Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
Originally Posted by BoulderSooner
No, most wait staff make $2.00 an hour from the restaurant and likely tip out more than that to the hostesses, bussers and bartenders. The net is that waitstaff is about free to the store. With zero benefits. Waiting tables is an exception to the minimum wage law.
Platinum Member
Re: Gratuity
If they don't make enough in tips to get to at least min wage. The restaurant has to may them the difference
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
Unless someone is just being an idiot, no one in the hospitality industry is paying lower than minimum wage. The pay may come from more than one source, i.e. part from the establishment and part from the customers, but if someone just totally sucks as a server, they will still make at least minimum wage .. at least until they are let go for not being good at the job.
Re: Gratuity
So . . . Would the simple answer to The Gratuity Issue, vis-à-vis "Irma's Burger Shack" (ref. OP), be to change the name to "Irma's Shanty Irish Burger Mansion" and be done with it?
Re: Gratuity
????
Re: Gratuity
!!!
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
Me thinks there might have some beverage consumption with this one, particularly of the alcohol variety.
Re: Gratuity
Perhaps. I just don't understand the sentence; it's written in a language I don't understand.
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
Indeed. . . indeed, and agreed, but not without a steed.
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
My personal translation:
As has been said in this thread, servers (by law) make at [least] the minimum wage. Most make quite a bit more. None make under [the minimum wage].
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
It's hard to imagine a billing system where this wouldn't be an option that the restaurant could choose to use or not. I don't mind when the automatic gratuity when it's a large party. Adding it to every ticket is a little bit much. If it were me, I would politely let the owner/manager know that I wouldn't be returning until this policy is changed.
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
I read an article this week about a waiter/waitress who got a religious tract printed on the back of a fake $5 bill instead of a tip.
Banned
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
Jesus did say "Render unto Caesar what is Caeser's", well if Caesar does a good job waiting on my table he is guaranteed 20%. But I could be taking the quote out of context.
Banned
Re: Gratuity
Had this guy shown up to Irma's , the waitress just might have missed out on a 1000% tip. Further proves the point automatic tips shouldn't exist on small tables.
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
Never felt inclined to be quite that generous, but back when I studied until dawn after my family retired for the night, tips were often in excess of the bill.
Most nights the drink/chow order was just not a big ticket item despite the hours involved. Even so, the multiple carafes of free coffee refills didn't get to the table by way of elves riding unicorns.
God love the ladies of late night Norman eateries back in the day. I can't begin to imagine what the paper chase would have been without their smiling faces and kind words in the wee hours of sooooooo many mornings. Ditto for the folks who would not interrupt the between morning class naps, which were a fair amount of my daily sleep.
Re: Gratuity
Meh.. you speak of law school as if it was hard.
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
More lonely than hard.
Wee hour mornings permitted my late afternoon and early eve time to be open for family. I had day classes. Hers were at night. Sleep between classes and then go read for class and for work while the family slept was reasonable time mgmt. Without question, servers who were pleasant and efficient were much appreciated. Let's face it. The reading is more than dry at times.
As for it being hard, I imagine we both could name more than a few examples whose graduation fully dispels that notion.
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
I almost always tip very well. I usually tip 20% at a minimum. Cute girls get more. I usually get very good service. Like kevinpate, if I'm sitting somewhere watching a game, or just taking up a lot of time, I've sometimes tipped an amount greater than the bill.
An automatic gratuity changes all that. I never add anything to it, and it makes me angry when I see it. When service was bad, I've scratched it out and written in the original amount with a note about the terrible service. Irma's is already overpriced and I've never had good service there. I won't be going back there now.
Banned
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
I've read a few pages but not all the replies.
Having 1. Been a server for several restaurants in my late teens and early 20's, 2. A diner at non-fast food restaurants (ie sit down), and 3. Managing partner of a sit down restaurant, I have been on ALL 3 sides of this argument.
You as a person have 4 options when it comes to dining; eat at home, stop by a fast food place, sit at a dine in restaurant, or simply not eat at all. Each of these has their own cost, be it monetary or to your own health.
I'm going to focus on the fast food and sit-in options.
Fast Food: You order it yourself, you get your drink yourself, the quality of the food is questionable, and you pay no one a service of doing this for you. It's cheap, fast, and inexpensive. Fast food changed how restaurants serve food, just as the automobile changed the dining experience. You know the expectations of a fast food place. Drive through, or go in and stand in line to have your order taken. Pay, get your drink (most of the time yourself) and wait for your order to be nuked/heated up and put together. When the food is ready, you retrieve it and either eat inside or take it home. In this model, there is no need for a server. The fast food model places all the service on the customer and is just yet another way an industry has changed to increase profit for the owners.
Sit-in Dining: This is not fast food service, the customer is not placed in the situation to do everything themselves. Service is provided to you by a server. Dining in at a sit-in establishment is an experience to be served while you sit, enjoy your company with you, and be waited upon by a living person that is willing and waiting to get whatever you need for your dining experience. (This is of course "ideal" service, I don't know of one person who has at least once in their life not experienced bad service - forgotten drink refills, wrong/messed up orders, inattentive servers, etc.) Tipping is YOU paying for the service provided to YOU along with the cost of your food and drink. (I personally believe that you SHOULD NOT BE FORCED TO TIP, which might sound contradictory to what i'm typing here, but finish reading all that I have to say first.)
Traditionally, and with the rise in inflation, the 'suggested' tip has been a percentage of the total bill ranging in 10% in the early to late '90's and increasing all the way up to 18-20% of the total bill in 2014. I believe this model of tipping is out dated for the service provided and the increased cost of living. Tipping should be a sliding scale that is based on the quality of the service you received by dining in at a "server based business model" type of restaurant. IMO, A tip for excellent service would be $1.50-2/diner up to 6 people, and $1-1.50/diner for 7+, and never less than $2 over all for not so great service. If the service was bad enough that you don't want to leave a tip, inform a manger, let them know, this is the only way someone will know that the quality of service is lacking in that establishment. (Unfortunately, servers are not going to tell their boss that they are not getting tipped because they could lose their job. Also, not tipping will develop a reputation that spreads like wildfire through an establishment, and you'll probably never get better than lack luster service as a form of shunning you from the establishment for poor tipping by the servers themselves. It happens.)
Restaurants with a server based business model are designed this way to keep quality food at a reasonable price while providing a better atmosphere for your dining experience. Getting better quality ingredients for restaurants is not a cheap endeavor. Compare the price of a burger at an "organic" establishment vs McDonalds. You literally get what you pay for. I prefer to eat real food and not preservatives or additives, if I can help it, and sometimes that means paying more, but not so much is too expensive and not feasible to purchase. Two things have to happen to be profitable and maintain a certain price point, all while paying for everything else in the business. That $8.50 hamburger goes to pay for a lot of stuff before it ever becomes profit. So how does the restaurant provide quality ingredients without raising the price point? Cheaper employees. Without raising the cost of your food to pay a server minimum wage, a server based model is used. With the server based business model you actually are paying for that server one way or another, but at least with tipping, you get to choose how much your overall price will be. You could potentially pay 25% more with a raised price point to pay servers minimum wage and you don't have to tip, or you pay a lower price point, and you choose the amount to tip which would be lower than 25%. Raising the price points and paying minimum wage would change the entire business model of the restaurant and then you'd complain that the food cost too much because they would have to compensate for extra expenditures.
You can even view a restaurant model like as a triangle; food, service, and cost. Two of those can be great, but the other one will be lacking.
Example, Economically priced food with minimum wage employees gives you low quality food. (I didn't say not edible) If you want quality food and minimum wage employees, expects to pay a higher price. If you want quality food at a reasonable price, you'll need lower waged employees.
If you choose not to tip, either tell the server ahead of time and expect to get your own drinks, order your own food, and expect no service at all or take your butt down to a fast food place. You may find it hard to access the employee only kitchen, or log into a POS to place an order. You might as well go sit at the bar and order your food there. Dining in at a restaurant comes with a service fee that you get to regulate (which doesn't mean choosing to tip 0) while keeping your food at a good price for better ingredients and a better experience. If you hate this model of business, then change capitalism. Better yet, contact your state representative and have a bill drawn up to raise the server minimum wage. If you don't have enough money to tip, take an order to go, you can still enjoy the food without the service and atmosphere. It's like paying a cover charge to a night club, and still having to pay for drinks at the bar. If you want in to party and buy drinks, you pay the cover charge.
Sometimes people say servers brag about a $300 or $400 night, thats exactly it, it's one night. All the other shifts you're lucky to have made $20-40. Not to mention if you have to tip out the bar staff and bus boys. While there is an Oklahoma law that says that in a pay period, if a server did not make at least an hourly minimum wage with a combination of their minimum hourly wage plus tips/compensation, the restaurant then has to pay them to equal the amount of minimum wage worked for those hours.
A lot of non tippers, I would put money on this, have NEVER worked as a server in their life. They obviously talk about a subject and make judgement there on all while having absolutely no clue as to what they are talking about and base everything on assumptions or speculated rumor they hear.
The next complaint I hear is why do I have to pay for something that requires absolutely no skill to possess. Again, that person has probably never been a server. There are tons of skills required to be a server and it's a bit more stressful than you would think. Time Management, Attention to Detail, Memorization, Social Skills, Salesmanship and Customer Relations. Not to mention it is one of the most humbling jobs you will ever have. You learn how it is to serve and accept attitude and some times humility from customers all while maintaining a level of integrity while managing to do so with a smile and managing all the other tables in your section. To be put through that and not receive a tip after providing service knowing you only make $2.13 an hour can be a real let down.
If you know a restaurant has servers, and you're obviously going to have to tip, then my only question is, why are you so surprised about tipping or having gratuity added? Tipping is not new and it's a global thing, not just American. I don't believe you should be forced to pay gratuity or a tip, but don't think you should run out and pay nothing on a service that was rendered to you.
If you still want to be waited on and eat quality food at a reasonable price but not tip, expect to be given less than quality service the next time you come in, and not everyone has integrity, you might end up in a scene like the movie "Waiting" or "Waiting 2".
Not all restaurants are the same, some are busy and some are slow. Busier place turn over more tables, which means more tips for a server. Slower places mean lower tips for a server. There are servers that are "rock stars" and make more money in a month than most people that work professional careers. Then there are servers who can not get any other kind of job and the only place that will higher them are the slower restaurants because of high turnover rates in employment because servers don't get paid well enough at that establishment. The busier places are realizing they can shrink the sections that servers have and are thus given fewer tables and don't make as much as they use to.
It really is hard to make a living off of server wages now a days, but what would happen to dine-in restaurants without servers? Something will eventually change, but it's going to cost you the consumer in the end. I also think that sometimes people forget that servers are people too. You never know why that person is working there and making a statement like "if you don't get paid enough, go work somewhere else" and sometimes thats easier said than done.
//////////////////////////// END OF RANT ////////////////////////////////
Participating Member
Re: Gratuity
Is change finally coming to this corrupt industry?!
Not sure what 35K/year equivalent would be here in OKC, but it would be amazing if all restaraunt employees got livable wages that weren't majority charity.
A Restaurant Just Banned Tips - Business Insider
Platinum Member
Re: Gratuity
bank rate says the equivalent here would be approx. $32.7k
As to whether industry wide change is coming…well…this has to actually work. That's the catch.
How it affects customers: Are they going to be charging a service fee? If they don't increase the menu prices but increase their FOH costs by like 1,000% … they're gonna have to make it up somewhere. Surely they'll get some new tax write-offs and maybe they can add a variety of responsibilities to the FOH staff that they didn't have before, but 1,000% increase is a lot. So I doubt customers are going to be paying the exact same they are now for the exact same product. Maybe if they're not tipping 20% and only have to pay a 10%/15%/18% service fee they'll actually save, but customers are not going to save every penny of their would-have-been-tip.
The servers also are going to have to give up some things as well: Far less flexibility in schedule (a major perk in the restaurant industry), decreased (if any) ability to work part-time and go to school, taxing of *all* their income, more accountability for their mistakes and company losses (breakage, table leaving without payment, incorrect ordering, etc.)
There's no reason it can't work, but it becomes a very different business model when you do it this way.
Platinum Member
Re: Gratuity
Will be interesting to see how they are doing a year from now. Just doing rough math. 20 employees x $45k (35k base salary but with benefits, employer's tax contributions/comp, unemployment insurance will be easily over 10k/yr per employee)=900,000 a year just in labor expense. According to their website, they are only open 53 hours per week which means they have to generate $326.56 per open hour just to pay payroll. Looking at the limited menu, the dinner items range from $10 -$32 for a steak with most in the high teens range.
The only thing I can think of is they are pushing a lot of alcohol sales which is quite possible looking at their late hours. Hopefully it works for them, It seems to work in other countries.
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