I waited tables my senior year of high school at a crappy buffet-style restaurant where most people assumed you didn’t have to tip because it had a buffet component. (It also had entrees we brought out to customers, so it was a kind of hybrid.) I absolutely busted my ass and was very good at my job, to the point that I got several requests for my service.
I made $2.75 base wage per hour. On a slow night, I made around $6 an hour total. On Fridays I made closer to $12/hour. It was very difficult, stressful, physically strenuous labor, and I probably got tips from half the tables I waited… usually $1 or $2 per table, maybe every two weeks a $5 tip if some guy thought I was hot. Very thankless, exhausting job. As a general rule waitstaff at these places are treated like shit by customers and treated as completely replaceable by the management. I’ve worked for several different food establishment, some chains and some privately owned, and my experience has been the same everywhere. My husband was a server after college at Mongolian BBQ and had the same experience as well. Nobody respects your time, and they don’t care whether you’ve lost a relative, or are on death’s door. They deliberately keep you at just under 40 hours a week so they don’t have to pay you benefits. They promise you more hours and never deliver. I would have to be desperate, on the verge of homelessness, to ever work in the restaurant industry again.
I am very uncool with people who tip less than 15%. I usually tip at least 20% and usually closer to 25%. A few times I’ve tipped 50% just because I was overcome with joy about something unrelated and felt like sharing it. I do it to make up for all the picky, self-centered, arrogant fucktards who can’t deign to pay people for their hard work or treat waitstaff like human beings.
It is impossible to make everyone happy. I wouldn’t have made Springs1 very happy, because I was a big fan of the pitcher refill method for tea/sweet tea and iced water. I used to “treat my station as one big table” and if I took out a pitcher of sweet tea, I could fill up every glass of sweet tea in my station (or water or unsweetened tea). We did bring refills of soda by the glass, but if I saw an empty glass of coke, I would have automatically have brought a refill of coke and thought I was being a great waitress for getting it without being asked (and I would say, in nearly every case, that was the right thing to do, just bring the refill without having to hassle the customer).
If a customer ordered a coke and then wanted to switch to Dr. Pepper for the next refill, it would have been a free refill no problem. It would have been a tiny bit surprising (since it rarely happened), but no big deal. If I saw an empty glass of Dr. Pepper in this case, I would have automatically brought out another Dr. Pepper, which would have probably aggravated Springs1 at that point because s/he would have wanted to switch to Sprite or something.
It is really hard to please every customer. I tried to be that unobtrusive, “bring before you even ask” type of waitress. If a customer had reacted like Springs1 I would have been very surprised and accomodated that request but I definitely wouldn’t have changed my style for other tables, since it was almost always a very successful strategy. Most people do not want to have their conversation or food interrupted with “would you care for a refill of the same beverage, or would you like to switch to a different soft drink?” for every refill. I can’t even imagine interrupting people like that!
I waited tables back in the early to mid 90s and was NEVER upset with a 15% tip (that was just fine) and was thrilled to get 20%. I worked at a family-style Mexican restaurant where the average ticket for 2 people was 20.00 (with soft drink, dinner, no apps/desserts - a very typical check).
I’ve had a lot of jobs, including stressful corporate jobs and I can honestly say that in the MOMENT, waiting tables is the hardest job I’ve ever had. I would never have done it for minimum wage (I made 2.13 plus tips back in the day, taxes ate into my “check” so much it was like 15 bucks every 2 weeks, I didn’t even budget it). I didn’t make huge money, but I made enough to pay for rent and school in college. It is a little like gambling, the thrill of a great tip. I’m really glad my salary isn’t dependent on the vagaries of strangers anymore.
I normally tip 15%. But I think it’s bullshit that the tip is based off the price of the food at all. If I order the $40 steak plate the expected tip is higher than if I order the $20 steak plate. The work is the same for both but I’m supposed to tip more? It’s ridiculous and makes no sense.
I realize that nowadays they are taxed based on sales but frankly servers made their own bed on that by not accounting for all of their tips at the end of the night or when tax time rolled around back when it was “on their honor”. I worked in MANY restaurants in the 90’s and on average I would say most servers only claimed 30-40% of their actual tips each night. The rest were never claimed and were tax free. So these people were making $20+/hr and only being taxed on $10 of it if that. When I was bussing tables the wait staff were required to give %10 of their tips to the bus staff. After a packed house on Fri/Sat at a $30/plate restaurant the waitresses would hand over $5 or so a piece, which we KNEW was low balling us because we would see the large tips on the tables when we cleaned them.
Bottom line is that I tip 15% but don’t like feeling obligated to. And waiters created this mess by being dishonest from the start when it came to taxes. Now USGOV is involved in making sure they pay their taxes.
“Complimentary refills on Fountain Beverages, Coffee and Tea”
This means when you order ANY of those in the list, you only can legally get billed for ONE, because more than one glass is FREE regardless of what ones you choose.
It’s not going to list if you get 1 coke, 2 coke, 3 coke with 1 coke being $2.50, then listing your 2 other cokes as $0.00 billed. That’s not the way it works.
What does being a lovely dining companion have to do with no wanting to be overcharged?
Now WHY would you ask such a thing if the MENU states:
“Get Free refills on all soft drinks, Applebee’s Lemonade, Brewed Iced Tea, Hot Tea, Brewed Fresh Ground Coffee and Decaf Coffee.”
How was it a “SCAM” if the menu states it’s a “FREE REFILLABLE DRINK?” Does the menu state you can only have refills on the drink you decide on the first time around? NO, it doesn’t. You got scammed, by getting overcharged. You ordered a coke, then decided you wanted a tea. Coke and tea are the same price 99% of the restaurants out there, which Applebee’s I can just about guarantee they are, and both a refillable drinks in that category.
They scammed you. The definition of a refill is to “FILL AGAIN”, NOT having to do with the same exact thing.
"re·fill (r-fl)
tr.v. re·filled, re·fill·ing, re·fills
To fill again.
n. (rfl)
A product packaged to replace the used contents of a container.
A second or subsequent filling."
Has nothing to do with the same exact thing being put back into the container. Fill a glass with water and then refill it with coke. That means I filled the glass again with coke, not water. That is considered a refill.
I would have, had I known it came with it in the first place.
The rest of your post is a lot of assumption and yelling that I was at fault if I did whatever. I don’t tend to send food back; if I order something I’ve never tried before and I don’t like it, I don’t send it back. I either shut up and eat it or I don’t eat it at all. I don’t send food back when it’s cold, I don’t send it back when it’s not exactly right. I’m probably the most undemanding customer you ever met, and sometimes I should be more assertive rather than less.
The waiter was an ass and the restaurant management agreed when I contacted them the next day after thinking the whole situation over.
Oh, and caps don’t make your arguments stronger. Calm down.
I for one don’t think you should have to specify that your steak NOT coming with heavy pepper seasoning, unless it specifies on the menu that this is the way the steak is served. If it’s a good cut of meat, that kind of overdone seasoning absolutely ruins it.
Universal heath care would certainly be welcome to the service world.
My son and I generally over tip. I could always afford it and did not give a lot of thought to it. But I suspect the vitriol that waiters feel toward bad tippers might cloud their judgment. Don’t big tippers compensate for small tippers? Doesn’t it average out toward the norm?
That’s VERY UNFAIR. The problem is, WE AREN’T “ONE BIG TABLE”, we are INDIVIDUAL PARTIES. One customer asked for something moments before the other, therefore, the server could be fair and do things in the order in which they were taken in as far as things they have control over such as free refills.
That’s unfair that you would be not always doing things in the order in which they were asked for. Let’s say all the customers at my table(let’s say party of 5), want refills on their tea and our table also wants our check. As you were getting ready to walk to the computer to get our check, you are stopped for 2 refills at another party. I bet you would give them refills before getting our check, am I right? You sound very unfair by treating your station as one big table. We are individual tables. We have individual turns. If I just asked for the check, those 2 refills for that couple would wait until I went to get the check if I were the server. I wouldn’t do things out of order is what I am saying. I bet you would that you said you treat everyone as one big table in your section.
It’s “NOT” the “RIGHT THING” though. WHO gives you the RIGHT to ORDER for your customers? Did you ASK PERMISSION when you greeted them? If you didn’t, you have NO RIGHT to place an order for a customer.
The “RIGHT THING” to do would be to let the CUSTOMER decide for THEMSELF what or if they want something else to drink. That’s the truth! The “WRONG thing” to do is to ASSUME and ORDER for your customers.
The thing is, we may not always ask. You don’t have ESP, do you? WHY RISK doing something for nothing even if 9 times out of 10, you guess right? WHY NOT be 100% for sure? WHY not just ask at the time you greet the customers “Would you all like automatic refills without being asked or asking?” FIND OUT WHAT DOES THE CUSTOMER WANT. That should be your goal to satisfy THEM PERSONALLY, NOT the majority of the dining public, but those particular people in each of your parties you serve.
That’s why you ask when you would have greeted them if they wanted that type of service.
As far as “MOST PEOPLE” goes, sorry, but you are not serving “MOST PEOPLE.” You are serving DIFFERENT PEOPLE at each table that have different likes and dislikes. Treating people like we are all the same causes problems. I have had assumptions happen where it caused problems. Once, me and my husband(at the time was my fiance), ordered 2 appetizers and 2 entrees due to the fact that we could not agree on the appetizer, so we figured we’d bring the leftovers home. My husband told his appetizer and entree order, then I told my appetizer and entree order, which it was in that order, meaning, not telling the waiter about the both appetizers first since my husband was speaking first, he might as well continue to say his entree order while he was at it, you know. Well, guess what happened? We got the onion rings right away just about, which was my husband’s appetizer. Time went by, no sign of my chili cheese fries. The waiter came by so we asked where the chili cheese fries were. He replied “I thought you wanted it with your meal.” I told him “I NEVER said that.” I honestly NEVER once said that I wanted it with my meal since the menu stated “APPETIZER” that’s when I thought I would receive it as the MENU stated.
My point of that story is, HE ASSUMED ALL COUPLES WILL SHARE APPETIZERS ALL THE TIME. Yes, it’s rare and YES, we share appetizers actually most of the time, but we have ordered separate ones before or I ordered a side salad, he ordered an appetizer.
He grouped us as “EVERYONE SHARES APPETIZERS THAT ARE COUPLES.” You cannot EVER go by the majority. That’s when mistakes happen sometimes.
Servers should treat customers as if we are ALL DIFFERENT and NOT the same.
That issue with the 2 appetizers caused a major issue, because we told him to cancel the order since it was almost time for the entrees to come out. That didn’t happen and the chili cheese fries came out literally 2 minutes before the entrees by another server with the mayo I asked for( I like mayo with chili cheese fries). The waiter didn’t even apologize for assuming.
Ever since then, I make sure if we order 2 appetizers, to tell the server “WE ARE ORDERING 2 APPETIZERS”, although I feel we shouldn’t have to, because the MENU states “APPETIZERS” so that’s when we should receive it. I had no idea the waiter would do that and back then, I had lots of less experience eating out. Back then in 2001, I lived at my parents house still and my mom cooked very often, so I didn’t get to experience a whole lot of experiences eating out to deal with that type of situation. I always went by the menu when I ordered. If I see the menu states an item comes with ranch, I expect the ranch to come with the item if I don’t state I don’t want it. Things like that. I actually read the menu unlike some customers out there.
You should be asking when you greet your customers what kind of service would they like. Didn’t you see that a poster on this message board doesn’t want refills at all? WHY not satify EVERYONE instead of just “THE MAJORITY?” Ask your customers what kind of service would they like. That way, you will satify all your customers, not just most, but ALL!
Oh, to answer this question, no, they don’t get a break on payroll taxes. They are responsible for all payroll taxes that the waitstaff reports as income (and waitstaff is legally obligated to report 100% of tips).
Now restaurants are one of those business where skimming and scamming is not exactly rare. Waiters underreport their tips. Businesses underreport their income. Inventory goes missing and gets written off. Entire tabs disappear and are comped. Get a bar involved and the chance that no one is ripping off the owner or the IRS (or that the owner is not ripping off the IRS) start approaching zero. Its way better now that these businesses use less cash and credit card receipts and POS systems are easily auditable. But the upshot is, yes they are legally required to pay employment taxes (and they are legally required to have their employees make minimum wage - but can use tips in getting there), but I’d be as shocked as Captain Renault to discover that everything was not completely legal.
If you don’t like a lot of seasoning, may I suggest you ALWAYS ORDER EVERY SINGLE THING by stating “NO SEASONING or LIGHT SEASONING?” I serious here. I order my fries without salt or seasoning EVERYWHERE I go, because that way if I do want salt, I can add the amount I personally want. I also don’t like red seasoning on fries either, which some restaurants put that. You can always add seasoning on the side when you get your food.
Shouldn’t this be a lesson that meat may be seasoned? You know you can always ask no matter what kind of food it is. My mom and my husband’s grandmother always ask no matter what food they order “Is it spicy?” If the server knows the food the serve, they should be able to tell you, but since you cannot always know if the server knows a lot about the menu items, you can simply just order it without seasoning or seasoning on the side.
I am sorry, but it WAS your fault for ASSUMING. I know you would think it wouldn’t have seasoning, but even some burgers I have encountered have had seasoning before. If you don’t like too much seasoning on your food, don’t you think you should from NOW ON, do like my mom and ASK? She asks just about everything from seafood to chicken tenders etc. if they are spicy or not.
You are to blame for you ASSUMING it wasn’t going to be spicy. If you don’t like a of spicyness on foods, you should KNOW to ORDER your food as such just like my mom and my husband’s grandmother does. YOUR FAULT 100%!
What does that have to do with THIS particular situation?
I have sent food back when it’s cold. I don’t blame the server, because I haven’t once had food that was cold when the server forgot to get my food or was playing around. The cold food was the kitchen staff’s fault the times I had cold food.
For one thing, it’s YOUR OPINION it “absolutely ruins it.” Secondly, YES you should if the menu doesn’t state it. WHY? I know from eating out very often, menus don’t always have every single thing listed. Normally for instance, side salads don’t have a description, which all restaurants make side salads differently. Some put just lettuce, croutons, and tomatoes. Some such as Red Lobster have croutons, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions. At Macaronni Grill, they have olives in their side salads.
I have encountered menus not listing items come with fries, which even just yesterday I did at the restaurant we tried that we never went to before. I have encountered menus that didn’t state a side salad CAME with the entree.
Those are just examples of that you cannot always rely on the menu.
I think you should have to specify no seasoning or light seasoning or seasoning on the side even if it’s not on the menu if you are a person such as my mom that cannot tolerate spicy foods. This should be a lesson to all customers to ask if you don’t like spicy foods no matter what you order.
The recent direction of this thread gets my vote for biggest tempest in a teapot in the history of the SDMB.
I seem to remember some pit thread where several posters got very heated over good pizzas, but multiple sprawling CAPSLOCKED theses about drink refillings has absolutely got to take the cake.
Heh Springs1 I can only base my answers on 5 years of successfully waiting tables. It is more efficient (meaning I have more time to give better service) to treat a station as a single table. If I made one customer mad (you) I was making the other customers happy with this method. I am not going to get a great tip from everyone, might as well maximize the chance and please as many people as possible with the idea that I can’t please everyone.
I hope you remember, if a server brings you your refill without asking they are honestly thinking “look at me - I am bringing this drink even before they ask, I rock!” they think they are pleasing you and I hope you would treat them kindly. You will definitely have to tell your tables in advance, “please don’t ever bring me a refill without asking me” because it is way way way outside the normal dining experience. It’s okay to be different, I’m sure all your servers will mentally shrug and go about the job of making you happy once they know your preference.
In my experience, most customers want minimal interaction with waitstaff, less talking and less bothering. Your position of “interview each table in advance to find out exactly how they want to be served” would bug a lot of people (that is in my experience!!).
You’re absolutely right. It was my fault for going to that restaurant in the first place. And it’s my fault for not being like your mom and your husband’s grandmother, even if I had never experienced such a thing before and am not of the age where I must avoid spicy foods to control heartburn and other dietary indignities. And it’s my fault for responding to you and your multiple-paragraph lectures in ALL CAPS when you don’t feel that your words are sufficient to display the excess of emotion this entire topic arouses in your breast.
Actually, that’s not true that you would give “BETTER SERVICE” to ALL your tables. Think about it. Once, at Outback, me and my husband got seated, then a party of 4 or 5(can’t remember which 4 or 5), and then a party of 2. The waiter got triple sat. Guess how long it took for our 2 cokes? 10 minutes. It wasn’t “BETTER service” to us. It was UNFAIR service to us. We were seated first, we should have gotten our soft drinks BEFORE he went to greet the other tables, PERIOD! They should wait longer considering they came in AFTER we did. We waited for a table just as they did, so the wait should be fair when we are served as well. He got all 3 table’s orders drinks and got all 8 or 9 drinks at once. He even had the gall to hand a lady at the second table hers before ours. My jaw almost dropped seeing that he did something so rude.
The first people get the shaft normally is my point when you treat your section as ONE BIG TABLE. It’s only better for the third person. Which it should be the OPPOSITE that the third table should wait the LONGEST, NOT US since we were FIRST out of the 3 tables. If we would have been the third table, it would have been only fair we would have waited the longest, NOT the SHORTEST out of the 3 tables. They got their drink orders and drinks before we got our drinks. UNFAIR, UNFAIR, UNFAIR!! DISRESPECT is what I call that.
But you CAN please everyone if you do what they want by FINDING OUT HOW they want their service to go. You can not maximize your chance, but actually make EVERYONE happy by pleasing ALL, EVERY ONE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS by getting what they want by making sure what they want in their service. Do they want their side salad before the appetizer is served or after or with their meal? Do they want the appetizer and side salad served together due to that the appetizer is for the guy and the woman only wants her side salad, but can wait until her guy’s appetizer is ready? There are LOTS of ways to try to please everyone by ASKING. If they are offended at questions, they need to tell their server I want things different than the way they are supposed to be such as wanting refills without asking, because we rarely get that type of service without me telling them that. The way things are SUPPOSED to be is that the customer gets to place their own order, NOT their server and YOU KNOW IT! That’s the way it’s supposed to go. If you want it a different way without a lot of questions, you relay that to your server that you want refills without being asked. If you want your side salad with your meal, you need to say so. The norm is a side salad is served before a meal. The norm is that your server doesn’t order for you. THAT is the norm.
You sound like you only care about yourself to say you can’t please everyone, because if you don’t TRY by ASKING, you aren’t going to please everyone if you don’t know what type of customer they are and what they want in their service if you don’t VERBALLY COMMUNICATE, will you?
A server that is caring is one that makes sure they are pleasing the customer ALWAYS, for EVERY SINGLE ACTION they do for their table without any GUESSING or ASSUMING involved.
NO, I am thinking that they are TOO LAZY to come to my table to ASK me and they also don’t care about what **I **want, because they just want to hand me what THEY want to or what they ASSUME I want instead of making another trip to my table to ask so they don’t waste my time if I don’t want a refill or if I want something else.
I am mostly thinking about that they are lazy when they do that. They COULD have came by, but decided to make a decision that WASN’T THEIRSto make. **The customer is supposed to be ordering, NOT THE SERVER!! **WHY do you feel you had rights to place an order for your customers?
I don’t EVER think about that they are pleasing me, because they are “GUESSING” that’s what I want, NOT knowing that’s what I want for sure. Pleasing me is knowing 100% for sure that I want whatever.
You also say “Before they ask”, well what if I don’t ask such as the poster on here that said he didn’t want refills at all, which was levdrakon. You are PREDICTING and ASSUMING I will ask. You aren’t getting it before I ask if I wasn’t going to ask. Get what I am saying? It’s a guessing game. You may have guessed right 99% of the time. So what. You should be not guessing at all and make sure what you are doing is what the customer truly wants 100% of the time.
I am assuming you meant my servers(not tell your tables). NO, I shouldn’t have to tell my server “HEY DO NOT ORDER FOR ME” when it’s COMMON SENSE servers don’t have ANY RIGHTS to do ANY ORDERING for ANY CUSTOMERS without their PERMISSION to do so. Since when do servers(sometimes strangers, because I do know some servers just from being regulars) ORDER for their customers? I have NEVER heard of such bizarre thing in my life.
It doesn’t matter if I am “WAY WAY” outside the “NORM”, because as I said before, you aren’t supposed to be serving as if EVERYONE IS THE SAME ALWAYS* kind of mentality. You are supposed to be serving each party, each customer, as if EACH person likes different things. You aren’t supposed to ASSUME or GROUP people into “MAJORITY” or what most people desire, because you are serving DIFFERENT PEOPLE!
You are supposed to be serving as if EVERY person at each party is DIFFERENT, because we were all born with different personalities. WHY should you serve with “ASSUMPTIONS?” You shouldn’t be GUESSING what someone wants or doesn’t want. A good server is someone who isn’t going to risk doing things for nothing and knows the actions they are doing are wanted for sure without any doubts.
If that would bug them, they need to get take-out or eat at home, seriously. HOW are you going to magically know what kind of service you should provide them if you don’t ask them ONE simple question? If they can’t stand an extra question, then the customers need to tell their server they want refills without being asked, because honestly, we seldom have refills without being asked. I NEVER tell my server I don’t like that. They, probably through experiences, have learned they got refills for nothing at times, which they don’t want to waste time. I am just curious your opinion of why most servers don’t give refills without being asked or asking if I am a customer that is “WAY WAY out the norm” I would be getting service like that all the time instead of RARELY? I honestly think that the servers don’t want to do work if they don’t have to. So if the customer states they don’t want a refill, they won’t have to get the refill. It makes sense you know. Your way doesn’t, because if they don’t want a refill, you’ve wasted your time, not only for that customer, but for ALL your customers in your section that you could have been serving that REALLY TRULY WANTED SOMETHING, while you were playing the GUESSING GAME and guessed wrong.
While it is true, most customers don’t want to be bothered, it’s truthfully not always true for everyone. There are plenty of people on the internet I have chatted with on message boards that stated they liked friendly servers.
Asking one simple question can make you not waste your time getting refills that are unwanted. Why not ask if the customers want refills without being asked? I see nothing wrong with one extra question that can make you have a larger tip by them seeing you want to make sure that THEY get pleased, either way they feel about the subject. They will already know they are going to get the automatic refills without being asked if they said they wanted it. They will be happier quicker knowing they won’t have to hunt you down for refills if that’s the type of service they want by knowing IMMEDIATELY you will be serving them that way, whichever way they choose.
You cannot go by “MOST PEOPLE” when serving. As I made the example with the 2 appetizers and 2 entrees, that turned out to be a disaster situation. The waiter assumed most couples share appetizers every single time they order them. You should NEVER, EVER, EVER, ASSUME OR GUESS what customers want. That’s just stupid. I would NEVER serve that way if I were server. I don’t feel the server is pleasing me. I feel they are being too lazy to come by my table to satisify ME, by making sure they are. They are supposed to get ONLY what I say, NOT what I don’t tell them. If I don’t tell them, they shouldn’t be doing the action unless it’s something like noticing I don’t have utensils/one napkin even or extra napkins which are things you don’t order or consume, that’s just basic needs of a dining experience. You may not need extra napkins, but nobody is perfect, so having extra napkins could be there incase of a spill even if you aren’t a messy eater.
As a customer, that’s pretty much what I want. I am delighted when a server fills my glass of tea from a pitcher while s/he’s making the rounds. Sure, the ice has melted, but I’ve been drinking the ice melt along with the tea, and usually the server will pour ice into the glass as well as tea. In fact, I frequently have to tell the server that I don’t want more ice, I just want tea. Now, I do make a point to tell my servers that I cannot eat pepper or raw onions, and most of them will do their best to suggest dishes that I can eat, and tell me apologetically that some dishes will cause me problems. Usually we can find something that I can eat. Sometimes I have to say that I don’t believe that I can eat anything on the menu (this is especially the case with chain restaurants, which have preseasoned food) and pay for my drink and put a tip down, just for the drink and the time.
Usually, the only drink switching I do is when the soda is out of syrup, then I want a different soda, or if I want to switch to water instead of whatever I was drinking in the first place. I’ve never had a problem with switching. I’ve certainly never had to make a federal case about it.
I went out to lunch on Friday. My server said that he was glad to see me, that he wishes all his customers were more like me. He said that I was never loud or unreasonable. Now I can see why he’d say something like that.
I can only base my answers on 5 years of successfully waiting tables. It is more efficient (meaning I have more time to give better service) to treat a station as a single table. If I made one customer mad (you) I was making the other customers happy with this method. I am not going to get a great tip from everyone, might as well maximize the chance and please as many people as possible with the idea that I can’t please everyone.