you."
So here I am, a customer in a bar - pulled in by a good promotion - being chastised by a bartender with no sense of decorum or math. Thank you Sports Depot, my neighborhood Local.
$5 or so tab for two High Lifes. (Where's the guy from the commercial?) Over 30% in tips to the fat bartender who walked 3 feet to the tap handle, only to chastise my less than generous tip. Where's the reasonableness? Where's the etiquette? I don't like leaving change for a tip - but, c'mon, this is the High Life and this is the bar's special and this is a $2.50 draft ... and the tip was over 30%.
(Did he expect that I should make up for his management's drink special with a 2 dollar tip on a still-overpriced domestic beer?) Is this the high life?
Pros: Many TVs - all sports - in the neighborhood
Cons: Rude service, over priced food and drink (in general)
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