Restaurants and BYOs

Last night we went out for dinner at a little Italian restaurant near the river, so today's posting in on dining out.

Although restaurants in Australia are pretty much the same as in the U.S, there are a few subtle differences. The most interesting being the no tipping practice. At first we felt guilty walking away without any sort of gratuity, but later when we asked some of our Australian friends about it, the reassured us that it would be fairly unusual to leave a tip. Some times people round up and leave the change, and occasionally with a big group a tip is expected, but often restaurant workers are unionized and any tips (other than cash) would have to be declared and shared among the whole shift. Nonetheless, in general we have found service to be reasonably quick and friendly, but rarely does a server ever come to check on you or suggest dessert. In fact, often it can be a challenge to get the staffs’ attention, which makes paying for your meal a bit more of an effort since, like in many European countries, servers will not bring you your bill until you request it. Even then it takes a while, so many people go up the cashier to pay.

One of our favorite differences is the BYOs. Not all restaurants have liquor licenses, so Bring Your Own (usually wine) are common. I think the practice also exists in the U.S. but is not widely practiced since the corkage (opening the bottle) fees are much higher. Here it is just 50 cents to a dollar a person, so it can be much cheaper to bring your own. Plus, the waiters don’t care because the amount of the bill has no direct impact on their earnings.