So did you pay at least minimum wage at your restaurants or not?
I used to sack groceries at the commissary at the local Air Force base. In fact, I did it for six years. All tips, no hourly wage.
We had a big-assed sign that said “Baggers Work For Tips Only.” It’s generally understood at military bases that baggers don’t get paid by the commissary. So if you got shafted it was because you did a shitty job or because you had a shitty customer. On a great day I could clear $150 in eight hours. Some shitty days, like $30 - and we had to give a couple of bucks to the manager (he didn’t bag, he made sure everything worked according to plan). I managed to buy a car with my savings over a few summers.
I am also a generous tipper. But - tipping is optional. Highly, highly encouraged, but optional. Many restaurants add gratuity to the bill for large parties for that reason - they don’t want their staff getting shafted for serving such large, high-maintenance parties.
I think the manager is wise to approach a low-tipping table tactfully to discern if there was indeed a problem, and if there wasn’t, explaining that he/she always asks about the service and how to improve it when someone tips less than 15%, which is the norm. It probably helps to have one of those receipts that shows the tip at 15% and 20% as well, and a message about the importance of tipping. But tipping is optional. If it was mandatory it would be added to the bill.
I know what it’s like to get stiffed after providing a service for someone in a courteous manner. But I chose a job that worked in this way, instead of working in a fast food joint or whatever.
I believe this is an incorrect statement, and that many people tend to conflate how they think tipping should work with the effect tipping actually has. Let me quote from an article mentioned in a previous tipping thread:
The New Yorker: The Talk of The Town - THE FINANCIAL PAGE - CHECK, PLEASE (Issue of 2005_09_05, Posted 2005-08-29), * James Surowiecki*
Huh? What does that have to do with anything??
“A person who is nice to you but mean to the waiter is not a nice person.” – Dave Barry
As to the OP: I can certainly see having issues with an older relative who undertipped for some reason – my grandmother used to tip a nice, shiny quarter – but a restaurant that embarrassed my mother in my presence would never have my business again, would probably receive a written letter to the highest level, and would suffer the dubious wrath of my telling everyone I knew that they should not eat there and should tell their friends not to eat there either.
You are bitching about how you would not welcome back people who don’t tip, but then you also say you don’t believe tipping should be mandatory. You ran a restaurant, so my question is probably better stated as this:
Did you pay your waitstaff at least minimum wage such that they would not depend on tips to make a decent living? That is what would make tipping not necessary, or as you put it, not mandatory. Or did you take advantage of the exception of the minimum wage law and pay your waitstaff shit, expecting your customers to make up for it?
I understand that waiters accept the deal of crap wages with the opportunity to make much more in tips. So did you, so shut up when it works as designed. If your customer stiffs the waiter and he then doesn’t make minimum wage, you pay him extra so he makes that minimum wage. That’s how it works, right? Berating your customers for not paying your waitstaff when you yourself don’t pay them much is screwed up.
Just to throw my hat into the ring, I do agree that no tip (which was what the manager understandably thought was left - or rather, not left) would indicate to me as a manager that I needed to go investigate what the hell my staff did to piss of my good customers. I would never say what the OP reports, rather I would pull the customer aside (NEVER in front of her guests) and say something like, “Ma’am, I couldn’t help but notice there was to amount for a tip on your payment slip. Was there any problem with your meal or your service that I need to rectify before you leave tonight?”
And the second she said, “No, of course not! I left a tip with the cook!” I’d drop it like a hot potato. It’s no longer any of my business. The practice of tipping is indeed nearly universal in the US, but the amount of the tip is not actually compulsory. My only job as the manager is to make sure my staff made the customer happy, and while my hope would be that the customer would in return make my staff happy, it’s not worth pissing off a repeat customer for. A small tip due to ignorance, poor math skills or cheapskatedness is the risk that all waitrons take. A small tip due to shitty service is my concern as a manager.
The OP said his mom tipped cheap, but apparently didn’t seem to think she did, and is usually taking the moral high ground when it comes to money. I’d suspect, in this case, that the OP’s mom is like many elderly people who just forget (sometimes randomly) about inflation and prices rising. Ten bucks might have felt like a generous tip to her, while 15 % of 130 dollars might have felt completely outrageous.
In 1979, when my grandma had aged a lot in just a few years, she gave me a dime with a flourish and tell me to go buy an ice-cream. In 1979 a dime would buy me only the cheapest ice-popsicle. But I could tell by her genuine sweet face she thought she had given me enough money to go buy a Chocolate Creme DeLuxe with topping, which is what a dime would have bought in 1955.
You are clearly a moron. At what point do I state that I don’t expect the customers to “make up for it”? My waitstaff was stiffed every once in a blue moon, and very rarely closed with anything less than 3 times minimum wage. In your world, one bad customer means the waiter doesn’t make minimum wage? Yep, you’re a moron.
Wages, in any industry, come striaght from the customer. Period. They either come as tips, or a 20% additional markup in food. Embrace the concept.
Gee, that would be when you said:
Well, what is it? Do you expect customers to tip, or is it optional?
As for this gem:
No kidding? Gee, thanks for that bit of enlightenment. You still didn’t quite answer my question though: Did you or did you not pay your waiters less than minimum wage?
This makes no fucking sense. What kind of logic are you using to arrive at tipping optional = less than minimum wage earnings?
The owner of my restaurant paid his waitstaff less than minimum wage.
I sure aas hell expect customers to teip for good service. I also expected the servers to provide good service. However, the idea that one might be stiffed for awful service once in a blue moon does not lead one to conclude that the restaurant needs to increase their wages.
Let’s try this again.
I sure as hell expected customers to tip for good service. I also expected the servers to provide good service. However, the idea that a server might be stiffed for awful service once in a blue moon does not lead one to conclude that the restaurant needs to increase their wages.
Something can beoptional and expected at the same time.
I’m not. Pay attention. I’m saying that the owner of the restaurant gets an exception to the minimum wage law for his employees who work for tips. If, for some reason, the waiter makes so little in tips that he doesn’t make more than the minimum wage, the owner makes up the difference. That’s how it works, right?
Exactly how it works. Now, you pay attention to the part where I said that the waitsatff I worked with never made less than minimum wage.
Hang on. I have no idea if, by law, the owner has to make up the difference. I do know that we paid well over minimum wage to waitstaff-in-training. However, we were never in a position where the active waitstaff made less than minimum wage, so I’m not sure what the law dictates there. It would certainly make sense.
Having worked in the service industry, i have to disagree.
Why do you think that one of the first things the waiter asks when you sit down is “Can i bring you something from the bar?” Because alcohol has a high cost/preparation ratio (that is, it’s quite expensive but takes little time to prepare), waiters love tables that order booze, because it rapidly sends the total bill (and the tip) upwards. I’ve never yet met a waiter who doesn’t expect to be tipped on the alcohol. When i was a waiter, if i served you $50 worth of food and $24 worth of martinis or beer, i’d feel screwed if you only tipped on the food.
And that includes bottles of wine.
There is an exception to this, and exactly where you draw the line depends on the individual. I would always tip fully on a $20 or $30 bottle of wine, but i might not tip the same percentage on a $100 bottle, and definitely not on a $400 bottle (I can’t afford these last two right now, so the issue is moot).
Most waiters i’ve known understand that people might not tip as much on expensive bottles of wine. They appreciate that, for the most part, it takes little more effort to open and pour an expensive bottle than it does a cheap bottle. One exception, and this is something that customers also need to be aware of, is that sometimes old bottles of wine with lots of sediment are decanted before they are served, and this takes time. When i worked at a high class place in the UK, we used to decant the good stuff into a crystal decanter and pour from the decanter at the table. If i did this at a restaurant in the US, i’d expect to be tipped accordingly.
I worked in food service (I worked in the Walnut Room in Field’s one summer-not as a waitress, so all I got was minimum wage), and a local pizza joint (again, not as a waitress, but a “carry out girl”-I answered the phone and took orders). Food service workers have to deal alot of crap.
I am somewhat conservative with my tips–ALOT depends upon the 'tude of my waitress/waiter. Some of the tip depends on the food(but I fully realize that the wait staff has little to do with what comes out of the kitchen). I probably tip about 15-20% when I go out, more if there are 4 of us etc.
I loathe Bush and all his ilk, but I don’t consider tips mandatory. I also don’t believe in making a waitress earn her tip, by acting like a jerk to her and watching her suck it up. I expect courtesy and professional service–even at IHOP. If tipping is mandatory, that will end my tipping for all time–just add 15% on to my bill and leave me be. That means that sucky service will automatically get rewarded, but excellent service may get shorted. Nice.
I will say that if a manager came to me with that question–I would be pissed off, too. Mom may have undertipped, but that is between her and the cook. I would have left some of my own money, but can understand the OP not doing so.
It’s been a few years, but I tended bar in a very upscale country club.
They had a service bar set up who’s purpose was to prepare cocktails/wine for the staff to serve to the tables. In other words, the bartender at that bar didn’t have customers of their own.
I was tipped 10% (can’t remember exactly) by the waiters/waitresses on the bar bill. In other words, if they sold a $60 bottle of wine, they tipped me for the wine. If someone didn’t tip on the bar bill or the wine, the tip they gave me came out of their tips.
Regarding expensive restaurants and whether you should still be required to tip 15-20%-
When your working in a finer restaurant, you have less tables than you do at a moderately priced restaurant because the service is better.
Additionally, and this has been done at many restaurants I’ve work at, you have a front and a back at each table. You work as a team where one person stays out on the floor with the tables and the second person is the ‘runner’ carrying food, making sure food and order is correct. And the tips are split between the team members. Then tip out the bus person, bartender, sometimes host.
OK, that was my point. I didn’t claim that the waitstaff made less than minimum wage, but only that the owner *paid *less than minimum wage (with the difference made up in tips). The owner didn’t have to pay less than minimum wage and hope that tips made up the rest, but he did. If for some reason the waiter got stiffed and the owner had to make up the difference, big deal. Overall, the owner is getting a pretty big break on paying wages.
I’m just unclear on why you (as a manager, not the owner, right?) really cared. Do you ask poor tippers not to return on the behalf of the waiters, the owner, or both? Did this somehow affect your pay?
I’ll use approximate figures, but if the minimum wage is $6, and the allowable minimum wage for tipped workers is $2, the most an owner could be liable to a waiter for an 8 hour shift is $32 (($6-$2)*8 hours), and that’s if the waiter made $0 in tips for the entire night. Does it make sense to piss off customers for a maximum of $32?
And yes, I realize that your waiters probably made more that $6 an hour, but they agreed to work for $2/hr plus tips with a guarantied minimum of $6/hr. They agreed to it. The owner agreed to it. So what’s the big deal if things go to hell and it works as agreed upon?