And how much were they making? thanks in advance

iof those service jobs paid more the prices of food would be ridiculous

Mrs. Vulture worked as a bartender for several years, and the thing is, she made very good money on a good night, but on a slow night, not so much. Also, if you rely on tips, you aren't getting sick or vacation pay and few places offer anything like benefits.

That being said, I find tip jars annoying.

The Dude wrote:iof those service jobs paid more the prices of food would be ridiculous

But you wouldn't have to tip. Seems like it would come out the same in the end, and it would save servers from getting screwed by cheapskates and people who take out their dissatisfaction with things outside the server's control on the server. On the flip side, really bad servers would still get paid, but of course the restaurant could simply fire them.

but just your tip doesn't pay for it. It's everyone that tips the server, so that all adds up to deflect the food costs.

So HR just emailed me with a list of charges to my company card that I didn't authorize. I just double-checked and I have my card on me. Can't think of how someone would be able to get the numbers

sorry bout that

They were pretty dumb, they paid their gas bill with it

The Dude wrote:but just your tip doesn't pay for it. It's everyone that tips the server, so that all adds up to deflect the food costs.

But doesn't that add up the same way? Let's say a restaurant only gets 3 customers a day and sells two items, one that costs 10 bucks, one that's 20. And we add the tip -

Customer 1 orders the 20 dollar thing. He tips 25%. He pays 25 bucks
Customer 2 orders the 10 dollar thing, he tips 15%. He pays 11.5 bucks
Customer 3 orders both, he tips 20%. She pays 36 bucks.

Now let's say the restaurant gets rid of tipping and raises food prices 20%.

Customer 1 would pay 24 bucks now, saving 1 dollar... which he'd probably give back to the server over and above.
Customer 2 would pay 12 dollars, costing 50 cents. He gets hurt.
Customer 3 would pay 36 dollars... she's even.

So I don't see what you're saying unless the restaurant raises prices beyond your normal tipping level.

they would raise it much more than 20%. more like 300% or more.

staff makes ~2$ an hour instead of the 9$ min wage (or whatever it is).

so a staff of 10 you would be paying out 70$ more an hour in cost. for a 12 hour day thats ~800. food prices would have to go up to cover the additional 800. i don't know what that would be but i think it would be more than 20%.

I'm just not sure why unless they attach a markup. If we're truly paying their salaries, then spread over many people, the prices of the food only has to rise similarly. I mean at this point this is more of an algebra problem then any real question of tipping.

Some factors to consider:

Restaurants have extended non-peak periods each day with few, if any, customers. While restauranteurs stagger shifts, skeletal wait staff, have wait staff perform other tasks, etc during these slow periods of any given day, they're still paying salary.

Minimum wage for "tipped workers" averages somewhere around $2-$3 per hour, so you're looking at a 300%-400% increase just to get it to "regular" minimum wage. To around the level of a typical daily "take", around a 2000% salary increase.

The math isn't as clear-cut as 15%-20% of average meal since volume/revenue would favor chain and high-end restaurants, with small and startups at a disadvantage. Not to mention external economic factors.

While there is an x% of food cost formula for setting meal costs, a lot of restaurant startups fail because they don't get the math right (find the right balance to weather slow days).

Yes, it took me an hour to type that (slow typing + epic bathroom jaunt) only to see Jamie made a similar point in a more succinct and understandable manner.

The only time I didn't tip waitstaff was a few years back at the Cheesecake Factory in King of Prussia. This waiter dude kept saying how he had an advanced degree and the Republicans were keeping him back due to class warfare and that Bush was a warmonger. Enough, I just want my Incredible Grilled Eggplant Sandwich

I went there for the first time in my life last week. It was awesome. Menu is way oo big though. Impossible to read through.

Bucky wrote:The only time I didn't tip waitstaff was a few years back at the Cheesecake Factory in King of Prussia. This waiter dude kept saying how he had an advanced degree and the Republicans were keeping him back due to class warfare and that Bush was a warmonger. Enough, I just want my Incredible Grilled Eggplant Sandwich

I'd have tipped him a $2 bill.

why ya gotta tell me I timed out. time me back in

If a waiter makes say $50 for a 5 hour shift, he or she is getting $10 an hour. It makes no difference if $8 per hour (on average) comes from tips or from the restaurant.

I believe minimum wage laws require restaurants to compensate servers if their tips+wage don't equal minimum wage. But then there are all kinds of abuses like not paying servers for side work and such.

A compromise solution might be something like what they do in Europe, which is just add it to the check automatically.

I tip the gas station pumpers in Jersey about ten percent of the time. Feels good.

PrattRules wrote:I tip the gas station pumpers in Jersey about ten percent of the time. Feels good.

That's weird.