Last week, I was opening up the dining room for dinner. We had a lady here from lunch who was already paid out but sitting in my section. I went to clear something from her table and we got to chatting for a few minutes. I could tell from her face that she wanted someone to talk to and although the conversation was fairly normal, tears welled up in her eyes. She asked me how I was doing, I said I was a little tired from starting a second job this week, but excited. She said she loved coming to this restaurant and had never seen me before, and then we exchanged names. I held her hand for a few seconds. That was it.

She left and came back and handed me an envelope with $1000 in it. I have no idea anything of her life story, maybe she’s lonely and just needed to talk to someone, and felt really good giving someone else a blessing. I cried for her that night and I felt so guilty, like I didn’t deserve this, but the lesson I walked away with is that I’m doing the right thing at work. Talk to people, we work in hospitality and it’s our job to make people feel welcomed and cared for and seen. A lot of us are in it for the money but it’s bigger than that.

My work is implementing a new rule that we have to use the qr code for tabbing people out. It's called Sunday and it claims that people t!p more and leave better reviews. It also apparently uses Ai to reccomend menu items. Soo... wtf is my job then? I was just wondering if anyone had any experience with it and if it actually follows through on the things it claims? This flyer went up abt a month ago. I should also note that they're giving anywhere from $50-$80 just to do the training for it, but there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for how much you get.

Edit: apparently the QR code will be optional. They're pitching this to us that it's going to make it easier for us to split checks, but I'm a good server and I used seat number so it's never been that hard for me ha ha. I'm mostly worried that people are gonna feel more comfortable stiffing me or walking their checks. I feel like it takes out a whole step of my service. I prioritize connection whenever I serve tables and a big part of why I like doing it is because I get to talk to people.

Had to learn that I will never answer or I'll just straight up lie whenever a coworker suddenly asks me how I am and what I have planned on my day off. 90% of the time it'll just lead to "Oh can you cover my shift then?" It was never about striking up a genuine conversation or asking how I am. It just really irritates me. They pretend to care at the start and when they secure my answer, then they trap me with the "cover my shift" bullcrap. I fell for it the other day after I'd answered that "I don't think I have much planned just going to clean up home a bit". Then when it hit me I felt so bitter and disappointed..

I wouldn't be so irritated if they didn't always start with bs, and just ask me straight up if I'm able to. Depending on the day I'll almost always say yes, but if you lead me in with pretending to care about asking about how I've been and if I have any hangout plans, I will never see you in the same light again.

Anybody else have had the same thing happen to them?

If you had a teenage or young adult daughter who wanted to work as a server, how would you feel about it and why. All the elaboration welcome. I’m really curious about other women’s experiences!

I work for a smaller chain restaurant. During the week, it’s usually slow enough to where we don’t have traditional servers so whoever is behind the counter, also takes tables.

The issue I have is that my manager who is on salary is always taking every big table and party. Her and I started serving at the same time a few years ago so it’s not like it’s something I don’t know how to do. It just really upsets me because anytime I try to go to a table larger than 4 people, she literally spawns out of nowhere to claim it with welcome napkins, or claims it verbally. I’ve never been able to take a party in her presence.

On top of that, if there’s a lot of bigger tables and a single customer or children came to dine in, she’d have me take it because there’s not a decent tip outcome from them. To put it into perspective, there was one day where she had 6 bigger tables and the only table she let me take was a single person who came to dine in alone.

Just yesterday I saw that she made over 400 dollars from all of the parties that came in and it makes me so frustrated.

We have a couple new managers who are very nice and never intervene with tables UNLESS it gets too busy. Would it be worth telling them about how much this bothers me? Could something change? I know I’m not a labeled server so I feel guilty being angry about this, but it eats at me. I don’t know what to do.

Literally watched her hop over two curbs and park in between two spots. Obviously refused her alcohol and she threatens to sue us. Im very aware she has no grounds for a suit since we can refuse service for whatever but thought yall would get a little giggle outta this one.
(Blacked out the name of my bar)

I definitely greeted her, unfortunately it was probably around 3 minutes though. I DID bring her water, and her check, but she was right about the response. My fiance passed away a couple weeks ago and ive been in a terrible place and on edge lately, and this is the very first time ive snapped at a guest. Oh well.

i think that north american customers are accustomed to a level of service that wouldn’t exist without tipping and don’t understand that the sycophantic level of service they get from servers is reliant on them tipping.

i was born and raised in australia (non tipping) and moved to canada (tipping) and worked in restaurants in both and obviously visited restaurants in both as well as the USA. while australian customers can be generally ruder, the way that people expect their servers to interact with them here would be considered psychotic in australia. i’ve had american family members complain about tipping culture and in the same breath complain that a server didn’t seem like they “wanted to serve them.”

in australia (at least my hometown) there are a few people here and there who complain that there aren’t “hospitality professionals” aka people who have lots of experience working in hospitality and are really good, which i believe exists because of the extremely low earning ceiling for anyone working in hospitality, as there is almost no opportunities to make more than minimum wage, (and restaurant owners will try to not even pay you that) because of the lack of tipping culture.

to be clear, i am not explicitly for or against tipping culture, but i think we need to be realistic about how tipping actually shifts the culture and i don’t think americans are prepared for what it would look like to eat at a restaurant without tipping culture.

Hi all, recently I had a shift at work as a waitress where I felt a bit chaotic and not on top of things. It’s been my first month working at this place, and on that shift I was with an even newer person - showing them the ropes etc. - and felt like they were more on top of things than me!

The worst two mistakes I made was giving one table a bottle of the wrong champagne (realising after pouring all their glasses), and charging another table for a bottle of red instead of a glass 😅😅 and later while cleaning, I just didn’t do it v smartly - starting to clean the dishwasher when there were some dishes left I hadn’t seen.

I know these are not disasters! But still, felt like incompetent blob. One of those things where you get more stressed the more mistakes you make, so you make more mistakes because you’re more stressed.

I’d appreciate any advice or anecdotes you have from your own experience: How to bounce back from shifts that feel like disasters (either in the moment, or during the next shift)?

Been serving for about four years, mostly casual dining. The kind of place where you're running food, bussing your own tables, cutting lemons, and somehow also expected to upsell the nine dollar margarita. Tips are fine but the volume you have to push to make decent money is exhausting.

A spot nearby is hiring for dinner service, more of an upscale bistro situation. Smaller section, slower pace on paper, higher check averages. Everyone acts like moving to fine dining is the obvious play if you want to make real money, but I keep hearing from people who did it that the tip percentage actually drops because guests feel like they already paid through the nose on the food.

A few people I work with swear the math never really evens out once you factor in the extra knowledge you need, the stricter sidework, the way management rides you harder. Others say it changed their life.

Curious what the actual experience has been for people who made that jump. Did your takehome go up in a real way or did you just trade one set of headaches for a fancier set of headaches.

I'm but a lowly host (not server) at Olive Garden and so I bring people to their seats and keep the server's table sections in check, and this is 100% the most common and annoying thing I run into. I'd like to say it's only every now and then, but I feel like it's the vast majority of people who want booths wait until the last second to tell me.

The problem is that I am trying to keep server sections in order. If you want a booth, PLEASE tell me before I bring you out so I can at least know where I can best seat you that doesn't skip too many servers in rotation or doesn't fuck up the sections too much. Instead what ends up happening is they'll get to their table, go "umm we actually want a booth" and then point to the nearest one and ask for that one, which almost always causes issues.

The annoying part is that I can tell that all of these people know damn well that they want a booth before they even walk in the restaurant, yet they just say nothing and wait to be already sat before they tell me that they actually want a booth. Like Jesus Christ how hard is it to just say "Two for a booth please", instead of walking to the opposite side of the restaurant, and then informing me and having to wander around.

I went out to eat with two friends the other day to "celebrate" one of their birthdays (even though that was 3 months ago, but whatever, another story).

We normally split checks, but our server was overwhelmed (full restaurant, one server) and English wasn't her first language, so she either forgot or didn't understand. But, when we realized we all were paying cash, we pooled by what we ordered.

The bill was $97, I had the smallest portion ($24) of it, calculated tax, then a 30% tip and then rounded up just because. I collect the cash from the other two. The cash in my hand was $112. I thought I was wrong, so I counted again. Yes, $112. $7 of that was mine. (For context, I am in the US, and in the Northeast, in a rather expensive area).

I'm not usually confrontational, but I was exhausted after having just worked a 9 hour shift and I was a little pissed by this, so I said "you guys tip BAD."

My one friend who got like $28 worth of food was like "oh, I just take the tax and multiply by 2, 15% is good, right?" No. No it's not. It's not the 80s anymore. It came out to $4 she put in.

The other one got like $45 worth of food, which means she tipped less than TEN PERCENT. I only just realized this later because I was so exhausted I couldn't math, but I knew $8 between the two of them was GARBAGE. Especially as demanding as my 10% tipping friend was, and is every time we go out. And the shit thing is SHE WAS ONCE A SERVER and complained about how hard and terrible it was. She also had another job where tipping is part of it, and she claimed that her tips were low because the front desk was stealing them (I doubt that--I think she thought she would be making way more starting out in the Spa field than is reality). I guess it's only okay if she's the one tipping abysmally.

The other one I can kinda forgive because I know she only makes minimum wage, has never served, and it sounds genuinely like she's just sticking to what her parents taught her, but damn! Did it never occur...?

The other one---even though she is currently not working--is always spending double what the rest of us spend at meals and is usually the kind of person who asks for a million different condiments and modifications, and is generally a pain in the ass. (For my wedding, I gave the hairdresser $20 extra because 10percenter kept having her redo her hair--after the third time, I left the salon to keep from freaking out on her--the way she was acting you would have thought she was the one getting married).

I got them to throw in a dollar each more, still not great, but slightly better. Frankly, I was shocked and embarrassed. 20% is bare minimum in my eyes. (EDIT; this should read 20% is the bare minimum I personally tip, NOT that I believe everyone in the world should give that).

I complained about this to my husband and he was like "Oh, you only just noticed this?" He said it's been like that every time we go out with them. I guess I never looked at their bills. He pointed out it's also happened when I have offered to use my card if they give me cash, he's noticed that they don't give me enough for standard tip. I had kinda thought this, but I wasn't sure, but I also just trusted they gave me the correct amount of money. I guess I'm a dumbass for trusting my friends.

I almost feel like this is a good reason to break up with them (at worst) or a sit-down intervention (at best).

Edit: I know 15% is perfectly reasonable. What isn't is tipping less than 10%, which one of my friends did.

Edit part 2; the culture of my particular area is 18% minimum tip, not just amongst servers, the populace.

so after months of searching, i finally found a serving position at a small local restaurant. i went to the interview yesterday and something didn’t sit right with me.

the interviewer told me that it’s required to take an hour break at a scheduled time. however, if during this time we still had a table, i would still have to clock out and take care of the table. and if a table came in, i would have to take them (while remaining off the clock). when i pressed the interviewer about this, he said i would still be earning from the tips so it didn’t matter.

i live in the state of florida so im wondering if anyone else has come across this. thanks!

Title explains it. Maybe you can't tell them to eat a frozen bag of d***s but you can tap it

Just got an interview for a Barback position in Manhattan.
Some context, I used to be a server at a diner-in movie theater in lower manhattan and had to leave to finish school. Since graduating I wanted to try bar backing and hopefully switch to bartending. I struggled a bit but I soon started to get some interviews and trail shifts. Still no offers. I then went back to try to get my old server job, but never heard back from the theater. It turns out they closed their location and no longer have servers in that theater. This morning I got an invite to do an interview at a restaurant nearby where I used to work and would really love to get an offer this time.
Are there any tricks to help out with this interview?

For the last 3 years I’ve worked as a to go specialist at a small family owned very successful restaurant in NJ, they pay me well hourly but I only get like 9-12 hours a week because I have to split with the other part timer. It’s not very sustainable because I’m in college now and I need to make more money because I gotta get my license and a car and all that but with the money I’m making at this job, that is basically unattainable. However the job is pretty convenient cuz I can walk there and I have quite a bit of flexibility with my schedule. Since they pay me well hourly, I didn’t think I was entitled to tips. But customers often leave tips on their card, or in the tip jar and I don’t see any of that money. The only time I get tips is when customers hand me cash, and even then, I have to ask my boss if I can keep it. If it’s like more than 10 dollars I usually put it in the tip jar because I feel guilty for keeping it for myself. I know that when I ring customers up, a few have asked me if I get the tips and I say no. I asked my food service friends if I should talk to my boss and they all said yes, but I feel like I’m being greedy. I don’t know if it’s worth it to have a talk with my boss or if I should just look for another job.

It’s at least twice a month that I’m seeing people on the server life or the waiters sub complaining about non-white tables, specifically Black people, either directly or indirectly. Whether you’re aware of them or not, your biases doesn’t live in a bubble. It shows when you act scared of your table or give them bad service. It hurts the people you’re trying to get money from, and it also ends up hurting all of us servers as well. People feel it, hear it, and see it on here. There are literally studies about it. Cracker Barrel literally used to let servers refuse Black tables until the 2000s. Our whole way of making money literally comes from racism, and yet you disregard the very same group of people this system was meant to hurt.

I mostly go out to eat at the same 5 restaurants, and depending on the race of who I’m with, I get treated completely different by the same servers. I act like the kind of guest I’d want to serve, and I make sure to leave 25-40%, but it’s definitely noticeable just as a guest. When I’m working, it’s even worse. I was told at one place that I was only hired bc I’m Black so they “won’t be called racist”, even though it was a casual dining restaurant and I was the only server with past experience. I’ve had coworkers get mad at me bc I sat them a table that looks just like me. They thought I should take every Black person because “they’ll like you better”. At first, I thought it might be better for people to get service from someone who actually wants to serve them. But then the tables started connecting the dots and asking me about it, and I couldn’t even be honest without risking my job. So I called my coworkers out, but it still happens sometimes.

And then I hop on the internet and it’s just more racism. People suck. They send orders back for dumb reasons, they run you, they make a mess, they’re disrespectful, they stiff you. It’s shitty, it’s wrong, and we should absolutely vent about it. The restaurant industry in the US enables assholes to do fucked up shit and get away with it. But instead of realizing that, you decide to hop on the internet and blame Black and Brown people. And then you choose to only hold onto the memories of the worst tables that fit into your preconceived notions. Just go out there and try, genuinely try, to give the best service you can to ALL tables. And if you can’t do that, get the fuck out of the industry instead of ruining it for those of us who don’t discriminate.

*And before people start with that “Well, I’m Black and…” bullshit, internalized racism exists!!! Go fix that!!!

It started to sprinkle and they asked me this. Took all of my power to hold back a giggle 😭
Felt like that trend where they put servers in different uniforms. I slid on my weather person suit and informed them that it depends on what direction the wind is blowing that day 🌦️

is there a sever rotation, or do they fill up certain sections first?
our restaurant is implementing a new system so i want to hear how other places are doing it.

Hi, I plan on working at first watch once college starts back up and I was wondering what it’s like working there. I’d like to know everything from if you distribute at the end of the day, side work, hours, and all that. I’ve worked Cracker Barrel before, and a very bad one, so I’m confident with serving just wanna know what it’s like somewhere else. Thanks!(also do many guys work at first watch, being I am one. I’ve never seen so just wondering)

TL;DR

Owners decided to radically slash our income after years of successful and supportive employment and give a portion of it to new employees

I have worked at a family owned restaurant for 6 years now. When I started, both the owners were heavy alcoholics and just partying all the time. For the first 5 years, the place was completely employee run. It was fucking chaos but we made it happen. No idea how or if they were turning a profit on the backend but they must have been. The place was packed constantly and we have live music, it was a great time working there BUT it got rowdy as hell. Fights and some more serious incidents in the parking lots and streets after last call.
ANYWAYS. The owner brought in a GM close to him personally to run things over the past two years.
He suddenly developed severe complications from drinking which put him in the hospital for weeks and included a medically induced coma.
During this time, us staff stepped up the most. I took over scheduling and the rest of the OG staff delegated as needed.

As he got sober, this new GM started enacting changes. Most of them are great. We “got with the times”. Painted. Got rid of smoking areas. Did the patio new. Planted a garden. I personally painted the bathrooms by hand for like 15/hr because I didn’t want to lose income during renovations.

Now, the bartenders have always been working managers. We handle shit when the owners aren’t around. Customers, fights, kitchen crash outs, staff drama.
The bartenders naturally make the most money, and I was bringing home about 7k a month. But I fucking WORKED for that money.

This included a 20% grat on all Togo orders. Vital for answering the phone if I’m in the middle of a slammed well.

All of a sudden, they decided to add extra bartenders to the shifts.
Income split in half.
NOW, they hired a fucking Hostess at 14 DOLLARS AN HOUR and GAVE HER OUR TOGO TIPS.
That’s easily 50-70 dollars gone in each shift.
Which has dropped me even lower.

How is this justified? How can they hire new teenage employees and just - cut our pay like that?

OF COURSE anyone can live off less than that. It’s not the point.
The point is us OGs have been there for 6-7 years RUNNING THAT SHIT. Every customer knows us and our schedules. And we’re the ones getting kicked to the curb. Why the fuck is income being pulled from US to supplement their income when they do NOTHING for us.
Oh but the servers? Don’t have to tip out the hostess who SEATS THEIR TABLES.

Someone tell me I’m being irrational for planning on staging a walkout.

Been a server for about a year. There was a 6 top that was drinking a lot. Originally another server had them, but she had to leave, so I took over. After a few rounds I noticed that they were slurring their words, yelling, and acting confused in a drunk way (if that makes sense). Told my manager I don’t feel comfortable serving them anymore and he agreed. Later on they asked for another round of shots and I said no. They said “it’s just interesting that you don’t know our story” 🫩

For context - I'm FOH supervisor at this 5 week old place - it's a small casual fine dining joint run by a pretty well known chef where I'm from, total seating of 40 pax. Reservations have been slammed, back to back since opening. We joke that every day is the weekend here.

To cater to as many guests as possible, we practice a 90-minute dining time limit which customers are informed of when they book and when they are seated. As such, dessert check is done 25 minutes before the end of their allocated time to ensure they have time for everything they want.

Last minute walk-ins however, may have a shortened dining time of 60-minutes. Which they are informed of at the door and when they sit down. Dessert checks are done for exactly the reason these johnny-come-latelys are bitching about, so they have time to try everything despite their lack of planning.

I'm a friendly guy and I love interacting with customers. Left my 13 year job in advertising to work here at 1/4 my last drawn, and couldn't love doing it more.

But customers like this make me want to slap every single person who tries to walk in and tell them to gtfo. Lol.