Possibly, you missed the point. Your gross wages, i.e. before taxes, had to meet the then-current federal minimum wage. That includes your paycheck, again before taxes, and your tips.
Surely as a bartender you were averaging more than $6.00/hour.
Is the part about playing games a joke, or true?
Over here, they have one machine that they carry around, and most certainly doesn’t allow to play games.
Applebee’s has table terminals.
Maybe I wasn’t clear- I’m not at all saying that people don’t claim they only get $2.13** if**there are no tips. They absolutely do claim that. They even claim that they only made $2.13 per hour from 3-5 on Tuesday afternoon because the place was dead. What I have never seen is a claim that someone actually worked (for example) 20 hours over the course of a week and earned less than $145 including tips and certainly not that they earned only their $42.60 in direct wages for those 20 hours.
Same thing with the taxes. I’ve seen plenty of people say they lose money when an individual table stiffs them because they have to report 10% of sales as tips* but they readily admit that even with the undertipping tables, the tables that tip 15 or 20% bring them over 10% for the pay period.
*although that’s not true- they are supposed to report their actual tips.
It’s possible the machines are safer than the “unknown person” who has your card. On the other hand, I don’t know that these devices are unhackable.
Cash is safer, especially if you want to be a cheapskate about tipping* and are capable of fast getaways. :dubious:
*speaking of which, there is a compendium of tipper categories in the book “Waiter Rant”. The author reserves special scorn for diners who calculate tip percentage based on pre-tax cost (that’s the basis on which I add my 17% or so). I like his category of tippers who give the same percentage despite the service. You could either be the most attentive and helpful waiter ever, or spill scalding hot soup on their baby, they’ll always tip 15%. 
Another one that has those table terminals is Red Robin. According to PrestoPrime EMV’s website, Denny’s, Red Lobster, and Outback (among others) also use them. I don’t see Red Robin listed, so Red Robin may use a competing vendor.
So they’re mostly seen in those large chain casual dining restaurants.
But that’s EXACTLY what I said people claim - that they’ll make less than minimum wage if they don’t get enough tips.
But that claim cannot be true unless employers claim full tip credit regardless of tips actually earned.
Yes, and what I was trying to say (although perhaps not well) is that I have never heard one claim they*** actually were ***paid less than minimum wage because they didn’t get enough tips. Claiming that’s what will happen and claiming that it actually did happen are two different things. You asked
I think if employers were routinely underpaying servers, I would have seen at least one claim that a server was actually paid less than minimum for a pay period.
Should the tip be calc’d on the total bill or the amount before taxes? I thought the latter but every listing of suggested tips at the bottom of the bill that I’ve seen lately uses the total amount.
I remember, a couple years ago, going to a Red Robin and seeing the terminal and that it cost a buck or two to unlock the games for my kid. My initial thought was “What? A dollar?! This is a scam!” Then I paid it and it kept our hungry and fussy child amused until the food came out and it was “A dollar?! What a deal!”
I was actually asking GESancMan if employers routinely misreported tips, which could also include underreporting tips so the employees didn’t pay taxes on all of it. But implicit in the claim that servers would make less than minimum if they didn’t get enough tips is the notion that employers would always claim the maximum tip credit regardless.
From my admittedly non-lawyerly reading of the law underreporting and overreporting tips would both be fraudulent.
I have worked restaurants for the better part of 40 years. I started in the Back of house, made it up to executive chef, then moved to the front of house to make SERIOUS ca$h. I could go on and on about tipping but I’ll try not to boor you folks.
Regarding #3, I relied on averaging and “Tip Karma”. work long enough and give GREAT service and the tips will average out to be very good. My serving/bar tendering days were always in a high end house. When I would get short changed on a tip it always seemed the next few tables would be better than average. I relied on “call parties” for a lot of my income. I also learned to NEVER judge a table on appearance. At a “white linen” place I once took a table of simple looking, very casually dressed couples. The host ran a HUGE tab wining and dining his guests, well over 600$. He tipped me $200 in cash. Turns out he was in town negotiating his contract with a food distributor, he was the inventor of Vegaline, a commercial pan spray similar to Pam®️.
Also, late night diners tended to tip moorland without exception those in the “industry” were the BEST tippers.
TL:DNR…Averaging and Tip Karma
Oh, and currently I manage a Pizzeria. If someone does not tip my driver only collects $2.50.
How many deliveries can they do in an hour? The same federal laws apply to delivery drivers. They must be paid a minimum of $2.13 per hour, and wages + tips must be at least $7.25 per hour. And calling them contractors doesn’t avoid that.
Tip Karma !! My drivers do very well…
What about bartenders? I knew a guy who worked part-time at night as a bartender at a hotel and he said he could easily make $200-300+ a night. I know there’s a bit of showmanship and knowledge of getting the right drink mix, but I’m strictly a beer or 7-Up/Seagrams 7 (used to be rum and Coke, but I don’t drink Coke anymore) drinker.
Questions are:
Do people tip more when drunk or sober?
Do people tip more when they’re buying a drink for someone they’re interested in (i.e. just met)?
What about when they buy a round of drinks? Is the tip calculated on the total or each individual drink?
Do you tip according to the cost of the drink or just a straight amount all the time?
Do you change your tipping habit during happy hour?
If you accidentally under or over tip, do you adjust on your next drink?
I’m genuinely curious because I rarely go out drinks.
I don’t know how safe from hacking the machines are, but at least at Applebees they are definitely a threat to your health; greasy, nasty, no one ever wipes them off I guess. I have to pick them up to move out of my way (since I am not interested in playing trivia for money or paying my bill over their “network”), and then I have to go wash my hands. Ick.
here in Cleveland, “celebrity” restaurants are screwing servers by deducting CC charges from their tip(even though they’re paying charges regardless of tip or not!), so cash would be better
I have been on the receiving end of tips twice, as a pizza delivery driver and in one of the casinos I worked at. For the pizza job we were paid the minimum wage so that business of paying less and the employer having to make up the difference if there was a shortfall never came up. I rarely received a tip so considered it as a bonus, not an expectation.
One regular, an old guy who lived in a motel room, would order once a week an individual pepperoni pizza for $5; I think it was his only treat. He tipped $2. OTOH I once delivered an order of eight large pizzas to the affluent part of town. When the guy opened the door I could hear a ruckus in the back yard by the pool (which were rare in the area) so I figured it was a kid’s birthday party. No tip.
The store began adding a $1 surcharge per delivery up to two miles and $2 for past that up to five, the limit of our delivery radius. The driver got half. People were incensed at the extra and tips dropped to almost nothing.
For the casino, I was part of the opening crew, to the point of installing the gaming machines and witnessed how things were set up, tip-wise. Each department (Table games, slots, bar, restaurant) handled their own tips. Some were pooled in the department, some had the individuals keep their own.
Slots pooled by shift, paid in cash the next day you worked. The IRS asked how much was expected so the taxes could be withheld from our paychecks and slot management low-balled and came up with $6 per hour; it was rarely below $11 and only once (during a blizzard) came to less than the $6. As a mechanic I was paid a lot more than minimum so the extra was a nice benefit but the changers got minimum wage so the tips well over doubled that.
One time when I walked in for my shift there was a buzz on because a patron had hit one of the wide-area progressives for $120,000. It had been a few hours earlier because a rep from the company running the game had to drive down from Reno so, it not being my shift, I had no dog in that fight but I was curious (and a little envious) to see what the tip might be. She was given a check and having being brought by her daughter – a blackjack dealer – one of the security team drove her to a bank so she could get it deposited that day instead of the next.
It turned out she had to open an account at the bank and it was another hour and a half before she was brought back to the club which is where I came in. Tip: zero, not even for the guy who’d taken her to the bank and back. Since her daughter worked in the industry, it was especially annoying. It’s not like anyone was expecting 10% of 120-grand but even a thousand would have been a nice bump for the day and to give nothing to your ‘chauffeur’ was particularly galling. Needless to say, she was on our Not a Favorite Customer list after that.
On the gripping hand I worked for a credit card processor for some years in the small business department. We handled the stand-alone machines that would sit on the counter, not tied to the POS system as is common today. The business could have either ‘retail’ or ‘restaurant’ software, the latter of which could handle tips.
There were lots of options like whether to have a tip table (suggested tips) on the receipt and a tip report, showing how much each server received in CC tips. There was also an option to shift a percentage from the tip into the owner’s pocket, allegedly so they could deduct the 2 or 3% credit card fees incurred in processing the tip. In the eleven years I worked there, I saw only one place that had that option turned on, a fancy-schmancy country club (I looked up their website) which had set the deduction at 8%.
It’s one of many reasons I tip in cash if I possibly can.
I frequently go out for drinks plus I worked in a bar for a bit, usually stocking, cleaning, checking IDs, but occasionally jumped behind the bar. It was definitely a beer or jack and coke type place, so it was pretty easy, plus Sunday was beer only anyway.
I don’t think being drunk or sober really matters. A drunk guy who’s down to $20 in their bank account probably isn’t going to tip well regardless. A guy that stops in for one drink before getting on the train might tip $5, but he knows he’ll be remembered next time he steps in and won’t be waiting for a cocktail.
With credit cards being so dominant, I don’t think people really adjust their tipping too much if they’re on a date, but anyone within common sense knows that’s not the time to be cheap.
A round of drinks? Depends on the complexity. It’s usually a dollar a beer, but if there are complicated drinks involved, it’ll go up to $2 or so.
I tip a straight amount, the bartender doesn’t set the prices.
I don’t really change during happy hours, but if I’m paying cash (rare) the first tip during a busy happy hour will probably be a bit bigger so I’m not ignored.
I don’t really under or over tip. It’s a rare bartender who doesn’t give you one dollar bills for tipping purposes.
Keep in mind that most bars in the USA allow you to run a tab, so nowadays tips are settled when I leave. If it’s an extremely busy bar and I’m not a regular, I’ll use cash, since I might want to leave if it gets too crowded, plus I don’t want someone else’s drinks ending up on my tab. That happens rarely, but it’s an annoying topic to bring up to a bartender. I had a particularly difficult experience a few months ago where there was myself and someone else with the same first name and the tabs got completely messed up.
Since it’s near Christmas, I’ll also mention that, yes, I do give my regular bartenders an extra $20 or so as a Christmas tip. Especially to a couple of them who have listened to me vent about relationship issues this year!