I usually find a few good places that I like to eat, and when I decide I'm going to patronize that establishment regularly, I become a pretty big tipper. Invariably, it gets noticed by the service staff, and I get superb treatment because of it.
I had a sushi place I used to go to when I lived in California. Excellent sushi, really. My roommate and I always made sure to take good care of the service people. It wasn't long before all the chefs knew us by name, they would loudly shout their greetings to us from behind the bar whenever we entered the place, and they would always, ALWAYS comp us some free sushi plates of stuff that was never even on the menu. They would simply hand us a plate of some delicious and original sushi and say "we made this special, for you."
Y'know how cool it is to take a new girl on a date to a place where they automatically treat you (and her, because she is with you) like royalty from the moment you enter? And not just like they're kiss your ass because you are a customer, but really obviously they treat you differently -- head and shoulders above the rest of the customers. To me, that's worth every extra dollar I spent in tipping the hell out of them.