Do you tip with your server in mind or the entire service experience?

• Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston
• Ernest Hemingway knew how to tip.

Service is one of those aspects of running a restaurant that seems simple. The guests are seated with menus. The order is taken. The order is entered into the point-of-sale system (which varies from software to chicken scratch on a piece of notebook paper). The order is cooked. The order is delivered to the table. The order is eaten. The drinks are refilled. The check is received and paid.

The problem is that at each of those eight steps, there’s the opportunity for something to go wrong. And each step is reliant on the previous step being completed, so the possibility of getting through the eighth step without a mistake is much lower than the first step. Now while the server is the person you interact with the most, there are hosts, chefs, expediters and bussers, who can all fall down or rise above their jobs.

But when it comes time for you to tip, are you thinking about your server or the entire staff’s performance?