54. If there is a prix fixe, let guests know about it. Do not force anyone to ask for the "special" menu.

58. Do not bring judgment with the ketchup. Or mustard. Or hot sauce. Or whatever condiment is requested.

62. Do not fill the water glass every two minutes, or after each sip. You'll make people nervous.

62(a). Do not let a glass sit empty for too long.

64. Specials, spoken and printed, should always have prices.

67. Never stack the plates on the table. They make a racket. Shhhhhh.

70. Never deliver a hot plate without warning the guest. And never ask a guest to pass along that hot plate.

78. Do not ask, "Are you still working on that?" Dining is not work - until questions like this are asked.

82. If you drip or spill something, clean it up, replace it, offer to pay for whatever damage you may have caused. Refrain from touching the wet spots on the guest.

85. Never bring a check until someone asks for it. Then give it to the person who asked for it.

86. If a few people signal for the check, find a neutral place on the table to leave it.

90. If someone is getting agitated or effusive on a cellphone, politely suggest he keep it down or move away from other guests.

PREVIOUSLY: 50 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 2) [NYT]
100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1) [NYT]
(Photo:Mike Fleming)

6. Do not lead the witness with, "Bottled water or just tap?" Both are fine. Remain neutral.

7. Do not announce your name. No jokes, no flirting, no cuteness.

17. Do not take an empty plate from one guest while others are still eating the same course. Wait, wait, wait.

24. Never use the same glass for a second drink.

27. For red wine, ask if the guests want to pour their own or prefer the waiter to pour.

31. Never remove a plate full of food without asking what went wrong. Obviously, something went wrong.

42. Do not compliment a guest's attire or hairdo or makeup. You are insulting someone else.

43. Never mention what your favorite dessert is. It's irrelevant.

This is from just the first 50 of 100, and part two is promised soon. Do you agree with these? Have suggestions of your own?

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do (Part 1) [NYT]
(Photo:Ed Yourdon)

Most of his tips are about local NYC establishments, but here's a section that applies to diners everywhere:

IS THERE ANY BEST, SAFEST WAY TO NAVIGATE A MENU?

Scratch off the appetizers and entrees that are most like dishes you've seen in many other restaurants, because they represent this one at its most dutiful, conservative and profit-minded. The chef's heart isn't in them.

Scratch off the dishes that look the most aggressively fanciful. The chef's vanity - possibly too much of it - spawned these.

Then scratch off anything that mentions truffle oil.

Choose among the remaining dishes.

Bruni also points out that if you want the best value—not necessarily the cheapest—meal, you should seriously consider high end, high quality restaurants:

Value doesn't mean a low price: it means you're getting a lot for what you're paying.

At Eleven Madison Park, for example, the $88 prix fixe includes five one-bite amuse-bouches per person, terrific gougères, unlimited bread with both goat's milk and cow's milk butter, an appetizer, an entree, a dessert amuse-bouche, dessert and petit fours. Plus you're sitting in comfort in one of the city's most beautiful dining rooms, with many polished servers attending to you.

"Good Tips at the End of His Meals" [New York Times via Lifehacker]
(Photo: norwichnuts)

• Choose Lunch Over Dinner: Skip past dinner plans and instead meet your friends for lunch. The meals are almost always cheaper, and you can usually find worthwhile deals.
• Hunt For Specials: Look for local places with lunch or brunch specials, or two-for-one entrees.
• Free Bread = Leftovers!: Our father used to warn us that we were going to ruin our appetite gorging on bread, and he was right—though we didn't care, and he certainly didn't mean it as a saving tip. Load up on whatever freebies you can get—bread, chips, salad—and bring part of your meal home as leftovers.
• Skip Appetizers And Dessert: Both are usually overpriced and unnecessary, considering the size of most entree portions. Skip them and save.

"I do worry sometimes about people thinking we are being cheap, but I tend to feel that I am still spending money there over eating at home, and I try not to worry about it," said Marcy Robison, a stay-at-home mom from Columbus, Ohio. "In the end, we are trying to be wise stewards of our finances and if someone finds fault with that, so be it."

Robison, who writes a blog called "Stretching a Buck," said she and her husband typically eat out two or three times a week and frequently split an entree or order two entrees and split them with their 3-year-old daughter.

She said that by sharing dishes, the family saves $5 to $12 each time.

Of course, the savings can dwindle at restaurants that charge a splitting fee, which can go as high as $5 for an entree.

If you're going to split a dish, remember that you're not the only one grasping for every dollar. Help out your server with a slightly larger tip.

Splitting that spaghetti? You're not the only one [AP]
(Photo: sleepyneko)

Science tells us there is almost no correlation between tips and good service, but surveys show that Americans relish the power to tip because we falsely believe it provides an incentive to provide good service.

Let's consider a situation: you go out to one of your regular dinner spots for a snack with friends. The place isn't too busy, and you're not too hungry, so you only order a salad and a side dish. Your friends don't get their food for almost 40 minutes. You get nothing. After repeatedly flagging down the waitstaff, you still can't get your salad. Another 30 minutes goes by before your food finally arrives, around the time your friends are finishing their meal.

Obviously, it's not the end of the world and there are far more disturbing stories littering the internet. Before asking what kind of tip this service merits, let's travel with the New York Times to San Diego to visit a small restaurant called the Linkery. The Linkery's waitstaff doesn't accept tips. Instead, they levy an 18% service charge on all sit-down meals, which is split 3-1 between the waitstaff and the kitchen. If customers want to tip more, they are invited to donate to the restaurant's charity of the month.

...every so often diners at the Linkery take offense. “I’ll go over to the table and ask if there is a problem with the service,” McGuan, the general manager, says. “If there is, then I offer to remove the service charge. Almost always, the customers’ issue isn’t about the service but about not being able to handle their loss of control.”

In some instances, this restaurant with a uniform charge completely removes the service fee, resulting in no tip.

Keeping that in mind:

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Why Tip? [The New York Times]
(Photo: Getty)

Under a prepackaged bankruptcy, Mrs. Fields would file for Chapter 11 protection having already developed a plan to repay its creditors and exit from bankruptcy. Mrs. Fields's restructuring plan calls for its noteholders to exchange their $195.7 million in notes for $90 million in cash, $50 million in new senior secured notes and 87.5% of the company's new common stock. The noteholders are expected to recover 86.5% on their claims.

The Mrs. Fields brand was born in 1977, when Debbi Fields opened up her first cookie shop in Palo Alto, Calif. The company turned to franchising in 1990 and has nearly 390 locations in the U.S. and 80 internationally, according to its Web site, plus hundreds of TCBY stores.

The company, however, has struggled with a heavy debt load and has racked up losses in recent months. Mrs. Fields posted a net loss of about $10.7 million for the quarter ended June 28.

Guess the scent of cookies isn't enough to convince consumers to splurge after all.

Mrs. Fields Will Seek Bankruptcy Protection [The Wall Street Journal]
Cookie Maker Mrs. Fields Files for Chapter 11 [Fox Business]