Neither of which matter as the labor for production of said meal and drinks does not benefit from the tip, it is instead the person who takes your order and carries it to the table.
Tips get pooled. Only in very expensive restaurants does the chef fully prepare your plate. Arranging that your table gets all it's meals at once is not as simple as you might think it is.
If you've not seen how the back of house functions you may have some misconceptions about the sources of labor involved in your meal.
This is a generalization that isn’t universally true. I’ve known so many restaurants where the servers keep their tips. The whole point of this thread was that the means of application are inconsistent and arbitrary.
I don’t care about tip amount? Howevery, I think you’re being pretty stingy with a 10% tip. I always tip 20% or more at sitdown places. The pain of potential social reproach is far greater to me than 20% the cost of my meal which I already knew would be part of the cost of going. Mechanically it is easy, move decimal left, multiply by 2.
I want to know how it works! You’ve told me I’m ignorant and that’s fine, I’m too invested in my current career to get a job in a kitchen right now, and you seem to know, so go ahead and educate.
Who gets my tip and how is it divided? I’ve always assumed it goes entirely to the waitstaff (pooled or not). It seems like maybe it should be distributed to other people who make the service happen. Does the dishwasher get a cut? What about the line cooks?
If you've not seen how the back of house functions you may have some misconceptions about the sources of labor involved in your meal.