No, I don’t work for the restaurant. I work Armed Security. In the last month, I’ve spent four Midnight to 4am shifts working a certain National-Chain restaurant just off the freeway in a very ethnically mixed major city in middle America. The majority of the customers I see are Asian or Black.
OK people, learn how to motherfucking tip!
Black couple. Two large meals, ordered another two full meals to-go. Tipped 12 cents. TWELVE FUCKING CENTS.
Two Asian couples. Orders tons of food, made lots of special requests. Ordered an entire pie and had the staff sing happy birthday to one of the girls. Left a $2 tip. Oh, and they left something else too. One of the girls had her period all over the booth.
Two Black women. Surly as all get-out. One wanted to send back her eggs because they were cold. When the waiter comped them, she suddenly didn’t want to have them heated and ate them as is. Obviously they weren’t too cold. When I walked by headed for the kitchen, she snarked “Stop gawking at me!”It’s my job to look at everyone, you stupid cunt. They walked out leaving $4 on the table, apparently to pay for all the other non-comped food and the tip. I had their plate and car description, ready to call the cops, but the waiter, as visibly upset as he was, just comped the rest of their food and kept the money as a tip.
Several other similar stories.
Talking with the staff people, NO ONE wants to work those shifts. Tips suck ass. One spoke about having groups of 9, 12 and 14 in one night, and making a total of $25 in tips for the eight hours. At least half the people who come in are assholes; disruptive, surly and disrespectful. Hell, I can see why they have people like me sitting there. People are a whole lot more settled when they can look over and see a badge and a gun.
The late night places with this wonderful clientele should just start charging a per person cover charge to even walk in. I’m sure the waitress doesn’t care if the no tippers turn around at the door. Wouldn’t you rather make nothing doing nothing than make nothing busting your butt.
I have to say I would be disconcerted with someone in uniform, armed, sitting here paying close enough attention to me to know what I was eating.
Then again, the idea of eating somewhere that needs an armed security guard probably wouldn’t occur to me either. I thought that is what comps for cops were for.
At the place where I work, any party of 6 or larger gets 18% gratuity added. It is a lifesaver for the waiters and waitresses as these larger groups tend to be Northwestern students who will stiff anyone without a second thought.
I love all of gods children exactly the same and not a day goes by that I do not have my breath taken away with gratitude and awe at the diverse rainbow of humanity in which I live.
However… it is not racist to observe that people of African decent (as a group) tend not to tip as well as people of European decent. It is just observing reality based on experience.
This is absolutely correct. To form my own conclusion, I used as a sample the hundreds of people I’ve personally waited on, along with anecdotes from dozens of my co-workers about the hundreds of people each of them had waited on. The results, while not scientific, were far from ambiguous.
I hope you’re talking about a systematic study involving thousands of people. Otherwise you’re using the term “reality based on experience” to mean “personal anecdotal evidence”.
The best tip I ever got in all my years as a waitress (all 3 of them) was from a lone black man. I can’t speak for other servers, but in my experience, the tips were about even regardless of race.
I’m too lazy to dig up cites right now, but the Cornell school of hotel and restaurant management has done studies on tipping practices, and found that blacks do in fact tip less in general.
Is it ageist to state that college students are lousy fucking tippers? When I was in college and delivering pizzas i rarely, if ever got a tip on campus. And yes, I did tip when I was on the ordering end.
