Tip your bartender!

The BBQ Pit
1

I am a bartender. But I’m not just a bartender; I work at your neighborhood grill & bar (the one with the grammatically incorrect jingle, “eatin’ good in the neighborhood”). And I work days. This means that I don’t serve many drinks. What I do serve is food, both to bar customers and to go orders. That’s fine–it’s my job, and I do it to the best of my ability.

But I don’t understand two things:

  1. Why do people think that 10% is acceptable if you’re eating at the bar. You’d tip at least 15% if you got your food right and had your drink full if you were eating at a table. Not only that, but I’m at your constant beck and call, unlike a regular server who might disappear for 5 minutes or so. That means that, instead of having to wait, you can yell, “Hey barkeep (I told you my name, use it), I need more dressing” immediately after getting your damn salad. And then you get pissed when I finish punching in the go order I’ve got on the phone before I magically make your fucking 1000 Island appear without having to go back to the line.

  2. So you’re not eating here. I still had to take your order (pissing off my in-person customers), check on the food, make sure the kitchen didn’t fuck up, get the condiments together, get your drink, etc. The only thing different between ordering to go and eating here is that I don’t have to refill your drink. Therefore you don’t have to tip? Unlike Awful Waffle, we don’t add 15% to your tab for a go.

Meanwhile, I have the only cash drawer in the house. This means that I’ve got servers wanting banks (for those not in the know, that’s breaking a $20 into 2 $5s, 8 $1s, 6 quarters, 3 dimes, 2 nickels, and 10 pennies) or a $100 broken, and I have to make drinks for their tables. And don’t get me started on having to make frozen drinks or shakes.

The reason for this rant? Today I had two ladies come in to the bar and ask for an order to go. No problem–at least they’ll leave and I won’t have to hear about dressing, etc. Lady1 knows what she wants immediately. Lady2 needs a menu. Well, I’m not going to punch it in until they both know or Lady1 will get hers brought out early which will piss off Lady2. Lady2 finally orders a caesar salad. Two minutes later, after I’ve sent the order to the kitchen, Lady2 asks if a caesar has cheese, eggs, tomatoes, and the works. I tell her that it doesn’t, as that is the nature of a caesar salad. That’s not what Lady2 wanted. Fine, I run to the kitchen, 86 the caesar (86 means don’t make it), and put in her new order.

Did I mention that Lady2 wanted a lemonade? I got her lemonade right away along with Lady1’s virgin pina colada (I did say that frozen drinks suck, right?). “Ummm, bartender, this lemonade’s not sweet enough. Can I get a sweet tea?” Fuck, sure. I won’t even charge you for the wasted lemonade, because I can tell it’ll be an argument. Get the tea–which I don’t have in the bar and have to go to the back to get, meanwhile annoying my seated customers who might give me a tip. Got the tea. “Ummm, bartender, are you sure you got sweet tea?” Hell yes I am. This is the south. Our tea urns are only sweet tea. The rare person who orders unsweet gets it from a pitcher. “Tell ya what, here’s about half a dozen sugar packets. If that doesn’t do it, I’ll do something else.”

Salads arrive. Bagged, with plasticware and extra napkins because I know Lady2 will want extra napkins. Lady2: “Can I get extra dressing?” Me: “Fuck off.” No, not really, “You bet.” Get back with dressing; “This tea’s (South Carolina sweet tea with 6 extra sugar packets–I tasted it straight and went into a diabetic coma) not sweet. Can I get a Coke?” Me: “Fuck off.” No, not really, “You bet.” Finally, they get their asses out of my bar.

Would anyone care to guess what kind of tip I got for running my ass off for Lady2? Mind you, I had a full bar of eaters, each wanting extra dressing, ketchup, etc. I’ll give you a hint: my wife guessed a buck, and she was about 100% over.

My god, I need a real job.

2

I learned it well when I was working at the DQ: how much of an asshole a given customer is is directly proportional to how unreasonable they will be, and inversely proportional to how big a tip they leave.

The sweethearts order two large Blizzards and leave a decent tip. The assholes order four large sundaes, change their order three times, yell at you, try to scam you out of extra hot fudge, ethnically insult the Québécois cashier, and leave no tip for any of the four counterpeople who waited on/put up with/cleaned up after them.

That is because, with regards to food service, to be an asshole is not to recognize your server as a human being, which gives license to vaccilate, overburden, berate, insult, and undertip.

An unfortunate but ineluctible law of human nature.

3

And to not realize that we’re working for under the (American, in my case) minimum wage because it’s assumed by the feds and the accountants that we get at least 10% in tips. I can’t wait to see my taxes next year. I bet I lose money.

Did you know that I get money taken out of my paycheck for my hourly if I report my tips over 10%? My last check read as $321 for hours, minus $150 for tip credit and tip excess, leaving a net (minus taxes) of $282.

4

stofsky are you in Texas?

I think I would rather have my nipples twisted repeatedly by PCP crazed chimps than take another job in cuntomer service.

No, that wasn’t a typo.

5

I’m utterly baffled by people who act like assholes to people who are handling their food. I mean, at the very least, don’t call the guy making your hamburger an asshole until you’ve already gotten the burger.

I’m glad I managed to stay out of the food service industry, because if I had, I’m pretty sure I’d be serving time for a plethora of health code violations, and just maybe one or two aggravated assaults.

6

I feel your pain, stofsky and matt.

However. I once worked at DQ, and we didn’t get tips. This was in America. DQ was the same as McD’s, BK, and Carl’s Jr., where I also worked, and also didn’t get tips. Is this a Canadian thing?

Furthermore, I found out on my very first waitressing job, and had it confirmed on subsequent jobs, that it is not traditional to tip for to-go orders. Once in a great while, someone would say “Keep the change”, but that was an anomaly. I don’t know the logic; I just accepted it.

Well, I accepted it grudgingly. I once had a cow-orker say virtuously, “Well, I don’t mind [that someone left pennies on a $20+ order]; they don’t have to give me anything!” I didn’t agree, and still don’t, but I never expected it to change for the better. I’m sorry you guys have to endure this, at any rate.

7

I use to tend bar as well, so I know what you’re feeling. I always tip well for even decent service, it takes a lot for me to go below around 17%. Bartender tips, easy, a dollar for every drink they make for me. I order two drinks in one order, a buck each.

The place where I worked behind the bar was lucky enough to have lots of rich people come in that couldn’t hold their alcohol. I used to do very well. :slight_smile:

8

Dragonblink’s Maxim of Customer Service #14: Never EVER piss off people in food service. Seriously. You don’t have to suck my dick 'cuz I’m pouring you a coffee, but don’t treat me like a verrucca gnome either.

If you are nice to a Food Service employee, either they won’t notice or they’ll be nice back. If you are not nice, the chance that they will be less nice increases.

Ever since I started depending on tips for grocery money, I also started throwing at least a buck into the tip jar of every place I ordered food from. And I’d give my left nut to be out of the customer service business.

9

Whew, Stofsky, was that a trip down memory lane for me! I didn’t tend bar (I waited tables), but of course some of my best friends did, and I feel you, man.

I personally think that EVERY human being who has any desire whatsoever to eat out at any point in their lives should wait tables for a week FIRST.

Honey, a server would have to slap me, insult my mother, call me Ethel, tie me down, sit on my face and fart before I’d leave less than 20%, and to get less than 15%, well… there would most likely be crickets (one of my handful of irrational fears) or excrement involved. :wink:

In my waitress days, I always figured the big tippers to be either:

a) servers themselves, or

b) enamoured of my ass. :smiley:

At any rate, think of it this way: your experience makes you the ideal customer.

Or, just ram a salted lemon up Lady2’s arse, if that didn’t make you feel better.

10

Actually, I think it’s just a Quebec thing, but maybe some other people could confirm. And it’s not everywhere here, either.

11

I don’t understand the mentality of small tippers. Maybe that’s because I’ve worked in a job where people feel that they can treat you like shit. I tend to tip about 17-22%-ish for average service, and more for what I think is particularly good service (1/3 of the times that we go out). This is partially determined by however much change/singles I have.

I did, however, stiff a waitress once. We went to middle school together, and never particularly liked each other. While she was waiting on us, she made negative comments about the following:

My sister’s eating habits, because she didn’t want vegetables with her chicken dinner.
My friend’s weight, for no apparent reason.
My order (yeah, I ordered a Diet Coke with a club sandwich. I happen to drink it for the taste, not to lose weight).
My outfit.

To top it all off, she was otherwise bitchy the entire time. Now, this I could forgive, but the running commentary…no. And considering that she was a bitch to me in middle school…hell, I should have RUN her ass all over the place before stiffing her.

No, I don’t hold grudges :o.

12

I was thinking more like a pineapple. A whole pineapple. Leaf end first.

13

I had real trouble coming from the UK to Chicago a while back. I knew tipping was more common in the US (you never tip bar staff in the UK) but didn’t realise it was pretty much an unwritten rule. One of my colleagues nearly got into a fight with a bar manager who demanded a $1 tip on a $1 (happy hour) beer; we just didn’t expect that.

14

Ive said it before and I’ll say it again. If you don’t have enough to tip, you don’t have enough to eat.

IMO, a tip of pennies or a couple of dimes is a deliberate insult. It’s what you do when you have recieved inexcusably horrendous service.

15

I always tip and am very courteous. I never piss those people off, because I’m horrified to think would they would do to my food. Good rant, I hope you find another line of work.

16

I don’t care where you are - someone demands a tip, leave them nothing.

17

When I was 17, some ol’ biddy tried to convince me leaving me a one cent tip was the biggest compliment she could pay me. It actually started off as a quarter before her withered but(t) tenacious asshole squeezed it down to a penny and shat it in my direction.

Keep barkeeping for as long as you want but from your post it’s obvious you got the smarts to do plenty of other things, many of which aren’t reliant upon the “kindness of strangers”. Aargh, rudeness makes me blanche.

18

I feel for ya. I was a bartender at a blue collar bar for a few years. Greatest job ever. To lousy tippers: If you can’t afford to tip something, can you really afford to be eating out or drinking at a bar? For me, if someone was a good tipper, they definitely got better treatment, bigger/stronger drinks (as in double and triple shots), and drinks on the house. It also worked in reverse. If I went to a bar and was regular tipper, I almost always got the same treatment in kind. If the bartender didn’t reciprocate or notice after a good amount of tips and time, I found another bar. Tipping well and continuing to do so has brought me nothing but good things. Even a lousy waitress will change her tune the next time if you leave her a good tip. Oh Yeah, lunch time customers are the worst. My ex-girlriend was a waitress at a high-rent eatery and they called White Zinfandel wine the “kiss of death,” because that customer who ordered it, usually a woman, would be a cheap, non-tipping pain in the ass.

19

The only Dairy Queens that I’ve been to (in Newark, NJ), were basically take-out places similar to Carvel’s.
Hence, no tipping.

20

I don’t have a problem tipping bartenders as a customer, but as as server I had issues tipping out to them at the end of the shift.
I know that is two different instances though.
In most of the place I have worked around Iowa the bartenders made standard wages plus any tips they made plus a tip out from the servers. Servers also had to tip out to the bus persons also.
Fair?
Nope. Because we still were supposed to claim those tips since they didn’t take into account that we were handing over a percentage of our tips.
Outside of that if I’m eating out you have to give some pretty shitty service not to get a good tip out of me.
Kind of off topic but not really, last weekend I went to a resturant after work for breakfast.
Mind you it is 4am and we were a table of 7 and there was only on other table of about five in the place and they had been there a while before we got there. I could tell because they already had their drinks and apps. in front of them.
The server (who we have become regulars for and tip quite well) came out with our drinks shaking her head.
It seems the cook had asked her not to send back anymore orders and was being an ass.
So I asked her if he needed me to come back and help him cook our simple order or did they need a new cook without an attitude.
From where we were sitting you could see into the kitchen and I could tell what his problem was. He was bricking his grill. He was upset because we came in and ordered while he was cleaning. It’s a 24 hour resturant and he should know that you can’t clean and break down all the equipement at the same time.