Dining out on Thanksgiving?

While reading my daily blogroll, I stumbled across an article in the Consumerist about people eating out on Thanksgiving.  In my server days, I can recall a few Thanksgivings (not all) where I was stuck working and really felt like punching the idiots who came in to eat that day.  Money be damned.  



To those people who do go out on Thanksgiving, please tip your server more than you normally would...and that doesn't mean 15% to all you nitwits who tip 10% all the time.  This means at LEAST 25%.  Think about it.  Just because you are lonely, or are otherwise relegated to eating out, does not mean that your unlucky waiter or waitress is not.  They probably have families who would love to see them on Thanksgiving, but, because people like you can't be content eating at home one or two or three (christmas and easter being the other two) days of the year, they are stuck having to work to feed your sorry ass.


Numerous times I've had the table of 1, or even sometimes 2 or 3, come in on a Thanksgiving afternoon and either stiff me, or otherwise run me around.  I didn't want to be there in the first place, let alone deal with idiots like this, so did their service suffer?  Of course it did.  I would go out of my way to make sure they knew that the very act of them coming to eat on the holiday pissed me off.


So please, if you must go out, try to go to an ethnic restaurant where the employees are less likely to observe the holiday, or make sure you tip accordingly.  Or, better yet, if you don't feel like cooking, have your meal catered by one of the myriad of companies who specialize in this type of meal.