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The art of serving is, arguably, the art of beguiling tips.

This is part pragmatism (our tips often dwarf our actual wage) and part competition (a hint: if you're averaging 10%, you're losing).

But while most reasonably-invested servers try to be pleasant, polite, and responsive to guests' needs, some take their game up a notch through presentation skills and "little extras."

Presentation is by far the harder to pull off. This includes opening a bottle of wine (or, heaven forbid, champagne) with panache. Equally, it's the ability to cross a room, your face serene, while balancing four or five burning-hot plates.

To put this in context, with the couple solid years of restaurant experience I've accumulated, I still can't pull either of these off. My wine-opening is all functionality and no flare, and I have a particular terror for opening champagne. As for plates, I can't even carry three without a furrowed oh-please-oh-please-don't-drop look on my face.

Nor am I alone.

Which is why many servers focus on the other tack: small demonstrations of generosity. Brimming drinks. Heaping bread baskets. Ample quantities of mints in the bill fold. Little details to add that smidge of satisfaction at gratuity time.

But as Joey's looks to cut costs to weather the November downturn, a number of these "little extras" are getting kyboshed.

Our bread and parmigiano reggiano cheese policies, for example, are being reigned in.

Joey's currently spends $25,000 a year on bread (to fill complimentary bread baskets) and premium cheese (to top our pasta dishes). In the hopes of lowering this figure, we've been told to keep guests' bread rations to our training-guide standard of 1.5 pieces per person, and resist the offer to provide a refill unless it's specifically asked for. As for the reggiano, which we've been ladling out with tablespoons, we are now to sprinkle it daintily with teaspoons. Farewell mints are down to a strict one-per-head.

Already, there's been a rumble of dissension among the servers.

Personally, I'm not keen on the bread edict, as it's tricky to walk by a table with an empty bread basket and "not see" it.

So we shall see how we servers adjust. I, for one, expect to see a little insubordination in the ranks. These are, after all, our tip margins we're talking about.

And let's not kid ourselves: we're not going to acquire extra wine-opening and plate-balancing panache overnight.

Check back next week for how our manager Amanda's new cleaning regime is gaining traction or failing to do so.