I went out for dinner tonight to a sushi restaurant with a $3/roll happy hour on Wednesdays. I was looking forward to the meal, but didn't expect too much from the quality since it was so cheap. It turned out to be just ok, exactly how I thought it would. However, service was subpar. The place was not even close to being full (maybe 5 tables were occupied), and there were 2 servers, both who were pretty inattentive. My table waited close to 40 minutes before our food came out (after waiting for a while for someone to seat us), and I literally had to get up and wave down a waitress to ask for something after trying to make eye contact/get her attention for several minutes. I would have been more forgiving if the restaurant was packed and the waitress actually cared about her job, but again, neither were the case.
So my question: should tip be an indication of poor/fantastic service? I feel like in cases of great service, sure. But what about the opposite? Is it flat out wrong to go below 15-20% of the bill, no matter how bad the server?
I ended up giving 15% even though I didn't feel like it. Granted, my experience wasn't absolutely horrible.. ie the waitress wasn't rude nor offensive, but it made me think about tipping as a requirement vs. an optional commission of sorts.
