How much would a US server or bartender take in tips per shift?

[WaltonOnNaze]

If they serve fifty drinks an hour that’s a dollar per drink on top of a small basic wage. That’s quite a high hourly rate isn’t it. Or am I missing something? Am going to US soon and trying to get head round tips

The little coffee stall may have a tip jar but very few people will actually tip there. In restaurants, 20% is standard for the usually high standard of service. People generally reduce the tip for poor service, even down to a dollar for very poor service. It's also normal to complain about poor service.

Expectations are higher than in the UK.

I weent to Boston in 1997 it was a doller a drink then!

It makes no.sense ,why not just increase the cost of the meals by 20% or whatever?

No, it wasn't just a tip jar on the counter. We went in September and most places would only take card payments - when they handed the card machine to us to pay the screen would show the option to add a tip - 18%, 20%, 25% or 30% were the options displayed. There was a little button at the bottom you could press if you wanted to add a different amount but it wouldn't let you add a monetary amount, you had to put a %. It's tantamount to blackmail really when the server is standing there watching you while you pay 😕
I don't think it's about 'high expectations' - literally all they have done is pour coffee into a paper cup and put a lid on it

Personally, I like the knowledge that my tip will reward the individual who served me, rather than going into the restaurant’s general coffers where it may or may not make it into the pockets of the staff. Plus studies have been done where restaurants opt to increase menu prices and say tipping is unnecessary, and the result is that customers complain about the higher prices.

And also, it’s just a different culture. You may as well ask why e.g. shops and market traders in Morocco or India don’t just have fixed prices and price labels on all their goods and do away with the customary (and expected) haggling process which might seem senseless. They don’t because it’s a part of their culture and they like it that way. Likewise the US and tipping.

The taxes vary within states as well. Cities can set their own taxes. My small city even has tax rate variances within the city itself because there is a shopping district with ever so slightly higher taxes to pay for the financing to build the shopping district.

if you are used to it, it’s just not a problem. You know to round up the prices intuitively.

A restaurant near me did increase the price of food and get rid of tipping. They ended up going out of business. The problem wasn’t that they lost customers though. The problem was that all their experienced waitstaff ended up leaving.

what happened was that the restaurant calculated a new wage based on some formula that left the experienced servers essentially taking a huge pay cut. Typically there will be some slow shifts where people make a low rate and don’t bring home much in tips because there aren’t that many customers. Those shifts tend to go to the new employees. Friday and Saturday night a server makes big money. When they averaged out those shifts, the experienced servers lost big. I remember an interview with one of the servers who said she typically made something like $34/hr before and was now making $12/hr.

I have no issue whatsoever with tipping for good service in a restaurant. But we seem to have shifted to a point where tipping is expected when you're getting what can only loosely be described as "service".

Example: Movie theater concession stand. Staff hands you a popcorn and a soda. Option to tip when you pay by card and there's a tip jar prominently displayed for cash transactions.

I'm not a cheapskate (I promise!) but what exactly am I tipping for? Using that logic you would be tipping staff at McDonald's because they handed you food from behind the counter, no?

We joke that babies are born clutching small bills in their little hands so that they can tip the delivery room staff, but I think we may be moving in that direction😂

I joined a FB page for hospitality because I didn't realise it was a US page and I was really surprised about how much US servers can earn in tips! Some of them seemed to earn a fortune and could afford to buy houses with their money saved from tips.
I used to feel sorry for them having to work for tips and getting such a small wage but now I feel a bit silly because they would probably be appalled at my wage 😆

I think the downside is though that a lot of them worked crazy hours without breaks and some bosses sounded horrendous to work for. It seemed to be a badge of honour for some that the working conditions were terrible like working a 14 hr shift with no break was something to be proud of and were really sneery to other servers who complained about poor treatment or not getting breaks.

But if it's standard / expected then it's NOT dependent on level of service so they don't work for it so you don't necessarily get better service as there's no penalty for being crap??

In my experience, most waiters/waitresses in the US seem to provide excellent service, mostly fast and friendly. I don't think I've ever had a meal in the States where I'd thought the service was crap.

I never understand these threads where people moan about having to pay tips on top. Most people know about the tipping culture in the US. It's different from ours, but it doesn't make it wrong. When choosing a restaurant, just add tips and tax to the prices, then decide if you want to eat there. When visiting a bar, just accept that there's a tip to be added to cost of a drink. It's just part of the cost of eating out/drinking in the US.

If you don't agree with the tipping culture, either don't go, or eat in when you are there.

@Liorae it just always feels kind of unfriendly! At least among the friends I regularly went to the pub with, we almost always did rounds, so it still feels weird! I get anxious about tipping/ordering (is it at the bar? At the table? Do I get a menu? Do I start a tab?) so would love to only do that once when I go out :).

Rounds don’t really work when some people only have one or maybe two drinks. In most of America, we have to drive home. One glass of wine at the beginning of an evening may be all people can have. I can’t even do that if I am the driver unless it is a very long outing.

When i go out with friends we start a tab and divide ot roughly between us including tip. If one person leaves earlier they leave cash to approximately cover their share plus tip. Thay way nobody feels obliged to drink more than they want to because of rounds.
If my husband and I are sitting at the bar we still open a tab. It's much more convenient than paying drink by drink. I do prefer to tip in cash though I usually pay the bill by credit card. For me, it greatly beats carrying rounds of drink after spending god knows how long trying to get the bartender's attention.

Yes, I think that rounds are more of a UK thing because of pubs: it’s far easier and more convenient for one person of a group to go up to the bar to order and pay for several drinks in one go than for each member to go and get their own. In the US, there’s much more of a culture of sitting at the bar and of table service (although pub-style is common in some areas), which means you can just request to open X number of individual tabs.

I think one of the things about tipping in the US (as well as haggling in some other countries) is that it can just feel deeply uncomfortable for some people in the UK who crave certainty in a transaction and also want to avoid unnecessary interaction with people!

As the server approaches with a a beaming smile and chipper attitude it can be hard not to feel your heart sink at the thought of them taking you through the provenance of each ingredient while you force your face into an expression of polite interest.

And that yound chap with the beaming grin who grabbed your bag and now insisting on educating you. on the intricacies of the air con… the bon homie, the over familiarity, the slight pause before they leave and you can finally relax, all wills you with a deep and abiding sense of existential dread.

it is tricky stuff to navigate for the uninitiated.

We live in Colorado and one of our local restaurants has two lines on their bills for tipping. Suggesting 20% for wait staff and 10% extra for kitchen staff.

😯
A high endish Mediterranean restaurant open near me a couple of years ago that says no tipping requires, and thst they pay their servers a fair wage. The food is lovely, but i usually and up leaving a small tip because not tipping makes me feel bad.

Is there An option to tip not to have someone carry your bags and take you to your room? I hate hate hate having to deal with that stuff. It’s even worse if you’re just off a plane and only have hundred dollar bills because that’s the only forex they gave you at the exchange. I don’t think there’s an etiquette that covers “I didn’t want you to bring me up here, and if I give you cash I want change”.

But why should it be done?

It's not necessary. Adding approximately 10% in your head isn't difficult, and everyone is used to the way things are.

Plus, people using food stamps do not get charged sales tax on eligible food and beverage items they purchase with their SNAP cards. It's necessary to display the actual price minus tax for the benefit of these customers, who need to add up very precisely as they go along.

I did some enquiring last year before a trip to the States, especially around the "dollar a drink". Most people were saying that the expected rate was now $5 a drink as it had been $1 for way too long!!!!! Surely that changes to $2 a drink, not $5. I hate the tipping thing in the US - not the money as you can either afford the trip or you can't but you feel like the only reason people are being nice is in the expectation of a tip and outside of restaurants where you know 20% is expected I never know how much others want.

I have had some terrible service in restaurants in the US. The time the server took 30 mins to take our order, brought half of it, then vanished... The time they got our drinks order wrong 3 times and didn't even apologise.. I could go on.. sometimes I wondered if they heard a British accent and assumed we wouldn't tip well, which became self fulfilling because no, I won't tip for shit service. (I resent it but when the service is good in the US, I accept that 20% is the norm)

Do you still have to carry lots of notes around then for tipping? You can't just tap and go can you.

Then when someone helps you with your bag in a hotel what's the expectation there? Twenty dollars? Ten dollars?

i agree. I live in a state that doesn't have a tipped wage. The minimum wage is the same whether you work in a restaurant or an office. I still tip as it feels wrong not to.

I don’t find tipping or prices without sales tax confusing or problematic. What I find ofd is that people seem to be surprised that we do things differently in a different country. Pssst! We also drive on the other side of the road too and don’t use sterling! Fancy that!

servers and bartenders in the US make a small basic wage, usually $2.13/hr to cover income taxes on their tips. The expectation is 18-20% of the bill, as opposed to the 10-12% service charge that is usually already listed on the bill here in the UK. It’s not as expected at places like coffee shops or other places where you order at the counter bc they will usually earn at least the normal minimum wage. The jobs can be very lucrative but what they earn is directly correlated to the amount of work they put in and the quality of service they provide. I worked as a bartender in the US before coming here and I’ve had slow shifts where I made $20 and I’ve had some where I’ve made nearly $1000, but that’s not without dealing with A LOT - ensuring food/drinks are provided quickly, that guests are happy, dealing with the unhappy ones, drunk/aggressive people, etc. Slow seasons are especially rough. It’s hard work and generally the level of customer service far exceeds what you would receive here in the UK.

I really hate arriving in the US for this reason. I'm jet lagged, I may only have large notes or no cash yet, I don't want to be rude but I don't really want to give someone $50 for carrying my suitcase when I was actually fine to carry it myself and he insisted and I don't have any smaller notes

I also can't always figure out what is a tipping service or not - like a concierge called and made a restaurant booking for us, that feels like it's just his job but I realised later in the US, it's probably a $20 tip...