Pay Your Fucking Bar Tab!

The BBQ Pit
1

Dear Beloved Customer,

When you enter our restaurant (this applies to just about any other restaurant, too) and you inform the hostess that you would like a table, and she takes your name down and informs you that it will be a half hour wait for said table, please keep the following in mind:

You are more than welcome to sit at my bar while you wait.

You do not have to order anything to drink; when I offer to get you something, please do not glare at me and snort, “We’re JUST WAITING HERE!” I am merely doing my job. If, however, you do order something to drink, and it is “just an iced tea,” or “just a root beer,” please keep in mind that yes, I do have to charge you for it. This is policy. If you think that we are going to hand out dozens of free sodas b/c we are a busy restaurant on a wait, please feel free to seek out another restaurant that isn’t nearly so busy. I am not going to apologize and give you free beverages b/c other people want to eat here, too, and they got here first.

Also remember that water is always a viable, totally free option.

If you do feel like enjoying a Frosty Adult Beverage, I’ll be happy to make you one. Do realize, however, that you must pay your bar tab before going to your table. Why, you ask?

Several reasons.

a.) I do not know what table you are going to, nor do I have time to find out. And I am required to start a tab for every beverage served, and I cannot transfer that tab without a manager’s assistance. Finding a manager for every single bar tab who wants to “transfer it to the table tab” would be a full time job within itself.

b.) Even if I don’t start a tab for your drinks, I am just going on your word that you’ll inform your server that you haven’t paid for them yet. Do you really expect me to believe that everybody who doesn’t pay me for their drinks will tell their server? Do you expect me to chase down your server and make sure? ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?

c.) I do not work for free. Yes, that’s what you were thinking, weren’t you. It’s all about greed, isn’t it. Frankly, yes! If my entire bar wants to “just pay one tab at the table,” I wouldn’t make any money. And I know you. You only want to tip once. And you’d prefer to stiff me for your drinks, and tip your server instead. And this is a whole lot easier if you can just transfer said bar tab to that server, and skip me entirely.

And how do I know this? When you do leave my bar without paying me or tipping me, and I find out what table you went to, and give your server your bar tab with strict instructions to pay it, you’ll usually tip me. And you look at me, slightly shamefaced, and mumble something about, “I thought I could pay it all on one tab.” Yeah, I bet you did. I guess you just “didn’t hear me” when I said you had to pay your bar tab at the bar. And now you’ve been caught, and now you tip me. But you were perfectly happy ordering me around twenty minutes ago, asking me to make you all kinds of high-maintenance drinks, taking care of you, giving you a menu to peruse, getting you an ashtray, etc., etc., and you had no intention of dropping five bucks on the bar for my service. If I don’t hand you a tab, you won’t tip me. I’ve been doing this for far too long to think otherwise. Very few people will tip me if they don’t have to pay me. Trust me, I’ve been doing it awhile. I know.

And yes, you are still free to stiff me. Go for it. Other people do it, too. Some people just don’t like tipping twice; they figure they’ll “just tip the server” and screw the bartender. And some people are just shitty, period, and don’t tip anyone. I know this, and I’m okay with it, b/c such is the job I took.

BUT YOU’RE STILL GOING TO PAY YOUR FUCKING TAB, OKAY? No ifs, ands, or buts about it! I barely have time to make everyone’s drinks; I certainly don’t have time to transfer your tab to your server, or chase you down once you’ve gotten your table and make sure you pay it! And no, this isn’t a new scam that you just thought of! Lots of people try to sneak away to their tables without paying me for their drinks, and most of them don’t tell their server. THIS ISN’T A NEW, REVOLUTIONARY IDEA! I wasn’t born yesterday, people!

And if you honestly forgot, don’t get pissed when you have to go back up to the bar and pay me. Nobody made you order those drinks, but now that you did, you damn well have to pay for 'em! I told you when I served you that you had to pay your bar tab before you went to your table, and if you forget, I’ll remind you. OKAY? And if you’re embarrassed when your server informs you, “Ma’am/sir, you have a bar tab that’s still open,” maybe you should’ve thought of that before you ordered all those drinks and then just waltzed away from the bar.

I did tell you, you know. And just b/c I can’t catch everybody before they walk away from the bar, and remind them, doesn’t mean that you all weren’t told.

JUST PAY YOUR BAR TAB!

Thank you,

Your Faithful Bartender
P.S. If you think that acting like a bigshot, and yelling at me that you’ll only pay one tab, and that countless other restaurants have let you just pay one tab, is going to get you anywhere, you’re right.

It’ll get you kicked out the door. Thanks, and good night!

2

After reading this, I’m now completely amazed that restaurant bartenders don’t spend 90% of their shift throwing drinks in people’s faces. I would crack in about ten minutes, tops.

:: tips Audrey $20 and backs away slowly ::

3

Why, don’t be silly, Giraffe!

We only spend 25% of our shifts throwing drinks in people’s faces.

:wink:

Thanks for the tip!

4

I’ve worked with customers most of my short adult life and while I can handle it fairly well, I don’t think I could ever work a job where I depended on tips.

I don’t know how you’ve managed to not murder someone yet.

5

You guys shoulda been on the other thread where they explained in detail about how tips are purely discretionary.

6

God bless bartenders!

7

<shrug> It always pisses me off when I go to restaurants where transferring my bar tab to my table tab is akin to rocket science. Why the hell is it so bloody hard to do such a thing?

And no, I don’t just want to stiff the bartender. I’m more than happy to tip the bartender. I like bartenders. I want to stay on their good side. What I don’t want to have to do is spend several minutes screwing with a bar tab when my table is ready. Transfer the goddamn tab.

8

It may be slightly different at a lower traffic bar, but I need to say that I often (read, 30-40 percent of the time) don’t tip my bartender. This is not because I have a desire to ‘stiff’ him/her. I’d imagine that on a Thursday/Friday/Saturday night, most of the bartenders around here serve anywhere between 200-500 people in the lower volume bars. If there’s only one bartender (which is often the case) and everyone tipped him or her, that’s a giant wad of cash.

So, if I’ve only decided to spend 8 or 9 dollars, and I’ve got to pay 4 or 4.50 for a drink, I may have two drinks and not tip. And, I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with that.

9

While the customer should always let the bartender know they need to settle the tab, and leave a tip even if the charges are being transferred to the table, I think restaurants that don’t allow the transfer of charges are woefully short-sighted.

You don’t have time to spend 10 seconds coordinating with the hostess? Why then do you have time to run a credit card and wait there while the customer signs it?

In addition to being an annoyance to the customer and a waste of the time for the bartender (and the hostess if she too is waiting) the restaurant is now paying credit card charges twice. Even if only half the patrons are paying with plastic, I’m sure it adds up to hundreds of dollars an evening.

10

Waverly made a point that I was just about to. It’s financially advantageous for a restaurant with a bar to create a system which doesn’t waste the time and money involved with having the bartender clear tabs with credit cards for customers who are staying to dine.

Why couldn’t the hostess, before grabbing the patron to escort them to their table, say “Hey, Audrey, I need their tab.” or “Hey, Audrey, what number are they in the system?”

There are some fairly sophisticated computer systems working in restaurants these days. I find it hard to believe that someone hasn’t come up with something that would make the “carry over” of a tab a simple process. If no one has, someone certainly should!

11

I’m usually firmly on the side of servers and bartenders, having done it myself for a significant amount of time, but I’ve got to side with Waverly and TeaElle here. It’s easier for everybody to just transfer the tab, saves on credit card charges to the restaurant, and doesn’t take any more extra effort than playing “cop” with your customers and making sure they pay before they leave. Between you, the server and the hostess, someone is bound to take notice that bar drinks had been ordered prior to the table being sat. Now, this is assuming that the drinks weren’t finished prior to the table being sat and that the customers brought their unfinished drinks with them, or just finished as they were being sat. If someone sat at the bar and finished a beer, then got sat 5 minutes later, I don’t see why they can’t just pay their tab before heading to their table. To insist that already finished drinks be added to an as yet, unsat table, is just silly.

As far as the tipping thing goes, since you are being tipped out at the end of the night by all of the servers anyway, you’re not really being cheated if you just poured a couple of quick drinks before a table was sat, since you’re getting a percentage of that tip from the server anyway. Of course, I’ve never been a bartender, only a server, so I’m seeing it from the server point of view. And from that view, it appears as if you’re being a tad bit on the greedy side, essentially expecting to be double tipped by the table, first at the bar, then from my tips at the end of the night.

Regardless of that fact, Eonwe, you still have a fucked up theory on tipping. I’m talking about a restaurant bartender who pours a couple of cokes or maybe a beer for someone waiting. You seem to be talking about tipping in bars in general. Welcome to America. We tip here.

12

I think one major issue with the idea of transferring tabs is to make sure the bar tab isn’t convenently lost in the transfer. Some restaurant owners are very very careful about loss and the bar is one of the biggest areas to loose money to theft etc.

That said, I think 99.something% of all bartenders are very honest, overworked and good people. I personally never mind paying a bar tab before going to a table and Always Tip. I’m in the business and appreciate the work done by bartenders. If I think i’m going to be there for one drink, I don’t carry a tab, but pay up front so there isn’t the settling up to do.

13

Dear beloved bartender and restaurant owner,

yes, I will definitely seek out other establishments where they believe making life easier for me, the customer, is their prime concern and in the future i will avoid establishments which believe the customer should adapt to them and is there to make things easy for them. If transferring a tab is so complicated for you I cannot imagine how you can cook a meal. Maybe you should be in a simpler business, like say, repairing bicycles.

14

So let me get this fuckin straight. You order a drink or 2. The bartender ** serves ** you the drinks. And you don’t feel that that service deserves a gratuity? Just because you do not have a desire to ‘stiff’ the bartender doesn’t mean you’re not! Let me make this perfectly clear:

YOU’RE STIFFING THE BARTENDER EVERY TIME YOU DON’T TIP ON A DRINK SERVED!

Now if the bartender was rude or incompetent, then no, you do not have to tip. But it sounds to me that your tipping (or lack of) is dependent on how much money ** you ** think the bartender is making and not on the service he/she is performing. This makes you an ASS! And by the way, not everyone is tipping the bartender. Your statements here makes that abundantly clear.

If $1.50-2.00 for a tip is going to brake you bank, then you don’t need to be going out to bars and wasting the bartender’s time. If on the other hand your just a tight wod with your money, then your self justification of that the bartenders making plenty of money anyway makes you a disgusting waist of matter that doesn’t deserve the restraint I’m using on my self in this thread.

You might not see anything wrong with that, but everyone else that sees your actions as being shitty does. To put it another way, WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS WRONG! If you could see me right now I’m flipping you the bird.

Because it doesn’t always take 10 seconds to coordinate with a hostess. CC machines do only one thing, over and over again. And there always right where you left it (not like a hostess). In short, machines are easier to deal with then hostesses.

I agree though that it is in the restaurants best interest to make transferring a tab over easy. 1. You don’t get charged twice if the guest pays with a CC. 2. It makes the guest happy, and that’s what you want. 3. It makes the whole process more efficient in that you don’t have the guest hounding the bartender over and over about transferring the tab and the bartender doesn’t have to comb the restaurant for the guest that just walked out on his tab expecting it to be transferred. In the hotel I work at we’re working on a system in which a 18% gratuity will be added automatically to the drinks when the tab is transferred. Until we get it up and working, the manager has to void off the drinks off the check, ring in the 18% gratuity, close it out to a special account for the restaurant, and inform the server what drinks they need to ring in on the guests new check. It’s a pain in the neck. Bartenders though will always frown on the transferring of checks though because theirs more of a chance of getting tipped higher with two checks then with one. For example, I, being a bartender, present you a check for $15.75. you’ve just been told by the hostess that your table is ready, so you through me a $20 and say keep the change. With a big smile I say thank you and come again. Do you think I’m going to get that 27% tip off a $165 dinner bill. I don’t think so.

15

If you aren’t going to transfer their tab to their table, why not just require payment as you bring the drinks?

I’ve never had a drink in a restaurant bar where they were at all hesitant to transfer it when my table became available, but if I had to pay out first, after running a tab, that seems bad for the restaurant.

Hostest comes to seat me. I say “sorry, hold on a second, I need to pay out here first, could you wait 5-10 minutes while I get the bartenders attention, wait for the credit card to run, and then sign? I’m sure you have nothing better to do.”

16

"I don’t think I could ever work a job where I depended on tips. "

Me neither. I wouldn’t last ten seconds. My sister has such a job and I don’t know how she does it. Then again, I never really asked. heh But, hey, it’s how she pays for college. :smiley:

17

All these tipping discussions has made me realize what a jerk I must’ve seemed like when I was in the U.S.

We never tipped anyone as far as I can recall. On the other hand, tipping is done very seldom in Sweden and only if the service has been above and beyond very good.

Maybe, hopefully, they noticed we were tourists and understood that we weren’t fucking with them just for the fun of it.

18

Not with me. I’m fine with tipping a good bartender 25, 30%, or more even if I know they are also splitting tips with the wait staff. However, if a bartender refuses to transfer a tab at a restaurant that I know can do it, I’m likely to get pissed off and leave nothing.

I know there are restaurants that simply don’t allow tranfering of the tab, but in those that do the staff will occasionally refuse anyway in hopes of generating higher tips.

19

Eonwe, you do realize how skewed your logic is, don’t you? Do you really think you’re the only person to ever think to him/herself, “Gee, everybody else is tipping the bartender, so that means I shouldn’t have to.”

If you don’t see anything wrong with not tipping the bartender, I won’t argue with you, b/c it’s pointless. They performed a service for you and you don’t want to tip them; that’s fine. But please do not justify it by saying that because other people are tipping, you shouldn’t feel badly b/c you don’t.

Lezlers, tipout on waiter sales does not justify my shift. If I didn’t get tipped over the bar, my entire bar would be just a service bar for servers. And server tipout has never paid my rent; it’s a bonus, but it isn’t worth showing up for by itself. So no, I don’t think it’s greedy to expect people I’ve served to tip me, instead of tipping you on services you didn’t render. It may not seem like a big deal for me to get stiffed on “a couple of quick drinks” while people are waiting, but on a busy weekend night, that’s half my bar crowd all night long. And that’s a lot of stiffage.

Servers tip me out a dime on every ten dollars’ worth of drinks sold. My customers, however, will usually tip me a dollar to two/three on every ten dollars worth of drinks sold.

So do the math, my dear. :smiley: You wouldn’t like it, either.

And I’ll address other questions when I get back from work tonight, but I have to go sling whiskey now!

To be continued…

20

I personally think bartenders are generally tipped way too much (although I usually contribute to this). Their service usually consists of filling a glass and taking it away, no way worth the $1 or 2per drink that is usually tipped while the waiter makes long trips, several times to/from the kitchen, serving fewer customers out of necessity. Also I don’t claim the job is easy, just the tips are out of line w/ the work IMHO.

Also I realize that you depend on tips but it really sucks that it is so hard to transfer the tab to the food bill. The customer, if he trully wants to tip you directly, will find a way - and that is what tipping is really all about, a reward for service, paid by choiuce by the customer. Part of that service should be billing in a way that the customer wants with out hassle (read: one bill).