Tips Have Never Been More Volatile

When restaurants reopened after the shutdown, and as diners have continued to come back to dining rooms with increasing regularity, I thought that everyone would return with a clearer sense of boundaries — people would be excited to dine again, and all of us would be grateful for some sense of normalcy. Anyone who works in a restaurant can tell you that is not what’s happened, and a strange power dynamic has emerged. Of course, some guests are still happy to come in and feel taken care of, but others treat our space as an opportunity to be in charge: A guest recently fought with my host about our wait time, while another sat himself and refused to move, even though we needed the seat for a reservation.