I like the "old school" Aussie/NZ way of tipping. This still occurs for the most part in small towns and places where tourism isn't big in NZ, and about 15 years ago was common place even in Auckland. Since then, tipping tourists have corrupted this system. As mentioned by Ducay above, Aussie and NZ still have an "almost" no tipping system.
No tipping. The restaurant manager (usually owner) is also the greeter/maitre d. It is his job to greet patrons on the way in and would ALWAYS have a little chat with the patrons on the way out. "How was your service?", "How was the food?", "Did you notice the new painting above the bar?" etc...
Unlike here where we pay all waitresses the same, in NZ they used to all be paid very differently. Some waitresses would be paid more than double others, if they had been there a long time and the managers knew they were doing an exceptional job.
One of the main reasons this works better than the North American system is because you don't have a waitress dedicating more time to larger tables in an attempt to garner a larger tip. That means that when my wife and I go for a nice dinner just the two of us we won't be ignored because we are sitting beside a table of 16 that is going to generate a huge tip because they don't realize that the 8% tip is not already included in the bill.
Waitresses should be paid for how good they are at there job. They shouldn't be punished if they get 3 straight tables of seniors that tip in 50 cent pieces. They should not be rewarded for landing the table of 4 drunk business men who want to impress there buddies by tipping big.
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