We, the staff of Outback Steakhouse have collectively decided that we are no longer interested in taking large parties due to the fact that there is no assurance that we will be tipped accordingly. Many times these parties take our entire section, stay longer to visit, and then tip little or no money. Automatic gratuity is an acceptable policy that many restaurants successfully implement in their daily operations. We believe that 18% gratuity should be added to parties of 8 or more. We are all comfortable informing customers that a tip has been added and asking a manager to add the tip to the ticket. We understand that these are hard times for our patrons and Outback, but these are also hard times for us, your employees. And in these hard times, we need our employer to take charge for our needs over the guests wants. The serving staff are prepared to go the distance on this issue, we have been dedicated and loyal employees and would like to continue to be.