I have 2 friends who are both food servers. I used to ask them why not try and get a job in one of the downtown Los altos restaurants, figuring the tips would be better, and they both said the same thing, independently I might add, that the customers are regularly much more rude and difficult in Los Altos than in PA, MV or Sunnyvale.

The complaints are surprisingly similar: Many treat you rudely, as if you're their personal servant. They both had stories of the "Ladies lunch groups" that seem to try to impress others the group by being demanding and nit-picky about every little thing, and even mildly mocking the servers with eye rolls and sarcastic sighs of disdain.
The tips were really no different in the end, so it came down to work environment.

I'd never thought much about this until now. When servers can pick/choose from any number of places who are clamoring for their work, they'll go where they get the most respect.
It's an issue many won't think about, but sometimes the problem lies within.

Interesting to see the comment above. It fits in with what I've heard.

I go regularly to downtown Los Altos, and chat with people working retail there. Ordinary folks, who've sometimes been around the area their whole life.

An observation surfaced when discussing an upscale restaurant that had opened there (a few years ago). "It'll have a hard time. Remember when ---- opened? It struggled and finally closed."

"But downtown Los Altos ought to be good for restaurants," I said. The neighborhood seems affluent.

Yes, came the reply -- but they don't want to spend their money. "Many of the longterm residents are affluent, but cheap. I work here, I see this all the time in their behavior."

This is great news! We always love going to the Post, Vickie and Manager Rob are both so friendly as are all of the staff. It's the perfect 'neighborhood great food great company' place to go.

We love The Post, and glad that Charlie is on board to make it even better. Sad that Los Altos has a difficult reputation.

Seems to me that LA is a very diverse community, can't all be “cheap". There are many restaurants that have been quite successful and long term, this almost sounds like employees with sour grapes?

Regardless, been to the Post quite a few times, food is always great, service excellent and it's anice place to hook up with friends for a night out.

Unlike downtown Palo Alto & Mountain View, Los Altos is not very ethnically diverse in terms of foot traffic & clientele. This is an obvious observation whether one is at the post office, various banks, hair dressers or restaurants.

It is a conservative community like Danville *ugh*...mostly white conservative folks with minimal room or compassion for the lesser endowed (i.e. homeless, working class etc.).

And the residents prefer to keep it that way.

I'm a food server who used to work at a now defunct, shortly popular eatery.
I left the job specifically so I would not have to suffer the rude abuse the customers would give me, or have to watch my co-workers go through it.

It's not all the customers, but every single shift, without question, you would have to suffer rude abuse by at least one customer or group.
This sort of thing comes with the job, but only rarely in other town, maybe once per week. It was every single shift in LA.
I'm glad people are talking about it. One day a regular stuck up for me and really laid into a snarky woman and her friends. It was a glorious day for sure, but given the fact that my skills are needed pretty much everywhere, I've chosen to serve happy nice people in SV and MV for a living and I've eliminated the stress that the LA customers would regularly bring me.

Went once, the menu was uninspired and the noise level was off the charts.