Yes, a drink is a drink, but for one drink, you pay to get in and buy it and get out, and they don’t have to pour it or wash the cup or take individual orders or put out ashtrays or pay for expensive downtown real estate or clean nasty bathrooms or hire bouncers. For the other, they have to pay for all of that. If you think the prices are a ripoff, you must think that bar owners are rolling in the dough, huh?
Yes, the frugal can go see a band without getting gouged. Order the water.
Daniel
I assume that post was somewhat hyperbolic. At some point, you can’t be responsible for the morality of someone’s actions: if someone is selling used stereos out of the back of a truck, you can’t really deny that they are probably stolen, and you can’t morally justify buying them. However, when we are talking about free drinks at a bar, there’s no way to really judge what’s allowed by the owner of the establishment–since some owners allow signifigant leeway–and I don’t think there is anything morally wrong with leaving that as a matter between the bartender and the owner. Now, should the owner or manager ask you how many drinks you had in order to compare it to the tab, you can’t lie to protect the bartender or anything like that. But just accepting the freebie seems morally sound to me.
There is only one reason to tip: The minimum wage laws allow tips to count as the owner pay. So, it’s the only way the workers get an honest paycheck.
If you don’t like tipping, write your congress representative to require minimum wage regardless of tips. Then owners will instantly put “Service is included, no tipping necessary” on the bottoms of all their menus. They don’t want to see any more of the money coming into their establisment going to the hired help than absolutely necessary.
It’s good to know that a buck a drink is standard, I never really knew. Of course that’s Texas, somewhere like LA or NYC may well be different.
If they are, it’s almost certainly in the opposite direction. Tipping culture in the US tends to be strongest in the largest cities; NYC’s tipping culture is insane-looking to this outsider.
Daniel
Okay, so what I don’t understand is why exactly tipping in excess of the conventions makes people feel oh so virtuous.
All of the bar-tenders I have met were eager to describe their career as one of excellent income and ready access to women in exchange for little or no schooling. Most of the bar-tenders I interact with for the first time are never lacking in attitude and generally wanting in gratitude. Hooking people up with their alcohol is not a particularly noble profession that benefits society to some grand extent like being a teacher or firefighter.
So, for people such as the poster that mentioned putting $3 for a $2 bottle of water, I guess I could understand the behavior if waiting that extra minute for your bottle of water really would kill you, but assuming you don’t make $120 an hour, it doesn’t strike me as a particularly efficient trade-off of your time and financial resources. The world isn’t short on people that would be happy to serve as bar-tenders at a dollar a drink, so I’m not struck by any pressing need to improve bartender compensation. To be frank, most heavy tipping strikes me more as conspicuous consumption on the part of the tipper.
I’ll pay my dollar a drink to conform to the expected pay rate of their profession, but I don’t feel particularly compelled to demonstrate what a great guy I am by tipping someone $2 to twist off a cap or combine two liquids in a single cup.
Let’s see…two bottles of water once a week at 5 dollars a bottle…when the club cover is about 10 bucks…yeah…Imma go 'head and say it is ok to do this even on my pauper’s income.
But I wouldn’t do it if it meant ‘waiting that extra minute’. It means waiting 30 minutes when I would rather be by the speakers, sipping my water and winding my ample hips to the dancehall mix.
I tip a dollar or 20%, whichever is higher.
If I’m ordering a draft beer–say, a pint of Pilsner (inoffensive, mass-produced lager by a major Canadian brewer) off the tap–then I’ll generally tip the bartender a buck. If it’s a slightly more “difficult” beer–say a microbrew that typically foams up, and that the bartender has to take care to provide me with a proper pint (instead of a half-beer-half-foam), then it might be more, but it will always be at least a dollar.
If I’m ordering a cocktail: “Martini, made with Bombay Sapphire gin, Noilly Prat vermouth, on the rocks, in a rocks glass, with plenty of olives,” then the staff is getting at least three dollars. The bar staff who can put together a martini as I like it, and serve it as I like it, deserves a lot extra than if they just serve me a draft beer. However, if they screw up in spite of my instructions (for example: the barmaid who tried to serve me such a drink in an up glass full of ice because “martinis are only ever served in an up glass” in spite of my protestations), then it might only be two dollars. With instructions on how to do it right the next round. (And if the bar staff doesn’t get the next round right, after one chance, then I just might not leave anything at all for the second round of martinis. Sorry, but you had two chances to do it as I asked.)
I take it, then, you’re a teetotaler.
So we’re tipping firefighters now? Where will it end?
Blasphemy!
I’m not going to belabor the point that has already been made, but I want to address a couple of comments.
First, you cannot compare tipping a bartender to that of tipping at a restaurant. The systems are different. A bartender’s tips do not pay for the labor of just popping the top and handing it to you. It’s paying for the work that went into cleaning the bar and washing the glasses. Cutting the fruit, washing the ashtrays and stocking the coolers. It paying for the tables and bar to be bussed and cleared throughout the night. There’s a lot of moving parts in the business that are not apparent to the customer.
In a restaurant the food prep and cleaning and whatnot generally are fully salaries employees. The bar/club industry is different.
Secondly, a drink at a bar is not generally overpriced. Comparing it to the prices you pay at a grocery store is a fallacy. The bar has to pay staff and massive amounts of overhead in the shape of plasma TVs and prime real estate. The DJs, bands, decor, licenses and insurance costs are simply staggering. Also cities and states are taxing alcohol at a insane rate these days, typically happily voted in favor of by the same assholes bitching about drink prices and tips.
As said before, if the convention of tipping and cost of a drink is too much for your sensibilities, that’s fine, stay home and save us from your misery.
My first bartending gig was at a martini bar. Quite possibly the most annoying bartending gig ever. I’d never do it again.
But I do take pride in my martinis, and also my Bloody Marys (even though I think it’s a revolting drink) and I have no problem making them for people…in fact I get a bit smug when they say, “This is REALLY good!” because I knew they’d say it.
So while I don’t mind making them–and when the bar is slow I actually enjoy it–they take forever to make in comparison to the other 99% of drinks people order, and a time-consuming drink is money lost, IMHO, unless my time (and skill) are compensated.
And it annoys me–out of proportion, probably–when the bar is slammed and I take the time to make a badass drink and people go, “Omigod, this is so great! You ROCK!” and give me a couple of quarters.
I have always said that bartending is adult day care. Picture a room full of four year olds. Drunk. Anybody who says it’s easy has never done it, and anybody who doesn’t tip is invited behind the bar for a birds’ eye view of the job.
(This is not directed at you, Daniel. Your post just got me thinking!)
Depends. If you and ten of your buddies are drining at a bar all night and the bartender comps you a couple of shots or free rounds of drinks, you might decide that’s the place where you want to hang out with your buddies drinking every weekend.
Everyone always thinks it’s so expensive to drink in NYC. There are places in Manhattan you can go for $2.00, even $0.50 a beer. The downside is they are often full of underage NYU students and B&T crowd, but you get what you pay for.
Exactly. (And yes, I exaggerated a bit.) Anyhoo, the owners are often there and hook me up a lot, too. I tip well, they like me, and I bring people there. Everyone wins. And the cycle begins with tipping well. (Or sleeping with the bartender, I suppose.)
I was waiting for someone at the Ritz Carlton in Marina Del Rey the other night, and ordered an Irish Coffee. It had been a long while since I’d had one. Damn was it good. The coffee came out in a mini French press, nice amount of Jamison’s, perfect float of thick creamy cream. Wow.
Of course, being the Ritz, it was $14. :eek:
At a lot of Irish bars I’ve been to in the city, the bartender will often comp us every third beer or so if it’s not that busy. Why? Because the cost of the beer is incidental compared to the revenue generated by having us sitting there all evening drinking, ordering food and playing Big Buck Hunter.
Usually, $1 a beer/simple mixed drink, and $2 a martini. If I’m getting two beers, though, I’ll sometimes still tip just $1… for the kinds of beer you can get at most bars, $1 for two beers is right around 20%.
That’s all if I’m paying with cash. If I’ve got a tab, I just calculate 15-20% at the end.
Right - reasonable discounts for volume and loyalty are good business. But 75% looks to be well outside what’s reasonable.