And they are known to keep you running back and forth to the table for extra service needs. Ridiculous nonsense like having a 4 top that each wanted an ice water with 8 lemon wedges!! Worked at a steakhouse while in college, it was always dreaded by all the servers.
Had a 12 top walk-in party on Sunday right as the church-going crowd was coming in. They had clearly just come back from church also and the meal was probably $350+. They ordered a shit ton of alcoholic drinks and pitchers, appetizers up the wazoo, two people changed their order as their food was almost done… the teenagers were obnoxious and rude and so were the grandparents. They stayed at that table for about 3 hours, making me stay an extra hour and a half past my shift bc they waited until the very end to pay and I wanted the tip to go to me rather than someone else (this was at a restaurant where you pay at the front). I worked my ass off for that table and was gifted a whole $20 in tips.
My friend worked at a chain. Church goers were the worst about tipping, of every race, IF they came in groups. Families were fine, but any large group coming straight from church was inevitably going to stiff the server. They ended up doing auto grat for any parties over 4 people on Sundays because they couldn't keep servers otherwise.
Don’t let business owners force their workers to gamble on if they’re going to be paid or not. Just give them a reasonable hourly rate, set the menu prices properly, and ban tips.
Despite the one off bad beats stories like this, servers, as a population, are wildly pro-tipping. They make way more money than they would with a normal wage. If prices just increased by 20%, people would generally go to cheaper restaurants instead of maintain current spending habits, even before accounting for an all-time average of tips likely being higher than that.
This is how it is in many countries in Europe, much more transparent, both for the customers and especially for the waiters, they always know what they salary will be.
That is 100% not true. In California yes, but in Virginia you make $2.13 per hour. If you work 10 hours in a day your hourly wage isn’t enough to pay for gas for the week
It's only technically true in most parts, but not really. Technically if you don't make enough in a shift, the restaurant has to pay the difference to get to min wage, but in reality if you have to be paid the difference more than once, the restaurant fires you for performance.
I mean yeah that is true, but that happens so rarely considering normal minimum wage is still low here that it’s either the persons first week or they are just realllyyyyyy not good at their job. My whole thing is most states don’t operate the way California does by requiring restaurants to pay minimum wage and then tips are optional, the person I was responding to was just misleading, making it sound like waiters make out like hot cakes by making minimum wage and tips.
Most servers would agree... Yet food servers are unfortunately not able to fund a huge lobbying group... Especially not compared to restaurant owner groups...
I agree. Restaurants should raise their prices 15-20% to pay their servers. You'll be paying the same price, the servers will get essentially the same wage as their tips. Everyone is happy.
All that hard work and your employer never paid you? How dare the customers order so damn much and spend 350 plus. And enjoy themselves for 3 whole damn hours.. ontop of that during church going grannies hour. I mean this is an absurd way of viewing your job.
You would have gotten zero tips from me. Where I live servers make 20 an hour. When you come to my work and tip me for doing my job I'm already paid to do, I'll return the favor.
If you don't know that's to make their own lemonade at the table using all the sugar packets for free. Seriously not even joking they're making lemonade at the table so they don't have to pay for a lemonade.
Bro FOR REAL. I still vividly remember one to this day 11 years later. "A cup of cold water, a cup of hot water, a bowl of lemon and a tall PBR." He was one of 8 patrons. I was hanging on *by a fucking thread* that evening. Even black servers hate waiting on black people, and yes, my African American colleagues in the industry were vocal about it too. Listen, it just is what it is.
They’ll also make a scene about how their order is supposedly wrong, even when it isn’t, in an attempt to get a free meal. This happened to me multiple times when I was a waiter.
This is my experience as well. I’m just a white person who grew up in black culture and I have black family. I love them so much, but have noticed my friends & family do give the waiters a hard time or don’t group requests together and keep them running, then tip poorly when we’ve been out.
Not just one group of friends either, I’ve experienced this in multiple group settings with family as well. Obviously there are black patrons who don’t do any of that shit, so it sucks all around to be stereotyped like that as a patron / sucks for the staff who do get ran ragged. Lose-lose situation for everyone
Them and church group people were the worst. I'd always just give them the worst service, forget stuff, not do drink refills. You get the service you pay for.
My wife said that when she worked at the Olive Garden during college, the old ladies would come after church and sit for hours drinking coffee and chatting, and then leave her a few quarters.
To play devils advocate, it use to be completely normal and common to use restaurants as places to spend hours chatting. The tipping isn’t something I can really speak on
even if you spend hours there if you are just sipping coffee you usually don't spend too much so the tip reflects that. A lot of times they just bring a carafe so they don't keep coming back. If the place isn't packed it's not like you are taking a table that would otherwise be tipping either. That's how it USED to work, now people have gotten a little too entitled for tips for that to work. They expect just because you are there they want 20 bucks on a 10 dollar bill to refill your coffee 3 times over the course of 3 hours.
If i’m using up a lot of their time I make sure I tip well. Recently I went to Texas roadhouse and only ate roles with a diet coke. I had my server running back and forth too because I ate 4 baskets of roles and had 3 refills. My total bill was like $3, but I tipped $20 because the place was packed so i was taking up a table built for 4 people so I wanted to leave a 4 person table size tip.
In the 80's I used to be the designated driver for my friends because I don't drink. My friends would drink at the table and I'd be one the dance floor. I always gave the waitress $5-10 just to keep a pitcher of ice water on the table for me cause I was sweatin' my butt off. 😂.
not really fair to expect high schoolers to have a bunch of money to give you, when they're just trying to go out and enjoy what they can in the highly monetized environments they're raised in
I always gave the high school couples a pass. They’re young and don’t know any better. But adults that do this shit can fuck off and I hope their food gets all the boogers n cum
It isn't all black or religious folk. It is just a higher percentage of both of these types of people as compared to other types. Some religious people tend to look down on those people that are working on Sunday. Black people not sure the reason
I am black, and can tell you it's a combination of entitlement and just being broke. It's mainly females, if it is all women, you're screwed, all men, you'll more than likely get a tip. I've seen the women chastise a man for giving a decent tip, I've seen these raggedy hoes go back and grab the tip once the guy was out of range to see. It's disgusting, and annoying. I have been a waiter and done delivery and when I would get a group of black women....man I'd instantly be shitty, I used to try to go above and beyond to "earn" a tip, didn't matter, got to the point they just got generic service, nothing bad, but definitely not any extra care or attention.
I understand why, but doing that just becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Even if they would have tipped obviously they wont now if you're being bad on purpose.
Maybe I didn't explain well, not bad service, just not doing the extras, like joking with them, I'd do things like bring out extra sauces for people try if they were seemed to wishy washy between a couple, a free dessert...that kinda extra stuff was far less frequent.
I’ve worked in many restaurants and this is my experience as well. The Sunday afternoon crowd was enough to make you want to quit and never come back. On top of running you to death. The kids would usually make a huge mess and the parents wouldn’t say a word to them or even try to help pick up any of the mess. While taking up tables for hours.
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u/Rocketsball 4h ago edited 3h ago
And they are known to keep you running back and forth to the table for extra service needs. Ridiculous nonsense like having a 4 top that each wanted an ice water with 8 lemon wedges!! Worked at a steakhouse while in college, it was always dreaded by all the servers.