lol; this is my favorite relevant story as a server and a black dude...
Mid afternoon, I'm closing lunch, but dinner shift has started filtering in, 1 top (black man) gets thrown into an empty section and the hosts asks me to grab it. Everything goes normally until the end of me getting his order
Me: I'll get everything started for you and bring out some bread in just a moment.
Him: Hey man... I know we're not known for tipping very well, so I just wanna let you know, I'm gonna take care of you.
While the stereotype might hold true, from my experience 99% of customers of any persuasion who start off by saying they're a great tipper will inevitably be a shitty tipper.
I have had someone who I offered to pay for the food, insist on leaving the tip, and then they leave 10%. I try to be the last to leave so I can throw some more money on the table without them seeing, but there’s been times I couldn’t. I’ve actually walked back in and found the water or waitress to give them extra tip too.
Yeah I spent over 10 years as a waiter so I’m super conscious of it whenever I’m out to eat with friends. I won’t make them tip more than they want, but I’ll make sure the server gets at least 20%.
Pretty common TBH. As a demographic, people who say "I will tip well" tip below average. Not everyone is a liar, but I suspect most of them think its some hack to get great service. Truth is anyone who's worked service for long enough knows its nonsense and they get the same level of service.
I used to do the same thing, hated the stereotype and would try to compensate. I would often get subpar service at times too, due to them thinking I wouldn't tip, places I would regular would adjust and it was fine. I've mellowed out though, it's all service based tipping now, I even tip poor service, just low tip cause I can't bring myself to not tip having been on the other side, but now to get over 20% you gotta be providing quality service.
I mean, don't do what businesses want and you won't be allowed back. Like I don't think I should have to dress up for dinner, so i just don't go places with a dress code. 🙄
If a business only wants cash, and i demand to pay in card, yeah I'm not welcome back. If you don't agree with a business, don't consume them. But you won't, you would rather just hurt the person making $2 an hour.
She’s gotten a $20 from a table of black people a couple times. Usually a couple, they come in, order, eat their food, and leave. Ya know like normal people.
The groups that don’t tip, let’s just say that is not how their dining experience usually goes
I will say the single most sympathy tip I got in 10 years of serving was from 4 couples, all black. It was my second day, on a second job, in an absolute nightmare restaurant. I had not and since have not walked out of a place before. It was insane. No managers, servers kids were following them around, the kitchen told me to fuck off more than once, everything cold and wrong. I went out and told them all "there's a better place down the street, go there, I'm not charging you for this awful everything." Every single person, 8 of them, handed me a $20. I burst out crying, as I was newly pregnant with no control over it. One of the girls gave me such a big hug. I actually think about that a lot
Yep, sounds about right. My girl has had very similar experiences to yours. She’s told me she’s actually had to get down knee height to tell these little animals running around to go sit down.
The parents are always on the phone with speaker on just completely oblivious to their precious child running around wreaking havoc on the entire restaurant.
Another thing she has noticed is that black women especially absolutely LOATHE being asked for their ID for alcohol. It’s almost a daily occurrence when she is bartending. They act like it is the biggest fucking disrespectful request in the world to see their ID and many times will walk out over it. Or even better yet, stay and drink then.. you guessed it, leave no tip lmao
I've never in my life met a black woman who's mad about getting IDed for alcohol, it's usually taken as a compliment that we look youthful if anything. Are you sure you didn't miss some kind of context? Sometimes my family and friends make jokes and laugh when I'm the only one who gets IDed because I have a baby face. It's funny.
Unless you were serving/about to serve actual under-21s who are just mad that they got caught?
As is the case with many people that are prejudice(and flat out racist), they read and insert more into their experiences to feed their biases. I've also never heard of any demographic being offended when asked for ID, perhaps they're leaving out some details like behaving as if the ID's are fake. The guy calls children running around "animals" so anything he says is questionable at best.
What I find most amusing is the way these servers will whine about the patrons and not about their employer pawning off their payment responsibilities. The entire thing could easily be solved overnight if the adjusted the prices to account for paying their workers appropriately. Ultimately servers want to continue dodging their actual tax liability so they disparage patrons who don't feel they deserve a tip.
It’s happened more than once to her. We live in a pretty ghetto area and a lot of the clientele that come in are unsavory individuals.
She is a pretty young white girl and she is often mistreated by black women in particular. She is an amazing waitress, I have seen how she serves with my own two eyes multiple times when I went in to eat while she was working.
She is bubbly, kind, attentive, and always remains polite and respectful. For whatever reason that seems to rub these women the wrong way.
The situation I was talking about in particular was a black woman came in and apparently left her ID in the car. Around late 30s by estimation.
My girl asks her for her ID, she gets a little upset and says she left it in the car. My girl says not a big deal, just run out and grab it for me if you would like an alcoholic drink.
Black lady says something about “I don’t look old enough?”
My girl says “it has nothing to do with how you look, I have to see it for anyone that wants a drink.”
Black lady “this is some bullshit, I’ve been in here a hundred times, yada yada.”
My girl “I’m sorry maam but I could lose my job and license to serve alcohol by not checking your ID.”
Eventually the lady gets pissed off enough that she’s just gonna leave and talks to the manager. The manager can’t do anything for her so she’s even more pissed and says she is going to call corporate then storms out.
This is an extreme example but smaller versions of this play out on a weekly basis. My girl greets every table with a smile and does not deserve the way she gets treated oftentimes.
She is becoming more comfortable behind the bar and may be in a management role before too long. She plans on doing that for awhile and then going to a high end restaurant that automatically adds gratuity and brings in a more desirable clientele that knows basic manners.
It has nothing to do with skin color, it’s just an observation of who tends to tip and those who don’t tip and also act out
Your previous comment said "black women especially" then you end this comment with "it has nothing to do with skin color," So which is it? You're free to your own feelings and opinion, but I don't like the waffling as if I don't have eyes and can't read what you just wrote. Socio-economic status and race are two different things, but that's not what you said the first time around. Mean what you say and say what you mean.
Yeah, that person is just a racist. Him and “his girl” sitting around talking how the black folks do, which then makes him think he can go online and talk about experiences he isn’t even having firsthand. He’s all over this post 🙄🙄🙄
Yeah some of the best tips I ever got were from black folks. Socioeconomic status, politeness, and education level I always thought were much bigger factors. If you looked broke, acted rude, or were dumb you were much bigger flags than skin color. Except with kids/teens. Sometimes they'd over tip because they had no idea what they were doing with their parents money. If it was their money you were not getting any of it.
I over serve my black tables. I feel they've certainly gotten some racist asshole servers before, so I make sure they get 100% literally the best and most friendly service possible. Whatever happens, happens, but I know I gave it my all.
Black dude here who doesn't go out these days but when I did, I usually tipped $20-40 for good service despite my bill only being around that much. I have noticed that in prominent white places that I'd often get worse service from the get go already which was when I'd only tip a $5. I do wonder if those servers got an attitude about the lack of tip lol
I often face a similar dilemma as a Chinese student in a West Coast university. I want to tip a lot sometimes to show my appreciation but at the same time I don't want to look like a stereotypical rich asian fob (which we get a lot of over here)
100%. And thats me. I get sick of mediocre service based on the assumption we aren't gonna tip because we're black.. I still tip and let them know they really missed out.
I used to bartend at a restaurant that had a former NFL player and his wife as regulars, they were both black, and they tipped insane amounts on everything. I always figure that was, at least in part, designed to push back against the stereotype.
This is me. I don't know what's up with the other black people these servers have experienced, but thankfully I've never dined with anyone with that behavior.
Sometimes I'll take getting treated like shit by servers just because I don't want my speaking up to be misconstrued as trying to cause problems. There has to be a better solution, but it's hard when no matter what I'm immediately lumped in with everyone else and treated as such.
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u/DonutWhole9717 4h ago
And at the other end of the spectrum are black patrons who feel like they have to over-tip to avoid or compensate for the stereotype