McGurk's Irish Pub Review

Because StingyTipper was in Chicago on a work trip for St. Patrick’s Day, ST decided to treat the family to dinner at McGurk’s on Saturday, March 19. Though it was technically St. Joseph’s Day, the atmosphere at McGurk’s—as you would expect--was still decidedly Irish-focused.  We had a waitress who shared with us—at ST’s spouse’s instigation, thereby not compromising the Comfort score—that she had worked McGurk’s on Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s downtown parade day, and March 17^th and, understandably, was now quite exhausted.  Her comment about tipping was interesting, remarking that people were not very generous with gratuities during these recent days of St. Louis revelry because of the over-refreshing that was taking place.   Despite these comments (designed to wrangle a higher tip from ST??), StingyTipper left a 15% “gracious” gratuity based on the  S.E.R.V.I.C.E. rating score below.

The 1 rating on responsiveness was based on needing to repeat our request for water service, and the fact that ST’s soup was served prior to the appetizer arriving, which had been ordered some time prior to ordering our entrees.  ST’s sense is that the waitress had forgotten the appetizer. Similarly, the dessert that we ordered took an unusually long time to arrive and only appeared after ST prompted the waitress regarding its whereabouts.  Its consistency and temperature when finally served led ST and guests to ponder whether the item in question had been sitting for some time waiting for delivery to its intended consumers.

We topped off the evening listening to the first set of live Irish music, which was absolutely terrific.  Perhaps ST was feeling guilty about only leaving 15% for dinner, or perhaps ST wanted to show appreciation for not having to pay a cover for such top-notch music, or perhaps ST had just had one too many, or maybe ST was in a good Irish mood….whatever the case, a $5.00 tip on a $21.00 bar tab was left for the extremely attentive and responsive server we had—a 23.8% gratuity!  StingyTipper’s reputation for being stingy is once again in jeopardy. Erin Go Bragh!

Scoring Key

1 = Unsatisfactory    2 = Satisfactory    3 = Commendable

S.E.R.V.I.C.E. SCORE

Salutation                     =  3

Equity                            =  2

Responsiveness            =  1

Value                             =  2

Informed                       =  2

Comfort                         =  3

Experience                     =  2

            Total Score:                   15 = 15%

Gratuity Scoring Guidelines



                   "Stingy"                        7-10 = Tip Same %          

                   "Not-too-Stingy"      11-14 = Tip 15%               

                   "Gracious"                   15-21 = Tip Same %