Tipping the bartender for a beer?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I don’t know how well people tip in San Francisco, but here I tip for everything I can because I can safely assume that somebody that day has come in and ordered something really complicated and difficult without tipping. (Recently a customer came in and ordered eight drinks with Starbucks names we had to decode, several with a number of custom requests–extra-hot, upside down, not so hot, etc.–and didn’t leave a penny.) I don’t see it as a reward for a job well done, anyway–I see it as a nice way to make sure that worker eats something substantial that night, which I know firsthand is not a given in many tip-eligible jobs. I know what it’s like to get almost no tips for an honest day’s work. I reacquaint myself with that feeling on an almost nightly basis, personally. Anyway, I’m not 21 yet, but I’d like to think he’d tip me for a cup of coffee if I tipped him for a bottle of beer.

It isn’t? How much do you pay for the beer? $1 is 15% of $6.67, which sounds pretty damn expensive for a beer. If you’re expected to tip the price of the drink over again for a single drink, I don’t know how anyone can afford to go to bars.

Yup–if you think tipping gets you nowhere, you should see me order at a particular local coffee house when my favorite barista is working. It’s to the point where he comps me sandwiches and extra shots of espresso all night because he knows I’ll tip handily even though I can barely afford my order. End result: it’s less expensive for me to sip lattes all night and tip 50% than it is for other customers to pop in for a drink and tip nothing.

What does this mean?

Believe me, there isn’t enough time in the world to pit everyone who doesn’t tip for services rendered. Suffice it to say that I used to work with a guy who had to sell pot after his shift ended if he wanted to eat a solid meal that night.

I bet they would’ve taken the cash if you’d have left it there and walked out.

Do customers and entry-level employees get to tell business owners how much to pay in Ireland? Because that’s not how it works here.

42

[QUOTE=Jackknifed Juggernaut]
I don’t know if this is accurate either. I’m sure you tip even if you’re just getting 1 drink at a bar that you’d never come back to. We tip because that’s how bartenders make their livings (in the US, anyway).

[/QUOTE]

I agree that I tip so I can get another beer … even if I’m not going to get another beer in one particular bar that I’m never coming back to, I’m going to get another beer somewhere else in the universe. I like to take the cosmic approach to tipping.

43

You don’t need a cosmic interpretation–tipping is a considerate thing to do, and considerate people tend to catch breaks and get free stuff, not to mention the benefit of the doubt. It’s no coincidence.

44

I tip a buck a drink. So does my boyfriend. So do my friends, although I had to instruct them in this. Bartenders don’t make a livable wage at most places - in fact, because they can be classified as tipped employees, in some places they make two or three dollars an hour. Besides, if I’m going to karaoke (really the only bar I go to), I’m only paying a buck a beer, or two bucks for a shot, so adding a dollar on isn’t really a big deal. I don’t go out drinking often because I can’t really afford it, but when I do, I always tip.

If I had it my way, I could dictate as a customer how much my bartender makes - then I wouldn’t have to pay tips. But I can’t, so I tip.

~Tasha

45

:eek: Where is this legal?

Having a couple of bucks for a meal tonight feels a lot better than having a couple hundred bucks for rent two weeks from now, anyway.

46

[QUOTE=fetus]
:eek: Where is this legal?
[/QUOTE]

In the United States. According to federal law, minimum wage was (before the increase earlier this year) $5.15 per hour for regular employees, or $2.13 per hour for tipped employees. If the $2.13/hour + tips didn’t add up to $5.15/hour, the employer would have to make up the difference.

Cite for the federal law. States may increase those rates above the federal minimums, but that was the US baseline. You can see the individual state thresholds here.

47

:eek: :eek: $2.13? I make above the real minimum wage, in a state with one of the highest MWs in the country, plus tips, and I go 7,000 miles between oil changes because that’s how often I can afford them. That’s insanity. That’s slave labor. Might as well move to Ethiopia. Holy shit.

48

[QUOTE=fetus]

Do customers and entry-level employees get to tell business owners how much to pay in Ireland? Because that’s not how it works here.
[/QUOTE]
Not directly no but there is a market. Trust me on this, if there was a bar where you felt any pressure whatsoever to tip the barstaff by defalut it would fail. That’s just how the bar culture is over here. We tip in restaurants, maybe not as much but it is culturally expected, and many other places but barmen over here are generally well paid. If you’re a full time barman you would be able to do the normal things, mortgage, car, foreign holiday etc. on your wages alone.

If you want more you should get another job :slight_smile:

49

Buck a drink plus random change is my average tip for draft beer. I wouldn’t drink with anyone who ordered bottled beer at a bar that didn’t need to be poured before serving. But then I’m a dick about stuff like that. :smiley:

50

[QUOTE=fetus]
:eek: Where is this legal?
[/quote]

Many of the United States, including Delaware, where I worked as a tipped employee for several summers. The way I remember it working was that you were guaranteed $2.15/hr from management but the bulk of your wages came from tips. The busboys were assigned to waitresses in numbers such that, if they cleared tables within 5 minutes or so, they could be assured that the hostess would manage six or seven seatings of their area. On a good night, that’s 25 tables times seven seatings (one hundred seventy-five tables) times let’s-just-say $6.00 per table tip (trust me on this average)[sup]1[/sup]. That means your waitresses are collectively getting $1,050. They’re tipping out ten percent of their earnings to you and another ten percent to the table-setter. They may or may not be tipping the hostess (for seating known-big-tippers in their section). Each of the six waitresses walks with about $140, and each of the busboys and table-setters walks with about $105. This is about a six-and-a-half hour shift, so you’ve really made $13.00 in “wages” (all of which will be deducted for tax) and $105 in cash (about $16/hr). On the worst of bad nights you might only make $40 in tips and go home after five hours.

You are given the opportunity to “declare” your tips to the IRS using the time-clock computer. I always declared 100%, but I knew folks who declared whatever the minimum was – as long as it averages out to minimum wage, the paycheck at the end of the pay period is just barely a positive dollar amount (again, due to taxes). They reduced their taxes but also hurt the amount of money being contributed to social security and screwed over the taxman, which, last time I checked, was a crime. It’s in a category with speeding, though: I gathered that pretty much every tipped employee committed tax fraud in this way, and you were a rube if you didn’t. I expect that in high-cost-of-living cities, waitresses routinely declare almost nothing in tips.

Anyway, most tip-only employees get screwed on slow nights but do far, far better than the kitchen help on a reasonably average night. For excellent performance of my busboy duties, I was “promoted” :rolleyes: to fry cook, then prep cook, then line cook, then grill cook over the next three summers. My wages “increased” all the way up to $6.00-and-something-per-hour (with longer hours and dirtier work). I bailed on that place because they wouldn’t take any male wait staff[sup]2[/sup] and I found a job renting beach equipment that was tips-plus-commission, all cash.

To answer the OP, I tip a buck on every drink, especially if I’m driving and the bartender is trying to give me soda on the house. I tip all tipped employees, because I’ve been one. If the service is good, I go over my norm because I know how hard it is to keep giving good service near the end of a shift.

  1. Between four and eight heads per table, between seven and fifteen dollars a head for a meal, BYOB. We used to estimate a dollar per head base tip (a dime per head to clear a table).
  2. I didn’t sue because the owner was a long-time family friend. It was a small town, the restaurant was a well-known place for kids to get a first job, and most of the parents looked on the jobs as “the owner doing me a favor and giving my kid a job.” I left on good terms, and I’d go back and do a shift on the steak grill if they called me right now.
51

The “slave labor” stuff was referring to $2.13 an hour, just so we’re clear.

52

Not all tip-eligible jobs are in restaurants. I have a friend who calls it a bad night if she walks away with less than $35 in tips after four hours of work. Where I work, making $5 in tips during an eight-hour shift is like winning the lottery.

I live in one of those cities. (hey! I was born where you live, just noticed that.) Actually, I live outside of one of those cities because rent is bad enough here and it’s murder a couple miles west of here. (Not to mention gas!) Considering all the things the government spends my money on that I don’t approve of–and BTW, this state is stealing from me, as they refused to acknowledge that I was exempt from withholding last year–I don’t owe them a percentage of the pittance I make from tips.

53

[QUOTE=rostfrei]
This particular bar does not do tabs. I don’t know of any gay bars (in San Francisco) that do tabs.
[/QUOTE]

OK I have to ask. Why wouldn’t gay bars run tabs? Do gay bartenders often get stiffed?

Tipping for me has little to do with what my bartender earns, but is more a cost of doing business. A bartender has a finite amount of time and a seemingly infinite number of duties from serving drinks and food to changing the channels on the TV and wiping down after slobs. Why should they spend that valuable time serving people who don’t put something extra in their pocket. Its more or less a bribe to cut through the red tape. Its factored into the price of the beer.

I kind of think back to my pizza delivery days. One a busy night I would probably leave the store with three or four pies on a run. Someone would get served last. Might as well be the guy that gave jack.

54

[QUOTE=fetus]
The “slave labor” stuff was referring to $2.13 an hour, just so we’re clear.
[/QUOTE]

Outrageous isn’t it?

I was shocked when I moved out here and found out that waitstaff gets paid at least minimum wage ($7.80 an hour) cite, so I tip less here (15% rather than 20 for good service) than I did in Kansas, where I know they were making the absolute minimum.

55

[QUOTE=Neptunian Slug]
I kind of think back to my pizza delivery days. One a busy night I would probably leave the store with three or four pies on a run. Someone would get served last. Might as well be the guy that gave jack.
[/QUOTE]

I was tickled pink a while back when the delivery girl from my local pizza place told me “We fight over who gets to deliver to you”. (I always thought I was an “average” tipper, but apparently there must be some real cheapskates in the neighborhood).

On to the OP: beer, wine, soda, or water $1 a drink and I’m pretty sure my friends tip more for those fussy, sweet, mixed things they drink. If the bartender is comping then the cost of the drink is the tip. There are occasions where we will tip more per drink (large group, a place we frequent, really great service, etc) but never less.

56

[QUOTE=Neptunian Slug]
OK I have to ask. Why wouldn’t gay bars run tabs? Do gay bartenders often get stiffed?
[/QUOTE]

Check post #20. It’s more of a San Francisco thing than a gay bar thing.

57

I usually do a buck a drink, or 15-20% of a tab if I’m running a tab.

A couple of anecdotal data points:
In the Twin Cities, where I live now, tipping $1/drink on a $5 beer is probably just about enough to get me almost remembered by the bartender.

However, when I head back to my hometown bar in rural Iowa, beers are $2/bottle. I still tip $1/drink, and all of the barterders there consider me to be nothing short of a tipping god. Apparently most folks in rural Iowa don’t tip very much, if at all.

One of the things I like about small-town bars… I can get myself and two friends drunk (we all live within stumbling distance of the bar, so no worries about driving home), pay for everything, and spend less money then it would take to get just me drunk in Minneapolis. I NEVER have to wait more then 20 seconds for my drink to arrive, and most of the time I have a new drink waiting when my current one gets under 1/4 full.

58

[QUOTE=fetus]
Not all tip-eligible jobs are in restaurants. I have a friend who calls it a bad night if she walks away with less than $35 in tips after four hours of work. Where I work, making $5 in tips during an eight-hour shift is like winning the lottery.
[/quote]

Huh? Then your employer knows that he/she is obligated to make up the difference between a shitty shift and minimum wage, right? There’s a difference between “tip-eligible” and employees who are considered to work for tips.

You should revise your W-4 so that they’ll stop withholding, and continue calling, writing, and mailing documentation to your state’s Dept. of Revenue until they agree to give you the money that’s yours. Don’t screw around, either: write your Congressman if they can’t make it right in 60 days.

As for “I don’t owe them a percentage of … tips,” there aren’t enough rolleyes in the world. You can feel entitled to it, and you can feel ripped off because our government’s tax policies suck, and you can define the dollar amount of your moral/ethical/firmly-held-personal-obligations to the government. But the government has also defined the dollar amount of your legal obligation. Not paying that amount is tax fraud, and when you do it, you’re stealing from almost every U.S. citizen (and many Afghan, Indonesian, Iraqi, Bangladeshi, and Sudanese citizens as well, and don’t tell them about your “pittance”).

(Edit: realized my tone comes off as pretty harsh there. I didn’t mean to be a jerk, and I do feel for your situation. If the tips are really that miniscule a percentage of your pay, I would file it under “found money, not worth itemizing and reporting”. It’s petty fraud, but it’s still fraud.)

59

[QUOTE=Neptunian Slug]
Do gay bartenders often get stiffed?
[/QUOTE]

Are we just letting this one slide?

No kidding. Two bartenders in particular and I have taken this to the extreme. When I get the tab at the end of the night, I give 100% tip and still get out cheaper than it really should cost by the book.

60

Depends on how hard and fast they pour the drinks, and how receptive they are to big tips. And whether they turn the other cheek when a patron offers them a small tip. Of course, alcohol is a social lubricant by its nature. And whether the bartender gets stiffed often depends on the individual patron and the number of drinks they have.

No, my employer is obligated to pay me minimum wage regardless of the tips I make. And my employer pays me (just over) minimum wage.

Too late, I’m not exempt this year. All I can do is demand my 2006 withholdings back, which is exactly what my refund is for.

I’d rather be a fraud than to be unable to buy the essentials–which for me include textbooks, relatively low rent in a ridiculously expensive region, the gas I need to drive all over the county for work and school, etc–while financing several governments which I believe rob me blind.