My experience is old, but I once spent five years working in restaurant kitchens. My friends included plenty of servers, bartenders and other tipped staff. A couple of the places were pretty popular, and the staff was happy to be raking in good tips on high-priced food. One of the places wasn't so popular or expensive, and people were pinching pennies to get by. Opinions about tipping varied by place.

I suspect, given your taste and profession, that you might be talking to more servers at the kinds of places where they'd be happy to collect tips that exceeded, say, minimum wage.