When going out to eat, everyone ponders whether to do fast food or full-service. Either choice is fine, but when deciding on which way to go, one should always take into consideration one main item when choosing full-service--the tip. I work in the food industry and have for several years in several different places, and yet, I have never seen so many people who don’t know how to tip as in Athens. I feel obligated to open people’s eyes to this situation, and why it is an issue.
Restaurants only pay servers $2.13 per hour. Most servers, that depend on their job, work about 30-40 hours a week. Doing the math, that would only be, at most, $85 a week before taxes. There is not a person that can pay rent, car payment, cell phone bills, etc. with less than $340 a month. Servers rely on tips to not only make their job worth it, but to make their lives livable.
So, let’s go into the tipping system. As a whole, I have received more 10% and under tips in this city than anywhere else. Adding all the tips up, yes, it would amount to something but not very much. For example, if you were to wait on 4 tables with each of them having a $100 tab and only received 10% tip off of each bill, you would make about $40. Not a bad night, if you think about it adding up. There’s only one catch in this system.
In a restaurant, each server is mandated to pay a “tip out”. For most places, “tip out” is about 2.5% of a servers total sales for a night. So, let’s do a little bit more math! Let’s say that a server comes in to work, and because business is slow, only gets to take one table before they are sent home. Trust me, it happens more than you’d think. This table gets a couple sodas, an appetizer, two entrees, and a dessert; they run up a $40 tab. Let’s say this table tips the server $4 and leaves. A $4 dollar tip on that table would be 10%. Now, again, not only has this server been at work for probably over an hour to serve this table, but they also now have to clean and roll silverware before they leave. Let’s take the “tip out” from the tip at that table. 2.5% of $40 dollars is $1. So, that means the server made $3 in over an hour of work.
“Wait!” you say, “what about their hourly pay?” At the end of the day, a server must report 100% of the tips they earned so they can be taxes. What does this mean? This means that the taxes that they pay on the tips they make get taken out of their hourly pay. So, most server, if not all, don’t get a paycheck, or if they receive one, it is only about $14.
So, next time you go out to eat, if you don’t have enough money to tip the acceptable 18-20%, just go eat fast food, and save everyone some time. I know times are hard with the economy, but the person that is serving you at a restaurant, is trying to support themselves, their kids, etc. We all have story, so pretend like you actually care. That’s what we do.
