The first time I got drunk, I was nearly 30. As that might imply I didn’t and don’t drink much, and so foolishly thought that a Long Island Iced Tea was a tea drink with a little alcohol in it. Thus I drank two large ones on an empty stomach. I’ve always assumed the bartender was relieved when I left minutes later, as the hurling was massive and embarrassing 
That’s exactly what I meant to say. $10 is barely a dent in my night, don’t act like you’re some high roller. From some customers I’d gratefully accept it as a nice gesture, from others it’s nowhere near enough to make up for their jackassery.
Yes, it’s universally true. Though it has less to do with blacks than it does with class. If you are at a bar in a upscale yuppie neighborhood and dressed like a person from the neighborhood skin color doesn’t matter. If you’re obviously from the poorer part of town and dressed like Lil Wayne or Eminem, regardless of skin color, you’re going to be a shitty tipper and you’'re gonna be ordering sweet, fruity, high alcohol drinks and stiffing me all night. Not to mention being pushy and assuming I’m not serving you the 3rd time because your black. Actually, I’m not serving you because you just stiffed me on 2 rounds, you could be Brad Pitt and get the same treatment.
That said all things being equal, poor Whites and Mexicans tip better than poor Blacks. None tip well as a rule unsurprisingly.
Also, men tip better than women universally too. This said as a fairly decent looking guy.
Wow - totally different experience to Omniscient here.
The bar I now frequent is probably about 85% credit/debit cards, 15% cash. It tends to be the sort of bar people come for an extended period, and has lots of regulars - there aren’t many other bars in the neighborhood so we don’t get a bar hopping crowd. Bartenders there have to pay a dollar per charge card slip for the tips (outrageous) so I make sure I add that in.
I found people tipped better on tabs, though that could be because they tended to be regulars more. I know I do - I do tend to tip high because I bartended for the longest time. Lets say a round is 4 $4 drinks - $16. If I am paying in cash, I’ll leave the $4 change from the $20 (silly personal rule - I almost never use $1 or $5 bills). If I buy two rounds, the bar tender has gotten $8. If I had run that on a tab, I’d usually make the $32 up to $45.
I never got bothered with the “when you get a chance” lines - I’d just smile and say I’d be back as soon as possible. On the other hand I hated people waving a $20 bill at me. My internal monologue would be saying “I’ve seen one before. I’ve even owned a couple in my life. Trust me, I’ll get to you in turn, though maybe after the hot red head who is sitting politely at the end of the bar, even though she came to the bar a minute after you.”
I guess we all have different experiences and preferences. The key thing we all agree on, I think, is be polite, and treat your bartender as a human being, not a vending machine.
There’s difference between waiving a $20 bill rudely at you and having one in hand to show that you are ready and will be a quick serve. That said, a rudely waived $20 is still a 30 second transaction compared to a $3 minute credit card transaction from a rudely waived card. Both are faster than a 5 minute transaction because the drunken fool needs to shuffle though all their things to locate their debit card and ask their friends what they want after I take their order.
In short, be ready and be quick, I’ve got 50 people waiting. Cash is quick and it communicates that you aren’t living on credit and spending money you don’t have, which sometimes leads to a poor tip and an argument about drink prices. Service industry workers tend to have cash as well. Everything about cash is better.
Incidentally, few bars penalize staff for credit cards. If one did they’d have no staff. Even fewer customers would know about this and the few that did only a proportion would account for it in their tipping. I suspect that people like you are the vast minority in that bar.
You see, you are talking in absolutes in a situation which doesn’t have absolutes. It honestly depends on the bar and the clientele. Where I am, the overwhelming majority of business is done on tabs, and paid by credit/debit.
To claim cash is quicker is looking at a single transaction. But if a tab is being run, it has multiple transactions on it. So you have to add up each time the person comes to the bar, telling them the cost of each round, taking their money, ringing it in, calling the manager sometimes for extra change, or rooting around in your tip jar to get $10 worth of quarters, with taking their card at the beginning of the night, punching each drink into the computer, and swiping it once at the end, handing it back to them with the sign sheet.
Is the credit/debit way always quicker? No, but it often is. Are tips always better when cash? No, though they may well often be - a number which is heavily skewed by the population that uses cash in bars most often being service industry workers.
Cash in bars is dying. I don’t like to carry lots of cash (a Friday or Saturday night I will tend to spend anywhere from $50 up to $200). I will make sure I have cash for a cab home, and maybe $40-60 extra in case of cover charges (rare for me), needing smokes (less rare), tipping doormen/waitresses/bands etc. But I hate handing over cash for each round - first I realize what I am spending, which I hate, and second I just gets wads of dirty notes in my pocket at the end of the night, which will often end up in the laundry.
I guess we worked/drink in different kind of places. As I said earlier - each to their own. There are no absolute truths other than people who put Rush on the juke box haven’t had sex in 3 years minimum.
Speaking as a customer, I’m actually likely to tip worse with cash than debit. Debit, I can write in whatever’s appropriate. Cash, you’re limited to what I have on me, and I might not have much on me and will also want to conserve it. Byproduct of paying mostly on card and wanting to reserve cash for where it’s necessary.
I cannot stand it when customers assume I give a damn about their method of payment, or why their credit card didn’t go through, or even what kind of tip they are leaving. I’m good at my job and if you don’t take care of me, I know the next guy will. Just have your money/card/whatever ready, I don’t have time to waste.
And re tipping strereotypes: one thing I have learned from working in all sorts of bars and restaurants across the country: no rule of thumb applies everywhere. Maybe in one college town bar I worked at in georgia, women tended to tip better than men, and white and black folks were about equal, except for redneck white kids who stiffed more often than not. Move to an upscale martini joint in Philly and there’s a whole new set of rules of thumb–maybe in this joint old white dudes in three pieces treat me best (the kind of customer that spelled tip death in the first place). It all varies, and it’s easy to get attached to stereotypes if you don’t travel much. Once you become a truly grizzled vet, you will just bang out your drinks as fast as possible and count your tips when you get home. And they will be really freaking good tips, for the most part.
Cash in bars is dying. In my bar the split is like 80/20 too. Having cash sets you apart. You are the rare select few and you get treated like gold. That is an absolute truth.
Running a large ongoing tab has upside and can be faster than cash eventually, but it’s negligibly so. You need to ring each round as you go, or at least you should, so ringing on a tab or cash is a wash. Making change is the only penalty and it’s pretty trivial compared to the time it takes for the machine to dial up the bank and print the receipt and then to wait for them to sign it. Plus people forget to close tabs, which means a zero tip and occasionally a loss for the bar. People that have one tab for 4 or 5 people and order a lot are great. They are what tabs and credit cards were invented for. They are old school tab users. They account for maybe 1 of every 20 credit card users though.
Are there dive bars with the same 50 customers who have adjusted and taken advice from the staff, sure. They are the minority though. Here in Chicago, land of a million bars, my assessment is accurate and consistent.
OK - you’re right. You have the absolute truth to bartendering.
We must be able to come up with one absolute truth between us, right? How about: packs of women who come into the bar dressed like the women from Sex and the City, and order cosmos, and utter phrases likes “You’re such a Samantha!” are always terrible tippers. Always, always.
That sounds like a problem with your bar’s policy. All the bars I go to make it very clear that if you run a tab and don’t bother to settle up at the end of the night, your card will be run to cover it and a tip (15 - 20%, depending on the bar) will be added into the total.
I already did.
How about - guys tip better if you give them the check when their date is sat there, rather than giving it to them when the date is in the rest room?
Are they actually worse than old women? I’ve always heard that elderly women are the worst, laying aside the types who are likely to stiff you outright.
Well, except that this is credit card fraud. Would be nice, we’ve asked for it, but it’s pretty clearly illegal.
I don’t know - I found old women to often be the type to use a tip calculator set at 12%. Not the bets but not the worst.
The worst is reserved for you, Rudi, you asswipe. Grumpy old sod who thought he was funny, I wasn’t allowed to flag him, used to fall asleep at the bar, drink mugs of Old Style till around 9 p.m. every night then leave, pay cash for each drink, and never leave a tip.
Yes. That one’s a winner.
As for the Sex in the City girls–I have gotten decent tips from ladies like this, albeit not often. More importantly, they can not possibly tip enough to make their shrill presence tolerable. Plus if anyone is going to puke in the bathroom and bolt without making any attempt to clean up or alert the staff, it is quite likely to be the Samantha chick.
Pina Colada Song made that drink cool for awhile. I’ve heard it’s time consuming to make.
Really? Having a sign at the bar saying that a 15% fee will be added to the bill of anyone who does not close their tab out at the end of the night is credit card fraud? Do you have a cite on that? Because it’s just how things are done in this neck of the woods.
Every place I’ve ever worked does that.