How to Avoid a Costly Restaurant Bill

If you're fooled by menus that say 25 instead of $25, you should probably eat with your hands to avoid stabbing your ignorant self in the eye with your salad fork.

We are spun and manipulated from the cradle to the grave.

Or go to these places called grocery stores and throw a few steaks on the grill while drinking your wine. An entree just the way you like it, the sides you want, and no worries about the service.

If this article is an eye opener for you then I want to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn. If you think 25 does not equal $25 or if you think gas for $4.24 and 9/10 is equal to $4.24 then you're *&^#$

Go to a fine restaurant on occasion and enjoy yourself... it's far better than going to a fast food joint every day and not much more expensive.

Paul : "Don't tip the server."
Then don't come back. Tips are lifeblood to servers -

There is no person's name on this article. Do you trust writing with no accountability or think maybe this is like restaurateurs using tricks?

How did an article about how restaurants make money devolve into comments about how much to tip the wait staff??????

Tips are for good service. If you don't give me good service (my biggest pet peeve in a restaurant is when I have an empty plate and the server comes to the table and does not clear that plate) then your tip will reflect it. You shouldn't expect a certain dollar amount because you showed up at my table and put a menu in front of me. Now I will say there is a difference between getting bad food from the kitchen and getting bad wait service. Bad food from the kitchen in my opinion should not reflect a bad tip for the server. And yes I was a server for a long time.

Tipped employees are paid only a fraction of the minimum wage. Employers can take credit for the tips to meet their legal obligation to pay at least the minimum wage.

tipping should be outlawed.. All you are doing is keeping a worker from a fair wage for their labor.... Bosses love this. Let the public pay my workers I pay them next to nothing because that is ok they will make it in tips!!! "A FAIR DAY'S PAY FOR A FAIR DAY'S WORK.

I'm sorry but if I can not afford to tip the wait staff well, whether I am at a 5 star or Western Sizzler, I just don't go out to eat ... and I do not think well of someone who tips poorly!

most people dont order prime rib?
that is the most one people order.
i am a chef, and sell lots of it.

Servers across the nation every day are strongly encouraged by management to increase their ticket averages by various suggestive selling techniques and now this boob wants to teach everyone how not to fall for them. My guess is he's never had a restaurant job. Probably looks down his nose at everybody who does.

Go out to a nice Restaurant occasionally and don"t sweat the cost & please leave a nice tip.If you can't do the above then you should just stay home.

This sounds like the Feds. Fees instead of tax and so forth

Wow, these were really some mind-blowing revelations about how restaurants take advantage of you. Classic Yahoo reporting.

Our tipping is for the Service rendered. Just because a server walks by and smiles and say's "Is everything alright?" You are there to serve your customers, Do your job! Don't walk around like your on a runway showing off your T&A!!!

One aspect of tipping to which a legitimate objection can be made by the diner is that the tip is shared, in many establishments, as discussed briefly in this article and by some posters, with restaurant personnel OTHER than the server. I have discussed this with some servers, and the server generally does NOT have a say in how much non-server person X gets. The money is split up by management or according to a formula. To me, this is nonsense. If I, as the diner, have discretion to tip or not- and if so, how much- based upon the quality of service, then the server should have that power likewise, to better reward the busboy who busts his tail, and to penalize the water-server who sits on his butt while the customers dehydrate. If servers are subject to customers' whims, then those who feed at the trough of the servers' tips should be subject to the whims of the servers. In effect, a substantial number of restaurant employees are the employees of the servers. If the servers are paying for employee X through tip reallocation, then the servers should be able to fire employee X. I would like to read postings by servers about this aspect of restaurant work, which I consider to be just two or three tweaks short of an outright scam.

tips = to insure prompt service so no service on tip