Quote:
Originally Posted by Dion
If you're good at what you do and have great people skills, working for tips should never be a thought.
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This is a nice thought, but isn't at all the reality of the serving industry.
A good server should make around $20 an hour, a great or fine-dining server should be making well over $40 and hour. I've worked in places where I can make $80+ an hour, easy. Yes, there are certain expectations when you're making that kind of money. You need to be a professional and really, really know what you're doing.
Now, the rule in restaurants is that servers are paid minimum wage. That's the way it is. So, when I'm a low-end server making 20/hr and more than half of that is going to come from tips, that's going to be on my mind, whether I want it to or not.
The more money you make, the more things you have to think about, so the tip gets pused further and further from your mind, but it's still there.
To respond to some other concerns:
- We don't tip-out the kitchen. Almost all places do this, but we pay our kitchen staff a living wage and let the servers keep all the tips, again in an effort to attract the best servers.
- 14% is almost always the size of the tip-pool compared to the gross sales at the end of the night. We pool our tips and then split it evenly between the servers.
-Our alcohol mark-up is minimal. We have amazing wines and we want people to drink them, not wish they could drink them.