tipping

tax evasion is about the only systemic advantage i can see for tipping vs paying people more.

― Philip Nunez, Thursday, June 20, 2013 10:42 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's also same-day money, which can be a big advantage. When I waited tables, I enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to wait every two weeks for my windfall, I took home cash nightly. (Though I also made about 1/6th what I make now, but that's cuz I worked in a shitty restaurant).

so it's like tivo for your money?

5 years after I quit waiting tables and started working as a legal assistant, I'm still not making what I was making waiting tables (at a seafood restaurant w/ lots of business clientele).

Tax evasion on tips is less common these days due to credit cards and the magic of the restaurant automatically reporting imputed tips for cash sales. Which means that if you get stuffed on a cash sale, you wind up in the hole for that sale.

yeah. restaurants are bad at the whole reconciling thing, too. there was one period of time where my restaurant, less than a year before it shut down, was doing horrible business. Friday nights, most waiters were taking home a measily $50. One night I worked a long shift and due to it being ridiculously slow, my tips plus the $2.13 an hour I got paid at the time actually came out to less than minimum wage. So naturally, I reported my tips accurately that night. Also, at the time I was in school, so I only worked a handful of shifts a week.

The restaurant was legally required to adjust my pay so that I made minimum wage. Instead, they altered the tips I reported to claim more than I actually made. Illegal, yes, but at the time I had just gone to corporate behind the GM's back about some unethical practice in our store, which they forced him to desist, so I was afraid of getting shitcanned for farting or coughing so I just said nothing.

How much should you tip your server for farting?

Restaurant managers can be the worst bosses. Either they have never worked as servers or bartenders, so they don't understand how to manage for those jobs*, or they did, and they get bitter about servers and bartenders making so much more than they are.

* At my last waiting job, we had a dipshit manager who was promoted from a few months of hosting after never having worked in a restaurant. He tried to write me up for using hand sanitizer instead of washing my hands after every single time I touched a used dish. Which is IMPOSSIBLE if you want to have time to do the rest of the job. He removed all the containers of hand sanitizer from wait stations.

ok, i understand tipping on take out from a sitdown restaurant now... i'm just never gonna get takeout from a sitdown restaurant then

I don't think I've ever gotten takeout from a sitdown restaurant? Unless that includes like Indian places that have some perfunctory tables that no one ever uses.
I didn't even know this was a thing people would do!

We have to do this a fair amount, unfortunately.

wait I don't even get takeout from Indian places, just delivery, in which case the delivery guy obviously gets a tip.

I get takeout from sit down places all the time, because they're so popular/crowded that there's a two-hour wait for a table, and they don't take reservations.

I get takeout all the time from pizza places and sandwich shops with tables. It's those weirdos who do shit like get takeout from Outback Steakhouse® that freak me out.

I also don't eat a lot of good food tbh

There were always people getting carryout back when I worked at Applebee's. Hey - a Bourbon Street Steak in a styrofoam box is still a Bourbon Street Steak, right?

Pizza places are just spare change tips though, as are sandwich shops? Again, mostly perfunctory tables, no servers, etc.
Xpost

I've already got a pair of snowshoes and an old license plate on my wall. Why should I pay extra to sit down here?

If I'm doing it wrong I'm willing to learn

"Excuse me, I got my Hot Spicy Mama Extra-Special Fajitas as take out, and once I got home, they weren't sizzling. THEY WEREN'T SIZZLING."

sometimes i pick up food at a bar/grill place near home and i always tip a few bucks. now, depending on who is working, sometimes i get a free beer while i wait. see, tipping is good for everyone.

lol, pplains. I'm imagining the sizzling sound slowly dying over the course of the car ride home.

"Excuse me, I got my Hot Spicy Mama Extra-Special Fajitas as take out, and once I got home, they weren't sizzling. THEY WEREN'T SIZZLING."

― pplains, Friday, June 21, 2013 9:49 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You joke, but some dude in our restaurant who was dining in said this once. He complained that the Fajitas stopped sizzling 10 minutes into his meal, and when the waiter explained that they weren't designed to sizzle indefinitely, he complained that "well it doesn't taste the same anymore now". as if the sizzling was some magic candy that gave the meal pop rock flavoring.

But it IS, in a way.

Once at Chili's, my dad was served some fajitas that were acting very quiet. I pointed at them and asked if they were cold, and he said no. But why weren't they sizzling?

The waiter sheepishly explained that there's a special liquid they squirt out of a condiment container to make the fajitas sizzle, albeit artificially.

Everything is a lie.

I bet that special liquid is water.

Haha the sizzling fajitas thing is so weird. Why is it JUST fajitas that get the special sizzle treatment?

xpost it's the tears of those wronged by Fajita sizzle fraud

Haha the sizzling fajitas thing is so weird. Why is it JUST fajitas that get the special sizzle treatment?

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Friday, June 21, 2013 10:13 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

*imagines a plate of hot dogs and fries sizzling*

It's not just fajitas. I've seen it done with steaks and chicken and even once at an Indian restaurant, which was weird. It's basically just a matter of heating up a skillet and dumping liquid onto it, so yeah, like carl agatha said, water or whatever.

I worked at Ruby Tuesday, and they got the fajitas to sizzle by keeping the skillets under a 500-some degree heating element (salamander) and tossing the meat and veggies on at the last second. They would sizzle so much that the vapors would trigger the fire alarms at least half the time, and mall security would have to come reset them.

xp- no water at Ruby's, just juices

A quick internet search says it's not water, but "sizzle sauce."

Kinda wish I hadn't gone internet searching.

Hey it's important, the sizzle is fucking important y'all

I hate living in this world where GIS results for "sizzle sauce" are suprisingly tame.

It makes sense for there to be a lime juice component in sizzle sauce.

pretty common at indian restaurants ime

there are a bunch of classic chinese dishes that do the sizzle, you wanna look for the prefix 铁板 which means metal plate

or dolsot bibimbap

only time i get takeout from a real sit-down restaurant is when i'm alone and craving pad se ew and you're damn right i'm never going to eat alone at a sit-down restaurant

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/why-tipping-should-be-illegal-15603180

food-for-men

I know, right.

a must-read from world's worst movie blogger (comments esp)

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2013/06/punishment/#disqus_thread

expert trolling. he knows his audience.

must be bad at it when even the internet commenters won't blindly follow his beck and call.

http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-restaurant-part-1-overview/

good read. i assumed this revive would be about drew brees.

thanks, that was great.

Now, let’s say that on a typical shift, a restaurant sells $1000 in food and drink. It would be reasonable that, to make that revenue, a restaurant has 2 cooks who work 8 hours each, a dishwasher who works 8 hours, and two servers who work 6 hours each. We can extrapolate from standard industry models that, of the $1000 in sales, there will be $300 available to cover the 36 hours of labor. It just so happens that this math means that everyone in the house will make $8/hour, which is of course both minimum wage and a poverty wage. But that’s just how the pie divides.

And yet, wait! We’ve forgotten something. There are also 220 extra dollars paid by the guests as tips. (This 22% is typical for restaurants like ours in San Diego — the exact amount will change with restaurant style and location.) This tip money could add another $6/hour to everyone’s wage, getting everyone up to $14/hr. While $14/hr isn’t enough to live well in San Diego, it starts approaching realistic money.

However, to give the tip money to every worker would be illegal. The law is historically very clear — the $220 in tips belongs to the two servers only, and cannot be distributed to any other employees. So, the two servers make a total of about $26/hour each, while everyone else in the restaurant is stuck at $8/hour.

Great read so far.

in my mind, tipping is directly responsible for yelp culture

Yeah, I had intense Yelp-related thoughts on reading this:

Our most transgressive act was refusing to allow our guests to pay our servers anything more beyond the service charge — this is where the angry came out. A certain small number of very vocal men (and it was always men) resented that we were not letting them try to exercise additional control over our team members. This was true even though compelling research has shown that servers do not adjust quality of service as a result of tips; instead the idea that the restaurant was not offering our servers up as objects of control, was heresy. For these people, the primary service they wanted from the restaurant was the opportunity to pay for favors from the server — much like the patron at a strip club pays the club for the opportunity to dangle bills in front a dancer for individual attention. The idea that a restaurant could legitimately want to be in a different business than a strip club, was not an idea these guests could countenance. Thus, I was ever subject to witty takedowns like you are a douche, along with other well-thought-out gems.

it's otm but i think dude really overestimates how much servers make especially in $2.13/hr environments. have never been a server tho so