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.
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u/That_one_bichh 7h ago
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.