Server
reveals proper restaurant tip etiquette
Rachel Furlong
Between school, work, friends, family and, of course, the traffic, one must get
through to go anywhere, who has time to actually
prepare a decent meal?
Most of us don’t, which is why restaurants are so convenient. Not only
can you get a good meal without actually having to fix it yourself, you can bring
your friends along for a nice evening out without having to put in any work.
Someone else is doing the work for you. The cooks are preparing your food, the
bartenders pouring your beers and making your drinks, the busboys setting your
tables and the dishwashers cleaning your dishes. The only one I’ve left
out is your server, who is literally there to serve you so you can enjoy your
food and your company.
When the bill comes at the end of the meal, the amount you see is not just for
the food you ate, it’s also for the service you have just bought.
The pouring of the drinks, the preparation of your food, the washing of your
dirty dishes, and last but not least, the person (your server) who tended to,
or should have tended to, your every want and need is part of the service you
are buying when you go to a restaurant. That is why restaurants are more expensive
than fast
food. You are paying for more than your meal.
You pay for other services, such as the person who rotates your tires or changes
your oil or the person who does your dry cleaning. It only makes sense you pay
for the service you receive at a restaurant.
And you do; most of the service you receive is already tacked on to your bill,
except for the service you receive from the waiter. Most of the other employees
like the dishwashers, cooks and hostesses are paid wages higher than the legal
minimum, which is why their service is included in your bill. However, the servers
are paid minimum wage because it is customary for people to tip them.
The custom of tipping your server or bartender is so engrained in our society
that the Internal Revenue Service assumes not only that servers are being tipped,
but that they are being tipped on average 15 percent, which they must also pay
taxes for.
The way it is calculated is by sales. For example, if an individual server sells
a total of $700 in one night, the IRS will tax them not only on their hourly
minimum wage, but also on 15 percent of that $700. So when a server gets no tip
or a bad tip, like 5 percent, they are being taxed on money they did not actually
make. When paychecks come out every two weeks, a server’s check is, on
average, no more than $50 to $100. That’s not going to pay the bills, people.
Servers live off their tips.
It’s not only the IRS that assumes servers are being tipped an average
of 15 percent though. The restaurant does too. At the end of the night, the server
must tip out the bartender who made their drinks, the food runner who ran out
their food and the busboy who cleaned and set their tables. What a server tips
out to these people is also calculated by sales, 1 percent of the server’s
sales goes to the bartender, 1 percent to the food runner and 2 percent to the
busboys.
So again, if a server gets no tip or a bad tip from a table, not only is she
being taxed on money she did not make, she is also tipping out to other people — money
they did not make.
My point in explaining this is I know there are many people out there who have
never worked in restaurants and do not realize what it means for the server who
receives a bad tip. Many people do not know how it works.
Just the other night, a fellow server was waiting on a table whose bill came
out to $250. They left him a $10 tip. These people were very nice and to them,
$10 was a good tip.
What they did not know is that it would have been a good tip if the check had
been $50 or $60, but because it was $250, and $10 was less than five percent
of their check, it actually cost that server money to wait on those people.
I am not saying you should tip a server who has given you bad service, but if
you have received adequate service, then you should tip. Just like all the other
services you receive and pay for at a restaurant, you should also have to pay
for the service you receive from your waiter. It is part of the cost of dining
out. To put it bluntly, if you cannot afford to tip, then you cannot afford to
eat out.
Rachel Furlong is a senior journalism major and a copy editor for the Online
Forty-Niner.
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