Sometimes it depends a good deal on the setting. For instance, if I'm in a diner, especially rural or small town, I don't mind at all being addressed as "Honey." If I'm in Mahogany, Fleming's, Polo Grill -- any upscale restaurant -- it would seem out of place.

Otherwise, I think about general things. Some that come to mind:

Cleanliness is nice. I particularly cringe when a server wipes sweat off his/her brow with the back of his/her hand while taking our order.

I personally don't mind tats and discreet piercings. Mongo piercings can be offputting when food is being served. Unless it's a coffee shop, or quirky diner; then anything goes as far as I'm concerned.

Having good knowledge of the menu items is important, or have the good sense to go ask if they don't have an answer. If they can't tell you much about anything on the menu, I blame the restaurant more than the server.

I don't like to be rushed; I like to linger over dinner when I can. So, I get irritated when someone says "Can I take that away?" or are you "Still workin' on that" when I obviously still have food on my plate.

I like them to be pleasant but not too chatty, unless my wife, which she is prone to do, chats them up about their background and history.

That's just a few off the top of my head. In July of 2005, I think it was, I ran a long feature on customers' pet peeves about servers and restaurants. We listed literally dozens of complaints, and that should still be in our archives.

That said, I truly respect servers. Most of them work extremely hard and take a lot of heat -- from the customers, managers, kitchen staff, bosses -- for relatively little reward. And what they do can make or break a restaurant. If I owned a restaurant, the one thing I would do would make sure the waitstaff was trained to the gills.