Okay, so asking for separate checks can make things more difficult for the waiter. But the added burden on the waiter when there are separate checks is no more than the added burden on the customers when everything is on one check.
You can not figure out customers. I think some just like to screw around with the help. About a half century ago , i worked at Burger Chef. Their hamburg patties were 1.6 ounces. a woman came in every Friday and ordered a couple medium rare. Burger Chef had a chain drive device. you load a patty at one end ,it came out cooked at the other. How the hell were we supposed to do that?
So a guy would wait at the end and reach as far in as he could with a spatula to get it out early. Sometimes she would send it back for being too well done.
I’m sure this is correct, but it’s something that should be trivially easy to fix in the software. I’m no software engineer, but i can’t imagine that it’s very hard, in the scheme of things, to come up with POS software that can do the following, for a table of 14 people as described by Una Persson:
[ul]
[li]server clicks “Start New Check” button (or whatever)[/li][li]server clicks button that says “Separate Checks”[/li][li]software asks “How many total diners?” Server enters “14”[/li][li]software asks “How many total checks?” Server enters “14”[/li][li]software says “Enter order for Check #1”[/li][li]server enters order[/li][li]software says “Enter order for Check #2”[/li][li]server enters order[/li][li][continue for all 14 diners][/li][li]software asks “Are the orders for this table complete?” Server hits “Yes”[/li][li]The software then collates the 14 orders, combines them in a single order, and sends the information to the computer in the kitchen as a single table order. The server has 14 separate checks, but the chefs see a single table of 14[/li][li]whenever someone at the table orders something else (another glass of wine; a dessert; whatever), the server enters that in the appropriate check for that table[/li][li]the software maintains the 14 distinct orders, and produces 14 separate checks at the end of the night[/li][/ul]I’ve worked as a waiter (admittedly, some years ago) with POS computers, and something like this, if properly implemented, really wouldn’t make the waiter’s job any harder. When i had a large table (or, actually, even a small table), i always assigned each seat a number anyway, so that i could keep track of who was having what.
And it’s not like this would be a very hard thing to program. Like i said, i’m not a software engineer, but i reckon that, with a bit of messing around, even i could put together a small PHP form that would do exactly what i describe above. And i’m sure the people designing and programming POS software are far, far more knowledgeable about this sort of thing than i am.
I’ve waited tables in three countries on three continents. I recognize the problems associated with timing and efficiency. I’ve also had the kitchen fuck up orders and put up meals at the wrong time.
But i think a POS system like i described above would alleviate most of these problems.
Federal employees who use their own vehicles on government business get reimbursed $.50 per mile, regardless of how much their wage or salary is. This includes mail carriers who use their own cars. This reimbursement covers gas, insurance and wear-and-tear.
In terms of the insurance, it’s a combination of having to make a lot of stops, which increases the risk of getting rear-ended or rear-ending someone else; spending a lot of time on the road, which increases the chance of getting into an accident; and driving like an asshole because the company you deliver pizza for sends you out with six deliveries that have to be made within fifteen minutes, or the store has to eat the cost of the pizzas because of their generous x-minutes-or-it’s-free guarantee, and take it out of your check. The end result is that the insurance company thinks there’s too much risk to insure delivery drivers. You may be able to qualify for a commercial policy, however.
I have no problem in general with one check at a table and people pay their tab.
But there are certain people who I in no way want to be on the same check with, because I know damn well they’re going to order five times more dollar value of food than they will throw into the pot. If pressed on it, they’ll play stupid, they’ll deny it was theirs, they’ll claim they didn’t realize it was so much money, they’ll blame the server, they’ll ask everyone else to cover it and never pay it back.
And their goddamned “friends” will back them up on all their lies, no matter how many times they’ve pulled the same shit, and act utterly astonished that YOU could be so rude as to push the issue when you should just pay for them.
I agree. But why should restaurants have to spend a bunch of money revamping their systems when people can just divvy up their own checks, or decide in advance who pays the check?
People act like it’s no big deal, yet when they’re asked to do it themselves, OMG, such a pain in the ass!
Take turns treating, FFS, or take cash and settle up amongst yourselves and let one person pay the bill.
My question isn’t just whether they should revamp their systems; my question is why the fuck don’t POS systems already do this as part of the standard software? It’s not like we’re talking about radically innovative programming techniques here.
As for doing it themselves, if you can’t see why it might be easier for a computer than a human being to properly divide a $2500 check among a 14-person table, taking account of who ordered the $300 bottle of wine and who smoked the $20 cigars, then there’s not much point arguing with you.
I’m good at basic math. I can take a large check, work out a tip, and divide it equally between 3 or 7 or 12 people in a few seconds, and my wife and friends usually leave me to do this when we eat out. And some meals are conducive to this sort of equal division.
But some are not. Sure, it would be nice if every group could simply divide the check equally, or agree that one person would pay, but things don’t always work like that. If you always divide checks equally, for example, the person who ordered the $15 pasta ends up getting screwed because half the other diners ordered the $24 chicken or the $38 steak. Some people can’t afford, or simply don’t want, to take that sort of a hit when they dine out.
Then you have the problem of tax and tip. I know from experience that, on occasions when one person pays and takes cash from everyone else, the person who pays often gets royally screwed. People have a tendency to look at the price of what they ordered, forgetting tax and sometimes tip as well. They also often underestimate how much they should contribute for shared items like appetizers or bottles of wine.
I’ve seen it happen plenty of times, where the poor sucker who agrees to collect the money and pay the bill ends up paying an extra $20 or $50 or more because people are too lazy and inconsiderate to work out what they actually owe. In most cases, it’s not really intentional; i think people are just oblivious to how the little things can add up, and they end up throwing in less than their share.
And, even leaving all that aside, my final answer to your question is: maybe restaurants should do this because lots of their customers appear to demand such a service. I’m not interested in legislating it, or anything like that. But i keep reading newspaper stories about how restaurants in the current shitty economy are having trouble staying afloat. Maybe if they agreed to do things like split checks, rather than acting like it’s harder to split checks than to split atoms, they would keep their customers happy and attract more business.
If a restaurant is doing well enough that it can turn down $3000 worth of business, as in Una’s example, then good luck to them. But i’ll bet that, for plenty of restaurants right now, that sort of table could make the difference between a profitable and a losing week.
I should add, by the way, that when i worked as a waiter back in the early 1990s, we didn’t have too much trouble splitting checks. It was a minor pain in the ass, but only a minor one.
What we would do, if it was a party of 4 at table 5 (for example), was do four separate checks, and number them as tables 501, 502, 503, and 504. Now, these all went through to the kitchen as separate tables, so we also needed a system that would ensure that the kitchen treated them as a single table.
Our POS machine didn’t allow for any really complicated messages, but it did have a HOLD button, which would print “HOLD” on the order in the kitchen. This told the kitchen that there was something special about the order, and that they should wait for word from the waiter about what it was. They would put the HOLD checks aside, and wait.
As soon as we punched in the order, we would walk into the kitchen and tell the chef: “Tables 501 through 504 are a single table, with split checks.”
Usually worked fine.
Sure, it was a little bit cumbersome, but computer technology was far inferior in 1992, and the sort of system i outlined in my earlier post should be trivially easy to implement in 2010.
I agree with you that it would be easier for a computer to divide it. I just find it amusing that people are all about separate checks and making wait staff jump through hoops because it’s *such a pain in the ass to divide the check themselves, * yet when it comes time to tip, many are all ‘what the hell do they do to deserve my tip?’
For starters, they deal with this sort of pain in the ass request on a daily basis because people can’t seem to settle a simple dinner bill with their friends.
People are odd. Not necessarily you, but people in general.
But are they the same person? If i asked for separate checks, and the waiter said, “Sure, no problem,” i’d be likely to tip more.
As for the pain in the ass thing, here’s the distinction i draw: when i go to a restaurant to eat, i’m there precisely because i want to relax and have things done for me. A waiter, by contrast, is at the restaurant precisely to work and earn a living. That’s why, if i ask for separate checks, it doesn’t feel like too big a deal for my request to be accommodated.
I don’t go out of my way to make life difficult for waiters. As someone who spent more than a few years in the service industry, i go out of my way to be polite, to not be unreasonable, and to leave good tips. I know how shitty the job can be, and i know that people can be assholes. It just seems to me like split checks is a simple request that should raise no more eyebrows in a restaurant than asking for water or requesting your salad dressing on the side.
[One final thing: i don’t think i’ve ever asked for separate checks. My friends and i always manage to work things out for ourselves. But if i want separate checks, it should be available, IMO.]
But it is apparently a problem, and as someone who worked in F&B for over 20 years, I can assure you, it is, and it fucks up the flow.
I live somewhere now where getting good service is so rare that I go out of my way to not be one of those pain in the ass customers. Well, that, and past experience working in F&B.
I’m so happy when I get someone who clearly knows what they’re doing I want to be a ‘good customer’ rather than a ‘problem customer’ just on principle.
I think the idea of revamping the system is wonderful, but getting the entire industry to do it? Not likely. Anything that requires extra keystrokes from waitstaff still requires more time which equals less time on the floor and theoretically less time spent paying attention to all of their customers, which is the whole reason why restaurants hate separate checks.
People who quibble over the check tend to be people who quibble over prices and resent tipping, which translates into pain in the ass customers, IME. Nothing is worse than a lunch table full of women who argue over every single nickle, ask for separate checks and then either don’t tip or undertip. You can bet your ass they ran the waiter/waitress for the whole duration of the meal, too.
Sure, there are exceptions, but as a general rule, the quibblers are the ones who do all of the above.
An anti-rant:
I took my Girl Scout troop and their parents to Applebee’s after our last meeting this spring. The waitress not only brought all the food to the correct people, she correctly figured out which girl belonged with each set of parents and brought the right checks to every parent there, including the ones sitting at different tables who were Caucasians with an adopted Asian daughter.
She got a hell of a tip from me, let me tell you.
Nice.
One of the things I love about my husband is that although he’s never worked in a restaurant, he has enough sense to know that waiting tables is not as easy as some people make it look, and he rewards good service in a big way when we go out. Bad tippers are embarrassing.
First off, I did work in a restaurant, for 5 years. Is that enough time? Although most of my work was delivering, when things got swamped in the restaurant proper I helped out waiting tables, cooking, working the line to expedite the orders, etc. (this also meant I only waited tables during the most hectic and busy times)
But there need not be any significant additional mental effort - mhendo is correct - this is a trivial software change for a POS system. I used to write more complicated programs over a lunch break. No one is saying the restaurant needs to spend “a bunch of money” to have a different system. Let alone restaurants regularly update their systems anyhow. In the 5 years I worked we changed our system thrice.
I’ve also admitted several times that the problem is not just the restaurant’s, but the customers. But whereas human idiocy of the customers isn’t going to change anytime soon, a restaurant can change their order process and POS system if they choose to.
Why not take cash myself to settle things? You’re joking, right? I’m in a strange city where I can’t have my CCW, and you want me to carry around who knows how much cash to try to settle things? What about the 75% of the guests who are paying with their credit cards? Or Traveler’s Cheques? And I’ve already explained why “take turns treating” doesn’t apply. Folks are very liberal with me spending $3,000 of my own company’s money, strangely.
And the comment about “extra keystrokes” taking time away from the customers is a joke. I go to a lot of restaurants, and servers over the last 5 years are spending a lot of time on their mobile phones, texting people, browsing the web - or just low-tech watching the TV at the bar. I’ve had servers answer their cell phone and talk to a friend in the middle of taking an order for my table - yet a few extra keystrokes is the real customer service problem? Even for the servers who don’t do any of those things, claiming the few seconds to use a new POS system is going to reduce the customer service is insulting to our intelligence.
The argument is made that people will tip less if checks are split: I doubt this highly. Happy, well-heeled corporate clients will tip hugely. It’s not their money, after all. I know, because I’m often one of them. Tips of 30%, even 50% are not rare when everyone’s happy. But piss them off, by creating the argumentative situation I described earlier? And there would probably be little to no tip except for the scam of the “mandatory gratuity.” People are highly emotional animals. I’m representing the customer. Do servers ever stand around a group of 30 at the end of the night and listen and witness what happens? I doubt it, I really, really do, since the S.O.P. at innumerable restaurants is for the server to dump the check on the table and teleport away, then return in about 5-10 minutes and look shocked - shocked! - that the bill still hasn’t been figured out.
Good God, at a minimum consider that the current system may not be the best one, and that you should consider a reason to, if not change, have a policy in place to make exceptions? Good servers are smart and creative and again I think they can rise to the challenge of both keeping their job manageable and improving the customer’s experience. I must say I’m somewhat appalled by the negativity shown by servers in this thread - it seems to indicate a low opinion for their own abilities and skills and that of their fellow servers. I certainly don’t sell servers short in intelligence and creativity as individuals or a group, why should you? At my restaurant teenaged girls and boys with no management or business school experience were able to come up with new systems for handing phone orders and pick-ups, which went completely contrary to the “corporate policy” but which worked better in the end for both them and the customers, just by sitting down and thinking about it and getting into the mode of “stop being part of the problem, start being part of the solution.”
This also does not explain why there are, in fact several restaurants which cheerfully and with no problems provide separate checks. Example - I went to one in D.C. which handled 50 people, separate checks, “No problem!” said the lead server, cheerfully, and guess what - all the food came out at the same time for each table, there were no more than the usual number of mistakes, and everyone was happy. Big smiles. Some people needed plastic surgery to peel the smiles off their faces. I’ve also been to a restaurant where they told us that by default they did separate checks for large groups, but they were happy to put it all on one check if we asked. Clearly someone knows how to do it. Are these things Top Secret?
And I’ll throw the ball back in the court of the servers - if you’re so convinced that the current “no separate checks” system is best, then put your money where your mouth is, and get rid of the odious “mandatory gratuity.”* After all, we’re trying to find the best system, right? Let the market decide what’s better - changing your system, or continuing to make customers unhappy. I’ll wager once you see the bickering leading to 10%, 5%, and 0% tips, suddenly there will be this groundswell impetus to change.
And mhendo is again correct - I reckon if one’s restaurant can routinely turn away $3,000 of service in a night, then perhaps one is doing so well they just don’t give a shit any more. Perhaps one’s restaurant should hang a “Mission accomplished!” banner?
- Should I recount the number of times I’ve had servers come back and ask the table for a tip, claiming that “the mandatory gratuity is not a tip?” How stupid do you think your customers are? I guess pretty stupid, since the typical response is for folks to look embarrassed and start digging out cash. :rolleyes:
Not sure where they still sell cigars, though. Most of those cities are smoke-free in their restaurants.
Because people go into restaurants to leave their cares that day behind and enjoy themselves for an hour or two by being served by a waiter or waitress. Having to do the work of divvying up the final bill kind of goes against all that.
Put it this way: If I was at a nice restaurant with a large group and the server refused to split the check, I’d refuse to pay the automatic gratuity, since the whole dining experience had not been to my liking.
No.
Because that’s your job.
Don’t like it? Then don’t be a server for a living.
You win the thread.
I, too, think Una Persson said it best.
I’d just add that if you still don’t want to do separate checks, publicize that upfront so we’ll know not to eat there if that’s what we want. Just as I wouldn’t go to a buffet if I wanted to sit and have my food brought to me, I wouldn’t go to a “no separate checks” restaurant if I wanted to go out to eat with friends or co-workers and just pay directly for what I, personally, order.
This is a little ridiculous. Every restaurant I’ve ever worked at in the last five years and all but one in the last ten had a sophisticated enough POS that I could send both one bill to the kitchen and separate bills to the customer. It is even possible to split those separate bills any number of different ways, so that Billy and Susie can be on the same cheque, Tommy can buy a round of drinks for the table and Lisa can order dessert for Bobby since it’s his birthday. All seventeen people at the table can have their cheques divided in any fashion they like. The only complications usually come from a disorganized server.
Yes, it takes an extra minute in front of the screen to split it correctly, even if you split it up right off the bat when you first punch it in. Yes, there might be a bit of error when you take out the cheque at the very end (I might have accidentally put Bobby’s dessert on Bobby’s bill instead of Lisa’s), but the magic of technology means cheques aren’t chiseled into granite, they’re printed on paper and can be changed pretty easily. Yes, it will take longer to process seventeen payments in seventeen ways, since I’m sure five of them will be cash and two will pay debit and two more have US dollars and seven more still will pay from three different brands of credit card and one lone stranger will whip out some traveler’s cheques.
Is it worth my time to take the extra few minutes with the bill? Absolutely almost always.
For each of those seventeen people, ten bucks isn’t very much. If they each leave me an average of ten bucks, I’ve just made a hundred and seventy bucks tip. If Tommy is feeling more generous than just a round of drinks and wants to cover the whole cheque, Tommy might leave me a hundred and feel pretty good. And depending on how much work it was and how smoothly it ran and how much they spent and any other wild number of mitigating factors that can determine the “fairness” of a tip, I might feel good about a hundred bucks. But I’d sure feel better with a hundred and seventy.