Many seniors live on a budget and in today’s economy, quite a few adults of all ages try to budget where their money goes. Dining out has become a luxury for many of us. I live in an area where many American retirees and even Canadians and Europeans reside part of the year, and many of us frequently dine out in restaurants. You would be amazed at the number of people who don’t understand the economics behind tipping the restaurant server and fail to tip their servers. Some think that leaving $1 on the table or tipping 10% is adequate. Let’s look at the numbers.
A Server’s Small Wage
The minimum wage for servers who receive tips is $6.98 per hour. You can see how badly they need the extra tips to survive. If they work in an establishment that doesn’t allow tipping, workers earn $10 an hour.
Think about the single mama trying to feed and house herself and her children on that kind of income. Those tips for good service mean everything to her and added up, they could mean the difference between feeding her children or paying the rent.
Shift Length and Hours
To add insult to injury, many restaurants schedule their staff to work a shorter week so the business isn’t required to provide health insurance benefits for them. For a fulltime employee, $6.98 an hour for even 30 hours a week is not enough to live on.
Why Second Jobs Don’t Work for Most Servers
It’s easy to say that restaurant servers not earning enough should pick up a second job, but that is easier said than done. The reason is because many restaurants don’t give the staff set schedules. The server may work only day shifts one week and evening shifts the next. Or it may be mixed. A second job won’t allow the worker to play games with their schedule while trying to make the first job work.
What We Should Expect from Our Servers
We understand that it isn’t always the server’s fault if something is wrong with our order. But we do expect the server to fix the problem as best he or she can and we should always thank them for doing so. We should see a smile, good manners and pleasant attitude from our restaurant server.
If we or anyone in our party is a difficult customer and admit it or not, you know who you are, it’s time to rethink said behavior. Perhaps you expect a level of service that a more casual restaurant doesn’t provide. That isn’t the server’s fault. Basic good manners dictate that we address any issue politely. In return, the server should explain any problems politely to the customer.
What Your Restaurant Server Should Receive from You
Restaurant servers work hard. Spend a little time observing how a server spends his or her time on the floor. In a busy restaurant, there is no rest time. Each server may handle 3-5 tables at a time and that includes cleaning up spills, picking up food that children have thrown on the floor, replacing drinks, transporting food to tables and often cleaning tables.
We should understand that our server cannot control the behavior of renegade children who make our visit less pleasant.
No human being deserves name-calling. Again, we’ve all seen the ugly patrons telling servers how dumb they are or how any intelligent person could keep drinks straight. I overheard that particular piece of abuse when a bartender mixed up the liquor and used the wrong bourbon in a man’s drink. He made the server cry, and it wasn’t a problem she caused. The restaurant server deserves good manners from us.
Your children and grandchildren are not the responsibility of the restaurant staff. Keep your kids seated at your table and please don’t allow them to throw food on the floor or at other diners. If your child becomes ill, remove the child from the restaurant or at least take him to the bathroom to clean up and please help clean up the mess made at the table. You don’t want to be forced to clean up someone else’s kid’s vomit and neither does your server.
Treat Your Server As You Would Want to be Treated
In a vacation area like Coastal Florida where I live, restaurant servers hours increase during Season. As the Snowbirds arrive from points North for a week, month or several, tips also grow. Most restaurant servers depend on Season to help them pay their bills the rest of the year. A general guideline when dining out should include:
For poor service due to an uninterested or unavailable server, tip 10%. The reason is that the busser (the person who cleans tables and gets them ready for the next diner) is tipped a small percentage from the servers. But if the server was truly busy helping others, don’t blame him or her for a short staff situation.
For decent service, always tip at least 20%. Leave more if your server provides extra services.
As retirees, we are limited in how much we can do for others these days. But we do make it a point to tip our servers well when we dine out.
If you cannot afford to leave a generous tip for your server, please stay home and cook your own meal.
