As a former waitress who worked my way through college at a Mexican restaurant in rural NC, I am VERY glad to no longer depend on the decency of strangers for my livelihood.
Some points:
- What a few people said about servers tipping out or being taxed on a percentage of their sales is absolutely true. Let’s say I am done for the night, I run a report to calculate my sales and I sold 100.00. At my restaurant, we tipped out a fixed percentage to the bartenders and the busboys. If it were a busy night, we also tipped out to the food runner. And, when clocking out for the night, we reported our tips so that we could be taxed appropriately. When I worked 40.00 weeks, my weekly paychecks amounted to about 30.00 bucks.
So, if you stiff a server on a check, you are costing them money. No matter if you tipped them or not, they are still going to have to tip out for that check total as well as be taxed on a tip for that amount. Sure, good tips balance out bad tips, but service would have to be shockingly bad before I would ever tip so little as to cause someone else to pay money (even a small amount!) for my dinner.
- Krispy Original
This was the reason I waited tables to get through college, it was the most bang for the buck. I worked 5 nights a week (including the lucrative Fri/Sat night shifts) and paid for rent/books/school etc. Although my place was a Mexican family chain, I could still clear 70+ dollars (after tipping out 15 bucks or so) on a Fri/Sat night.
Don’t forget though, waiting tables is exhausting work, always running, always on your feet. I nearly ruined my back and my wrist carrying large trays, not to mention my poor feet! I did average about 10.00 an hour and there was no way I would have done the job for less.
- reprise
This is a complete non issue in my experience waiting tables. If the restaurant doesn’t open til 11:00 am and you are scheduled at 10:00 “to open” (ie, make the tea, cut the lemons, whatever) you get paid your waiting wage which was 2.13 during my day. If you’re last table is sat at 8:30 but lingers til 11:00, you get paid 2.13. If all your tables leave promptly and it takes you 2 hours to roll your 100 silverware and do your closing sidework (wiping down booster seats, filling salad dressing, marrying ketchup) you get paid 2.13.
The point is, the management where I worked NEVER paid minimum wage to servers under any circumstance.
- Enderw24
As I mentioned before, at the restaurant I worked at in NC, we were taxed on our sales totals. We also tipped out on sales totals (tips to the bartenders and busboys were REQUIRED and were collected by management during when we checked out for the night). We used the computer to run a report based on our server number and our total sales number was right at the top. When we clocked out, we used that sales number to calculate what we should claim for our tips (most of us claimed 10% of our sales, which was pretty accurate since after tipping out, most of us walked with 10% of our total sales).
- Lucretia
It happened in my restaurant all the time. We had a ton of regulars who were habitual bad tippers and they got pretty lousy service. If you’re dumb enough to keep coming back to a restaurant and leave crappy tips, then you deserve crappy service. Why should a server waste time on you when they know they’re getting nothing? I would much rather spend my time giving good service to another table who will probably leave me a decent tip. We even had unflattering nicknames for the repeat bad tippers! Oooh, how unprofessional! Give me a break, we’re human.
- XJETGIRLX
I don’t know what kind of fairy tale land of personal fulfillment you’re living in, but I waited tables to make money to live and go to school. I wasn’t there to “find” anything but money to live on.
And on that note, I’d just like to say again, that I’m really glad to be out of waitressing. I read these threads about tipping and it just makes my blood boil. I always wondered why some people were such bad tippers even though service was good.
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I’d be out of a job in a hurry.