I’ve worked in nice restaurants and in low-rent cafe-style places, in Canada, England, and Australia. The first observation i’d like to make is that, in terms of sheer physical effort expended, it’s generally much more taxing working in a low-end, high-turnover place than in a high-end, low-turnover place. If waiters in the high-end places get good tips, it’s generally not because they are running and sweating more than their low-end counterparts.
It’s certainly true what others have been saying about tipping out other members of staff, such as hosts, bartenders, busboys, etc., etc. In cafes, i generally got the table’s drinks myself, and often bussed my own tables. In good restaurants, there was a bartender to get the drinks, and a busboy to clear the table and do stuff like fill water glasses, leaving me free to give attentive service to the table.
In my experience, the staff who work in high-end places are not any more skilled at the mechanics of the job of waiting than the staff who work in low-end places. In fact, working in a low-end, high-turnover place often requires you to have an even better memory, and to be able to carry more dishes and clear larger tables at a single stroke. In my prime, i could comfortably clear the dishes for a table of eight in one go—main plates, side plates, and cutlery. Of course, you don’t clear tables like that in a nice restaurant, as it looks too low-rent.
In all the high-end places i worked, the main ingredient they looked for when hiring was not specifically your ability to carry plates or remember orders—anyone can be taught how to do that—but rather your ability to interact with the clientele in an appropriate manner. A certain level of deference was generally required, as well as something of an understated manner, and an ability to judge exactly how often you need to visit the table in order to be professional but not intrusive. Good grooming was, of course, mandatory. In one rather old-fashioned place, we also had to be able to do some table-side food preparation, such as carve a chateaubriand, fillet a Dover sole, and prepare Bananas Foster. I tell you, doing those things for the first time in front of a full restaurant can be rather nerve-wracking.
As others have said, the low turnover of good restaurants means that each server sees far fewer tables in a typical shift than someone working in a high-turnover restaurant. While this might mean that they don’t have to run as much in order to keep up, it also reduces their earning ability and, in my opinion, justifies tipping them well.
This does, of course, raise the general issue of turning tables over. If i go to a cheap cafe during a busy lunchtime, i expect to basically eat and leave, without hanging around at all. The place needs to make money, and taking up a table when others are waiting means that bith the establishment and the servers suffer from reduced income.
If, on the other hand, i go to a nice place, i’m paying a premium to the establishment and to the staff, and one of the things that i’m paying for is the ability to relax and enjoy my meal. Nothing pisses me off more than a high-priced establishment that treats its customers as if they were in a lunch-rush cafe. I don’t eat at expensive places very often, but when i do the staff better not be trying to push me out the door as soon as i’ve put my fork down.
Something for the OP to consider: when i was working in a high-turnover cafe, it was no big deal if one of two of my tables during a lunch shift stiffed me on the tip, as the tip from each table was never very high. It was a volume business, where no single table’s tip was especially important to the day’s outcome. But, when working in a good restaurant with few tables, getting stiffed by one or two groups can mean the difference between a good and a very bad night. Also, might i suggest that if you’re going to tip only 10% at good restaurants, you should not make a habit of going there more than once, because waiters have memories longer than elephants when it comes to good and bad tippers.
Havcing said all this, i should add my support to those who dislike the tipping system. I’ve lived on tips myself, and i always tip here in North America, because that’s how it’s done, but i don’t like the system.
Quick anecdote:
About 12 years ago, I was working in a nice country house hotel in the English Lakes District. The dining room was quite small, very elegant, and usually had a rather hushed atmosphere. One evening we had about 12 couples in there, and just about all of them were on their main course, so my main task was to float through the room occasionally making sure that wine glasses were topped up and that everything was OK. On one of these sweeps, i stopped right in the middle of the floor to survey the scene and assure myself that all was fine, when i let out what seemed to me to be an outrageously loud fart. It was completely involuntary, just snuck out without permission, and it was obvious that everyone in the room heard it. I was tempted for an instant to verbally excuse myself, but decided that feigning ignorance was preferable, and slowly turned and walked from the room. By the time i got to the kitchen, i was laughing so hard that i couldn’t go back out for quite some time.