babe. they DONT make minimum wage. average server hourly wage is usually $2-5/hr.

the degrading part is you implying serving is “just” bringing food to a table. it is much more involved and difficult than that, both physically and mentally. it combines the difficulties of regular customer service with the difficulties of manual labor all rolled into $2 an hour.

again, i agree it shouldn’t be set up this way. and trust me, most servers don’t give a shit about actually getting 20%, we just don’t like when people leave $3 on a $90 tab. also, the reason it is a percentage, however, is because generally the more you’re spending the more work you’re creating for the server (ie more food running, more people to take care of) so they should get paid more for that service.