There’s a nice cafe in my neighborhood where one side is a white-tablecloth bistro, and the other side is a casual cafe with a wide variety of food, coffee, beer, and wine, a thing I’ve only seen in San Francisco before this one opened here.
You wait in line to order your food and drinks at a counter, and there’s a tip jar there. Then when you order and pay, they give you a little flaglike thing with a number on it, which you take to your table. The server then brings your order to the table.
So, how much and to whom do you give tips? 20% for the server seems a bit much when it isn’t full service. OTOH it’s not no-service, so it seems like some tip would be in order. If I only put a tip in the tip jar, do they share it with the waitstaff? If I only tip the server, does he or she share it with the counter staff?
There’s a chain restaurant around here called “Noodles & Co”, and it’s got roughly the same deal. It also has signs specifically stating not to tip.
However, at places like buffets, my parents always left a buck or two on the table, and that’s what I would leave in a place like that. (Meaning a buffet or a place without a No Tipping sign.)
At the the buffets I frequent, waiters bust their asses more that at regular table service restaurants. I have no problem with leaving the standard 15-20%. I also tend to err on the high side to make up for those who think tipping isn’t needed at a buffet because the waiters don’t really do anything :rolleyes:
They have to pick up all dirty plates before you can reload and get back to your table, and that’s a lot of work in a large buffet restaurant. Buffet waiters might make six or eight trips to your table, where as a non-buffet waiter takes your order and 20 minutes later delivers your food. Maybe one more pass to refill a drink.
What you describe here isn’t really a buffet. It’s more like a variation of a cafeteria. Baja Fresh does this at some of their places, and they don’t come out into the dining area often enough to pick up any money that people might leave - so I wouldn’t leave any. So I would not tip in that situation but I would probably stick a dollar in the tip jar and maker make sure to clean up after myself.
I don’t think waiters do nothing at a buffet, I was doing what I thought was standard. I assure you that if it turns out I’m incorrect, I’ll be highly embarrassed and do better when I go out again.
That said, maybe I’m just going to less well done buffet restaurants, because usually my table isn’t bussed in between trips. Or maybe they are waiting until we all go at once, so it’s easier for them to grab? I don’t know, as my family (like all families, I thought) never go to the buffet at the same time so we can keep our table.
Anyway, in terms of gathering plates at the places I’ve been, most places make more than three trips (order-taking, delivery, refill). So, in my experience, the assertion in your last sentence is incorrect and I don’t see a difference in the visits between the two kinds of waiters.
That said, as I typed that last sentence, I realized that enough there (same number of table visits) is really enough to warrant more than I’d been leaving and I do feel bad for the people I’ve inadvertently stiffed in the past.
However at a place akin to the Noodles & Co, I still don’t see it. I get my own drink, my own refill, and my plate is cleared after I leave. That’s one table visit to deliver my food. Again, if the sign says not to tip, I won’t, and if it does I will leave one or two bucks as a thank you.
I must be missing something. What has the person who takes your order done to deserve a tip? How is he any different from the checkout person at a grocery store? I mean, except for doing less actual work?
I worked at a restaurant very much like what you describe, except the food probably wasn’t as good. It was a little Italian place, and just the same, you ordered at the register, then we brought you your food and bussed your table. There was a soda machine for you to get your own drink, however. We had a tip jar, but weren’t allowed to put it in plain sight. It was only for the very occasional person who thought to leave a buck on the table. It was then divided. I think the most I made on tips in a night was $2.
In order to help you calculate, the people who work there probably aren’t being paid $2.45 like a waiter is. Depending on the classiness, they’re getting some kind of rate above minimum wage. My restaurant was not so upscale, and I was getting paid $6/hr.
So figure that the waiters are getting some sort of hourly wage to do essentially exactly what waiters in restaurants do, except that you stand while you give your order rather than sit.
To my mind, I’d certainly leave something on the table, but probably only like 10%.
ETA: sorry, missed that the counter/wait staff are different. At my restaurant, I worked at the register taking orders, brought food to the tables, bussed/washed the tables, and then washed the dishes (all at the same time). If you have separate people for these jobs it might be ok to let it slide, but I certainly felt like I was doing almost exactly the same work as an actual waiter.