ONE READER KNOWS BEST REASON TO TIP: COURTESY
The subject of tipping has been the topic of many of these columns in the last year. The pieces generated a great deal of mail, and the mail kept coming after the series ended.
They’re the usual mix of cheapskate screeds (often from members of highly paid professions) complaining about the whole idea of tipping in the first place (“Tipping is just the same as begging,” wrote one correspondent), or carping because 10% isn’t considered enough by most servers, and of notes from waiters and waitresses themselves, offering their own side of the story--interesting material, but repetitious. One letter, though, from the diner’s side of the table, stood out for its reasonableness and generosity.
The letter comes from Elisabeth (if I’m reading her signature correctly) Eckels of Diamond Bar. Eckels used to meet her daughter, who was employed by a large corporation, every day at the same restaurant for lunch. The daughter had a short break, didn’t drink at noontime, and “was always on a diet and never wanted more than an appetizer.” Daily, Eckels reports, she would herself arrive early at the restaurant and make sure her server understood the situation. Then her daughter would appear and the two would eat a light meal together. When the younger woman departed, Eckels, who is of Swiss origin, would order a glass of wine and linger at the table for a while.
“My tip was never based on the price of my bill,” she writes. “I took into consideration the service my daughter got on her short lunch hour and the amount of time I occupied a table. I tried to make certain no one lost money by waiting on our table. For a $12 tab, I would leave a $5 tip . . . but I didn’t consider it too much, all things considered.” Eckels, in other words, unlike most of my correspondents in this matter, treated her waiter or waitress like a human being. Now, waiting on tables is admittedly a service job, and thus implies a certain temporary acceptance of a subservient role. But (the maddening incompetence and arrogant stupidity of too many restaurant servers notwithstanding), being a waiter or a waitress is a demanding job, and one that, if done well, deserves good recompense. And anyway, only arrivistes and boors mistreat the hired help.
ARE YOU A SLAVE TO STEAK?: If so, you might want to visit the Kozy Kitchen restaurant on Highway 1 in Oxnard: Advertised in the window is a “Complete New Yoke Steak” dinner for $5.95.
TABLE TALK: Two new casualties of the rough-and-tumble restaurant game hereabouts are Kathy Gallagher’s in West Hollywood and Outside China in Studio City. . . . Just starting out, on the other hand, is L’Epicure, on La Cienega Boulevard in Beverly Hills, owned by noted local caterer Roubina Begoumian. (Speaking of tipping, incidentally, as we were earlier, L’Epicure plans to add an obligatory 18% service charge to check totals--a controversial and, thus far at least, un-American practice that, to this point, only Michael’s in Santa Monica has really had the cachet to get away with in L.A.) . . . Perino’s, in mid-Wilshire, has inaugurated a Friday night dinner-theater program, featuring an audience-participation mystery called “Murder at Eight.” The cost is $75 per person, including dinner, the play and tips. . . . Nucleus Nuance in Hollywood has bowed to public pressure and returned their famous “Evolution Burger” to the menu--the one Charles Perry once called (defensibly, to be sure) “the best burger in California.”
EVENTS: Cafe Pierre in Manhattan Beach presents a four-course dinner and wines from the Carmenet, Acacia and Chalone wineries for $40 per person Monday evening. . . . The Station Cafe in Long Beach hosts Bill Henri, wine maker at the William Hill Winery, on Tuesday night. Offered will be a five-course menu and five award-winning Hill wines, for $25 a head. . . . The Italian Fisherman in Pasadena begins a monthly series of wine and food events on Wednesday with an introductory wine program conducted by Frederick Le Comte. The second installment of the series, on March 16, studies the mating of wine and cheese. . . . The California Restaurant Writers Assn. Awards Banquet will be held March 23 at the Sheraton Premiere Hotel in Universal City. The black-tie event is open to the public, with tickets at $115 each. Call (213) 656-3752 for details. . . . And just in case you find yourself down Louisiana way this week, you won’t want to miss the 1987 International Crawfish Tasting and Trade Show, Feb. 27-28, at the Cajundome in Lafayette. Crawfish fettuccine, crawfish pizza, crawfish egg rolls and, for all I know, crawfish cream pie will be among the featured delicacies. Call (318) 235-7072 for crawf . . . er, for information.