Hypothetical Management Decision re: non-tipping patron of restaurant

[jzpiano]

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Random note: My parents used the same coupon (had 2 and they were expiring) at a different Bennigans, 5 miles down the road, on the same night and ran up a bill closer to $40, no autograt.

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What are you pissed off about? First, these coupons always say there's a gratuity included, so it shouldn't have surprised you. Second, when you don't add the grat in these situations, I'd say half the time you wind up getting tipped on the discounted amount. The fact that you're a good tipper is nice, but irrelevant to the waitron trying not to get screwed.

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He's probably offended because the waitstaff assumed (based on some combination of race, dress, or most likely: age) that he was a cheapskate and likely to stiff on tip. The "evidence," and what likely contributed to the anger/offensiveness, was his parents' meal that was not autograt. It wasn't a policy; it was an isolated pricing decision based on what he looked like (discrimination, in a way).

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Abreu, I think your right on with this, I'm 22 fyi and don't look a day past it really. My wife is also the same age. I was wearing the usually jeans/t-shirt combo. My guess is this is exactly why I got the autograt and that is why I was upset about it.

[jaydub]

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15 minutes of work for a 5 hour table? Really, you're going with that ratio? You think perhaps there might be some stuff going on behind the scenes?


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Obviously it's not that low - but let's take a middle of the road restaurant, around $20/head. Party of 6. Let's go long and say the party is there for 2 hours.

With drinks, the bill might come out to $200 or so. At 15%, that's a $30 tip, still averaging $15/hr (and that's assuming the waiter is actually working that full 2 hours and has no other tables.)

It was never uncommon for some of my friends at nicer restaurants to come home with $150 - $200 in their pockets working a 6-7 hour shift.

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Ok, now we're being rational and logical with reasonable numbers. Much better.

Others with industry experience (I have zero) can elaborate on the amounts (which vary) but I do know that the tip is shared among several people so the $15/hr in our discussion is not going to be achieved.

J

[Golden_Rhino]

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Golden Rhino: While $75 may seem like a lot on the surface, imagine if the same table of 6 people with a $500 tab who took all night was replaced by table of 4 people with a $300 tab that turns 3 times.


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I can appreciate that as a waiter, a hight turnover table is ideal, but my point is that $75 is not too bad, especially if it can be considered a bad night.

[jaydub]

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Jaydub,

I really don't see why I needed to be insulted. I prefaced by saying that I never worked in a restaurant, so anything that I wrote was a layman's view of the whole thing.

Why is 5 hours ridiculous? Too long or too short?

Do servers not make $15/hour? If they don't make at least that much, why not find a better job?

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Yeah you do.

J

[bottomset]

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15 minutes of work for a 5 hour table? Really, you're going with that ratio? You think perhaps there might be some stuff going on behind the scenes?


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Obviously it's not that low - but let's take a middle of the road restaurant, around $20/head. Party of 6. Let's go long and say the party is there for 2 hours.

With drinks, the bill might come out to $200 or so. At 15%, that's a $30 tip, still averaging $15/hr (and that's assuming the waiter is actually working that full 2 hours and has no other tables.)

It was never uncommon for some of my friends at nicer restaurants to come home with $150 - $200 in their pockets working a 6-7 hour shift.

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Ok, now we're being rational and logical with reasonable numbers. Much better.

Others with industry experience (I have zero) can elaborate on the amounts (which vary) but I do know that the tip is shared among several people so the $15/hr in our discussion is not going to be achieved.

J

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if they are sharing 33% of the tips, then that table is $10/hr

is that the only table they have for that timeframe?

[AlexM]

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Do serving staff in the USA not get a wage from the restaurant?

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$2/hr.


/thread now please.

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This is not actually accurate. From the Department of Labor:

"An employer may credit a portion of a tipped employee's tips against the federal minimum wage of $5.85 per hour effective July 24, 2007. An employer must pay at least $2.13 per hour. However, if an employee's tips combined with the employer's wage of $2.13 per hour do not equal the hourly minimum wage, the employer is required to make up the difference."

So the point you were trying to make is false.

[AlexM]

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If I was the customer and I got autogratted without being in a party of 6, I would essentially feel like you were trying to steal from me.

I never add an additional tip when I get autogratted for large parties anyway. I [censored] loathe the autograt.

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/agree

I normally tip 25%ish, but when there's an autograt, they get the 15-17% and lose out. GG.

[RunDownHouse]

Most of the people I hear crowing, "How could you only tip 15%, omg you [censored] cheapskate!" are former servers and as completely sanctimonious as jaydub.

[bottomset]

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Golden Rhino: While $75 may seem like a lot on the surface, imagine if the same table of 6 people with a $500 tab who took all night was replaced by table of 4 people with a $300 tab that turns 3 times.

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wait so a table of 6 takes 3times as long to serve as a table of 4?

it seems like you are exaggurating

[jaydub]

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15 minutes of work for a 5 hour table? Really, you're going with that ratio? You think perhaps there might be some stuff going on behind the scenes?


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Obviously it's not that low - but let's take a middle of the road restaurant, around $20/head. Party of 6. Let's go long and say the party is there for 2 hours.

With drinks, the bill might come out to $200 or so. At 15%, that's a $30 tip, still averaging $15/hr (and that's assuming the waiter is actually working that full 2 hours and has no other tables.)

It was never uncommon for some of my friends at nicer restaurants to come home with $150 - $200 in their pockets working a 6-7 hour shift.

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Ok, now we're being rational and logical with reasonable numbers. Much better.

Others with industry experience (I have zero) can elaborate on the amounts (which vary) but I do know that the tip is shared among several people so the $15/hr in our discussion is not going to be achieved.

J

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if they are sharing 33% of the tips, then that table is $10/hr

is that the only table they have for that timeframe?

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Of course not and if we continue down this logical path I'm certain we discover that being a halfway decent waiter at a upper middle to high end place is a job that can actually be a middle class career.

We back down the drink assumptions, tweak the number of tables, [censored] around with timing cause it isn't 9-5 of course but with my zero experience I suspect we find that 40-70k is our range of salaries for this career. Using the rule of 2000 this means $20-35/hr which seems about right.

Note I live in a city and have not dined at an Applebees / Outback / Red Lobster / etc in many years so experiences may vary.

J