# Tip your server and save the world....



## Zwiefel (Mar 12, 2013)

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14397-tip-your-server-and-save-the-world

I've never worked in a restaurant, but I do work in a service industry...I definitely sympathize with these folks...well, the good ones anyway (which is most of them).


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## franzb69 (Mar 13, 2013)

> I've never worked in a restaurant, but I do work in a service industry...I definitely sympathize with these folks...well, the good ones anyway (which is most of them).



worked in a service related industry for over 3 years (tech and sales, and cars and sales) and then decided to study culinary arts. i understand the position of wanting to have to tip. but being in the back of the house and seeing what goes on with servers..... us peeps in the back of the house have the short end of the stick.

we don't get as much "appreciation" as much the people that they see. they only see the servers, and sometimes the effort from the people that actually cooked for them gets nothing. praises are well and good, but nothing speaks louder than a tip from a guest that patronizes your food specially when you need to pay the bills and depend on things like that.

sorry had to vent.


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## apicius9 (Mar 13, 2013)

I see the point, but what surprises me most is that people seem to be outraged about customers not tipping when they - IMHO - should be outraged about the servers getting f$&@ed with rates below minimum wage. 

Stefan


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## Zwiefel (Mar 13, 2013)

franzb69 said:


> worked in a service related industry for over 3 years (tech and sales, and cars and sales) and then decided to study culinary arts. i understand the position of wanting to have to tip. but being in the back of the house and seeing what goes on with servers..... us peeps in the back of the house have the short end of the stick.
> 
> we don't get as much "appreciation" as much the people that they see. they only see the servers, and sometimes the effort from the people that actually cooked for them gets nothing. praises are well and good, but nothing speaks louder than a tip from a guest that patronizes your food specially when you need to pay the bills and depend on things like that.
> 
> sorry had to vent.



I am also very sympathetic to this POV. We have a couple of restaurants locally that have a tip jar for take-out...it goes directly to the kitchen staff on duty. about 90% of my visits to these places is to-go so that I can show some love for the dudes in the heat. I'm not sure what I can do beyond that, except be sympathetic.



apicius9 said:


> I see the point, but what surprises me most is that people seem to be outraged about customers not tipping when they - IMHO - should be outraged about the servers getting f$&@ed with rates below minimum wage.
> 
> Stefan



I'm not sure how to respond to this as I'm conflicted on the topic and any depth of response is likely to violate the forum rules regarding politics at some point.


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## franzb69 (Mar 13, 2013)

> I am also very sympathetic to this POV. We have a couple of restaurants locally that have a tip jar for take-out...it goes directly to the kitchen staff on duty. about 90% of my visits to these places is to-go so that I can show some love for the dudes in the heat. I'm not sure what I can do beyond that, except be sympathetic.



thank you for that.

it just sucks that you get the same pay as the waiters and don't get as much tips as they do. since some of them like to pocket some of the tips and share only what they want to the kitchen staff. we work our butts off more than they do and they get all the glory and all the tips. we get all the heat and blame us for mistakes that they do when they send out wrong orders. either you have to get along with them or you don't get squat.

ok i shut up about the divide with the front and the back of the house now.


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## Patatas Bravas (Mar 13, 2013)

Completely agree - eating in a nice place with good service is nice, but more important is the food and the people making it. The emphasis on tipping servers in some countries shifts focus to the wrong thing, the style of the restaurant, the charm of the servers, etc, instead of the food and the hard work making it. You work in this environment in a kitchen and the feeling is that you are at the bottom, not the centre like it should be, even though you know you work the hardest.


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## Cipcich (Mar 13, 2013)

Alternatively, people working in restaurants could stand up for them selves and join or form a union, thereby assuring they're paid fairly for their labor, rather than depending upon the kindness of strangers . .


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## wenus2 (Mar 13, 2013)

Oy, Restaurant food costs enough without waiters getting 4 weeks paid vacation.


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## Keith Neal (Mar 13, 2013)

As a patron, I don't know what I can do about the kitchen staff problem. I tip 15% for poor service, and 20-25% for good service. Sometimes considerably more for great service. But my complaint is with places that pool tips. If you can't give a nice tip to your server without it being spread to all the servers -- good or bad -- the service tends to become mediocre. A good server doesn't get the benefit of being better. I sometimes tip 15% on the bill and slip my server a five or ten for excellent service, more in a more expensive restaurant, but that can be risky for the server.

If there was some way to reward the kitchen staff separately, I would do it.


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## franzb69 (Mar 13, 2013)

you can always tell the maitre d' that the tip that was given should only be given to said server.


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## ecchef (Mar 13, 2013)

Mr. Pink don't tip!


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## stevenStefano (Mar 13, 2013)

Keith Neal said:


> If there was some way to reward the kitchen staff separately, I would do it.



Buy them a drink, that's about all I can think of


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## Patatas Bravas (Mar 13, 2013)

I think you can just request that you'd like to tip the kitchen staff because the food was excellent. No reason to tip a server for the food, if you like it. Yes, maybe the server will be taken aback and surprised, maybe jealous too, but the kitchen will be happy.


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## franzb69 (Mar 13, 2013)

> I think you can just request that you'd like to tip the kitchen staff because the food was excellent. No reason to tip a server for the food, if you like it. Yes, maybe the server will be taken aback and surprised, maybe jealous too, but the kitchen will be happy.



if only more people did that, BOH folk would be a lot happier, and less "crazy". lol.


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## Mrmnms (Mar 13, 2013)

I make it a habit of tipping back of the house or buying drinks in places I frequent when I'm delighted. I always fed my kitchen staff like royalty ( no lobster tails ) in my restaurants and comped their families when they came in from out of town. Anyone who's worked the back of the house will having a different point of view. 
Regarding front of the house pay and tipping. I crunched numbers once and realized that my busboys and barbacks made more per hour than I did in a couple of restaurant I did.


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## Duckfat (Mar 13, 2013)

Keith Neal said:


> If there was some way to reward the kitchen staff separately, I would do it.



Ask to speak to the Chef or the manager and leave a tip for the staff. It's just that easy. If memory serves me well I was still working as a fry cook in a small kitchen on the docks in South Daytona (Ponce Inlet) during speed weeks either '83 or '84. The owner I worked for built his own commercial fishing fleet and I mean they literally built the boats by hand. The majority of what we served they caught. This place was a small fish camp that started in the 50's. Old semi-reefers cut up and turned into coolers. When it rained to roof would leak and the walls would shake in a storm...LOL In either event the owners took a few of the NASCAR drivers out on a fishing charter. When they came back there was this kid that must have been about 8 who asked Richard Petty for an autograph and he refused. 
I never forgot that moment. A few hours later another driver that was just getting popular (Bill Elliot) walked in the kitchen and handed every single kitchen staff member $100. That bought a lot more than a tank of gas in '84!
Tips are rarely expected by kitchen staff but always appreciated.
Did some one REALLY say feel sorry for servers not making minimum wage? In 30 years I can't remember a single server that was even a half notch above comatose that didn't make more than the average cook. Servers are well paid with tips. Any server not making minimum wage needs to find a new line of work or a new job. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see guys that have busted their b***z for years make less $$$ than a server that started yesterday.


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## convis (Mar 13, 2013)

^as he said.servers make more than us cooks. In high volume and/or high end, difference can be enormous.

I rarely rarely leave less than 20 percent. I think people forget what is and what isnt in control of the server. I dont eat out that often(usually working obviously). BUt i usually tip generously, especially at places i go more often. Service tends to be great on return trips.


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## Lucretia (Mar 13, 2013)

It's really bad in Washington State. Servers make minimum wage (over $9/hour) plus tips, still expect 20%, and the service is on the whole the worst I've had anywhere.


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## ecchef (Mar 13, 2013)

No worries here. Once you're outside the base, tipping not expected and in some places expressly forbidden. 
The worst service I've received here was comparable to normal 'good' service back home. 
In my place, where tipping _is _allowed, the entire FOH splits the pool (managers excepted). Same with bartenders & backs.


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## Gravy Power (Mar 13, 2013)

I've only been working in this industry for a couple of months, and while I have no "front of the house" experience, I have years of "customer service" under my belt. That being said, one of the places I worked would take the tips for take out, which sometimes could be significant. The head chef eventually directed them to put it into a community fund where we could all go out to eat. Personally I thought that was complete and utter b.s. As long as we did our job, we were making them good money with absolutely no incentive.

Another place where I'm staging at splits tips evenly between staff and kitchen. I think this concept is awesome, unfortunately I'm not paid there yet. When I brought this up at Restaurant A, the most easily aggravated of the servers litterally shed a layer of skin at the notion of the idea. I was rather insulted by that.


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## franzb69 (Mar 13, 2013)

> Another place where I'm staging at splits tips evenly between staff and kitchen. I think this concept is awesome, unfortunately I'm not paid there yet. When I brought this up at Restaurant A, the most easily aggravated of the servers litterally shed a layer of skin at the notion of the idea. I was rather insulted at that.



problem with this is, do the servers really give all the tips they receive and not pocket anything else? i'm fine with them getting their own special tips if they did an excellent job, but if they pocket tips that's supposed to be shared to the rest of the crew, that's another thing.

i've seen this happen in places where i've trained and where i've worked at. shared tips or not. you still have to "get nice" with the FOH if you wanna get your fair share.


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