Quote Originally Posted by spoonitnow View Post
Assume that you will never eat in this location or have this waiter or waitress again, and assume that the tip size will be 15-20%.
For better or for worse (ie: for worse), the US's system is setup so that a 15-20% tip is a built-in price for any situation where you are waited on. As such, I don't ever tip less than 15% (not even sure how often I go that low) unless it's a situation where I would demand to get my money back, which is an extremely extremely extremely rare scenario.

The one time I can think of where I wished to not pay for my service is when our server refused to serve our friend who was in from the Netherlands when he showed his Dutch drivers license, then when his girlfriend's sister drove his American passport over (because, what the fuck, who carries their passport around just to go to a tavern), he was still refused service. This was such an embarrassing fiasco of service that we left immediately with our drinks unfinished, our food mostly uneaten, etc.

I don't go to restaurants to be a connoisseur of service, looking for every excuse to be like, "Sweeeet, looks like I don't need to pay for my dining experience." To be honest, I don't really think that any scenario where service was so palatable (pun intended) that you managed to stick around for long enough to get your food, eat it and pay for it, then I don't really think that your service was so unacceptable for it to not go paid for.

I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions, but I think pretty much 99% of the reasons people have for "I'm not paying for this service" are pretty bunk things that would not apply to any other situation in the world where you're paying for a goods or service, but because the price is implied instead of built-in, it's treated differently.