How do you determine the waitservice quality upfront? You can't trust reviews, since the super positive ones might have all been written by people who 'looked like high-tippers' and got the special service, and likewise the 'apparently poor-tipping party' service reviews might make an otherwise good restaurant look bad.

So you're pretty much stuck with going repeatedly or relying on anecdotal suggestions by friends or locals. And maybe you still can't trust those, for the same reasons.