Waiters/Waitresses/Bartenders, can you explain this to me...

[vi edit]

Last night we went out with some friends for dinner. I've provided them with a lot of computer services, and wash and wax their car for them, so they were paying for our dinners.

It was $3 Guinness night, and I wanted a couple, but didn't want to have them pay for it, so I was going to go up to the bar, order it from there, and pay for it in cash. Well, the waitress came around and asked if I wanted anything to drink, and I told her that I'd go up to the bar and get it. She said ok, so in a couple minutes I walk over to the bar and ask for a Guinness. The bartender said that the waitress had told him that I'd be coming over here. The bartender then said that he'll serve me this drink, but from now on I have to go through my waitress to get it. If I want to pay cash, I'll have to give her the money, and she can bring me back change. He was a real dick about it too.

Can somebody in the restaurant industry explain this to me? Is there some unwritten rule here that I don't know about? Does it have to do with tipping one person and not the other? I just can't seem to figure out what the BFD is about me walking over to the bar and ordering my own drinks.

 

[Kerouactivist]

yeah it has to do with the tipping........ The greedy waitress wants your tips

 

[Spooner]

Originally posted by: bthorny
yeah it has to do with the tipping........ The greedy waitress wants your tips

greedy? I think it's only right. If you're sitting at my table having dinner I bring you, you order your drinks through me.... it's just the way it works.

I could never be a waiter.

 

[Smaulz]

greedy? how about that's how they make their living... duh...

 

[SinnerWolf]

in tip terms, every step a waitress takes in a sports bar or strip club is anywhere from a dime, to a buck.

 

[vi edit]

What about in situations where the waitress sucks? It wasn't the case last night, but it was on Saturday.

On saturday night, we went out and our waitress was TERRIBLE!!!!!!!! She came around twice in an hours time. Once to bring us food, and once to drop off the tab. She forgot to bring me my appetizer, forgot to bring me my water, and screwed up my drink. I ordered Jim & Coke...what did I get? Gin and Pepsi! BLECH!!! I was all of 5 foot from the bar.

So this whole thing is over tips huh?

 

[Kerouactivist]

Sarcasm........................k

 

[Spooner]

Originally posted by: vi_edit


So this whole thing is over tips huh?

What else would it be about? Pride?

i can just see the waitress whining in the background.... "but i waaaaaaaaaanted to bring vi his beer.... boo hoo..."

 

[Mavrick007]

The waitress wants your tips cause she makes minimum wage and generally has to tip the other staff out at the end of the night too. If she doesn't make much, she can be working for nothing basically. Waiters, and bartenders and staff like that make their money from tips. The bartender probably got bitched out by her and passed it on to you heh.

 

[Kerouactivist]

One of my friends works as a bartender at a hotel.
He was working at the bar and some people came in set down and ordered about $50.00 in drinks and left without leaving a tip.
They came back in later that evening and my firend never went their table and they finally came up to him and asked him why weren't they getting served he told them he would serve them when they could understand they needed to tip bartenders..........He almost lost his job

 

[UltraQuiet]

Originally posted by: bthorny
One of my friends works as a bartender at a hotel.
He was working at the bar and some people came in set down and ordered about $50.00 in drinks and left without leaving a tip.
They came back in later that evening and my firend never went their table and they finally came up to him and asked him why weren't they getting served he told them he would serve them when they could understand they needed to tip bartenders..........He almost lost his job

I'd have fired him on the spot.

 

[Saltin]

I bartended for several years, and can understand why the waitress/bartender wanted you to do things thier way. The table you were at belonged to the waitress. The unspoken rule among the staff is that she should derive all the commission from said table.
Waitresses get ticked off when you bring drinks/etc from the bar to thier tables. It's lost revenue. When you are struggling to make a buck or two, every little bit matters.
So yeah, she wanted the price of your drinks on the table.... it generally means more money for her. If her service is decent, she deserves it.

On the other hand, as a customer, you should be able to do exactly as you please (within reason). It's certainly not up to anyone but you to decide how or where you order your drinks. The house (management) will always back you up on this (at a decent place). They juust want the item sold, they don't want to annoy you with details.

My advice to anyone who wants to be picky about this kind of thing is to involve a manager. They will always kiss your ass and give you what you want.... you're paying after all.

It's really a balance between being sensitive to the staff's desires, and enjoying yourself. As soon as you stop enjoying the meal b/c of some inconvience, it's time to call in the boss. Otherwise, if it's not a hassle to you, be polite and try to do the right thing.

 

[Mavrick007]

Originally posted by: DaveSohmer

Originally posted by: bthorny
One of my friends works as a bartender at a hotel.
He was working at the bar and some people came in set down and ordered about $50.00 in drinks and left without leaving a tip.
They came back in later that evening and my firend never went their table and they finally came up to him and asked him why weren't they getting served he told them he would serve them when they could understand they needed to tip bartenders..........He almost lost his job

I'd have fired him on the spot.

There is certain manners that people use and they should tip, but even though they didn't tip, he is still expected to do his job. Chances are that someone else will make up for it later and overall it will not be as bad. If business is slow, and tips are small, that's just the name of the game. There are 100 other people who would kill for his job.

 

[vi edit]

Uh oh, looks like we're turning into another "tip thread"

I still can't believe that I was basically reprimanded over what amounted to be a $.30 gratuity. I could have just been an ass and ordered water like the rest of the people at the table, which involves work, but zero income to both the waitress and the business.

 

[ATLien247]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Uh oh, looks like we're turning into another "tip thread"

I still can't believe that I was basically reprimanded over what amounted to be a $.30 gratuity. I could have just been an ass and ordered water like the rest of the people at the table, which involves work, but zero income to both the waitress and the business.

You should've been a lazy bastard and had the waitress get you your drinks. Then just give the cash to cover the drinks to the friends who were paying for the meal...

 

[Jzero]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Uh oh, looks like we're turning into another "tip thread"

I still can't believe that I was basically reprimanded over what amounted to be a $.30 gratuity. I could have just been an ass and ordered water like the rest of the people at the table, which involves work, but zero income to both the waitress and the business.

That's what was going through my mind. Assuming you're a generous tipper and a heavy drinker, we're still only talking a couple bucks at MOST. Also, I think it could have been handled better, like maybe the waitress could have explained that she'd prefer to serve you and offer to write you a separate check, or maybe you could have asked if she could give you a separate check for your beers and if she said no explain why you asked. By the sound of it, she was obviously willing to let you pay separately drink-by-drink, so I don't see why she had to go crying to the bartender about it when she could have just told you this herself.

 

[vi edit]

You should've been a lazy bastard

I like being difficult I hate waiting for things that I could just as easily do myself. It takes me all of a minute to walk over to bar to get a drink, where if I had waited for the waitress to get over there, it may have been 5-7 minutes.

Same thing with other stuff - instead of taking a minute to find the TV remote like my fiance does, I just get up and change the damn channel by hand. Instead of driving around a parking lot for 10 minutes finding that elusive front row parking, I park halfway out, walk to the door, buy what I need, walk out, and still see the idiot circling the lot trying to find a spot.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: Saltin
I bartended for several years, and can understand why the waitress/bartender wanted you to do things thier way. The table you were at belonged to the waitress. The unspoken rule among the staff is that she should derive all the commission from said table.
Waitresses get ticked off when you bring drinks/etc from the bar to thier tables. It's lost revenue. When you are struggling to make a buck or two, every little bit matters.
So yeah, she wanted the price of your drinks on the table.... it generally means more money for her. If her service is decent, she deserves it.

On the other hand, as a customer, you should be able to do exactly as you please (within reason). It's certainly not up to anyone but you to decide how or where you order your drinks. The house (management) will always back you up on this (at a decent place). They juust want the item sold, they don't want to annoy you with details.

My advice to anyone who wants to be picky about this kind of thing is to involve a manager. They will always kiss your ass and give you what you want.... you're paying after all.

It's really a balance between being sensitive to the staff's desires, and enjoying yourself. As soon as you stop enjoying the meal b/c of some inconvience, it's time to call in the boss. Otherwise, if it's not a hassle to you, be polite and try to do the right thing.

Well-said. And yes; the waitress/waiter has to tip-out to the bartender at the end of the night. The waitress prolly did complain to the bartender; prolly told him "you need to tell that guy not to come to the bar to get drinks! Tell him he needs to order thru me!"

The bartender prolly said "chickee, I could care less...If he wants to come straight here I'm not going to stop him!" She either went to the manager or threatened to do so. That's why the bartender was an ass when you approached him.

I have slung drinks in the past; it's a hard way to make a living. Getting stiffed on a big tab is Bitch #1. Bitch #2 is dealing with people that can't hold their liquor, act like asses, then introduce you Bitch #1.

 

[vi edit]

And yes; the waitress/waiter has to tip-out to the bartender at the end of the night

Can you explain that? Does it mean that she owes a percentage of the alcohol based tip back to the tender?

 

[Angrymarshmello]

That's not true at all places - some places don't require tipping out to them. (Tipping out means putting forth x% of your total reported tips to the bartender for serving/mixing your alcoholic drinks)

 

[Broncho]

Well, the way tipout worked for my girlfriend was she had to give a part of her tips to the bartenders and to the cooks. She never gave me a percentage or anything but it sounded like it could have easily been thirty percent of her tips total. Granted she hasn't had to do that at every place she works, so it depends on the place your at. Usually the fancier/more expensive it is they have to do this, at least that is what I've noticed. I think they mandate this so they can be cheap and not pay anyone a true minimum wage, or at least not what they could get at a competing place.

 

[MichaelD]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

And yes; the waitress/waiter has to tip-out to the bartender at the end of the night

Can you explain that? Does it mean that she owes a percentage of the alcohol based tip back to the tender?

EXACTLY. Also, Ragingbitch is correct in that not ALL places operate this way. However, about 95% of them do! This is also why servers push FOOD/snacks, b/c they don't have to split that part of the tip.

A group of five people that comes in, sits down and orders nothing but drinks totaling $100, does not make the server as much money as the same group that orders $100 worth of food and drinks, b/c the server must tip out the bartender on the entire $100 of drinks, instead of say $50 drinks/$50 food.

 

[bizmark]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

And yes; the waitress/waiter has to tip-out to the bartender at the end of the night

Can you explain that? Does it mean that she owes a percentage of the alcohol based tip back to the tender?

To further reinforce the idea that "every place is different":

At the place I worked, 2% of every server's total sales for the shift (note, about 10-15% of the server's tips if he/she makes typical tips) was put into tipshare. This tipshare pot was split equally among hosts, busboys, and bartenders, depending on the amount of hours each person put in during that same shift. (e.g. if there's 2 hosts both working 3 hours a shift (overlapping -- 1 comes in at 5 and leaves at 8, and the other comes in at 7 and leaves at 10), 1 busboy for 5 hours, and 1 bartender for 5 hours, then total hours = 16, so the bartender and busboy each get 5/16, and the hosts each get 3/16.)

It was never seen as a big deal for people to bring drinks from the bar to the table (although our bar was fairly small relative to the size of the restaurant). I can't imagine anyone freaking out about it if a customer did so. It would be slightly weird, but whatever. It would have been easier for you to just ask for your beer to be put on a separate tab. (at least, with the software we used)