Jun 8th 2010, 12:12:17
Not sure about the rest of the country but here in New Hampshire it is not uncommon for servers to make the minimum allowed wage of $2.13/hour...That being said there is a potential to make considerably more with tips. My sister would bring home on a good night anywhere from $200-400 in a single 5-6 hour shift. Of course on bad nights she was lucky to clear $30-40 if it was absolutely dead, but law also requires that with tips and the hourly rate of $2.13 the server must make at least minimum wage. If tips do not suffice to meet the average then the employer must cover the difference.
As long as service was decent I used to tip at an absolute minimum of 20% with the thought that for those doing it were lucky to pick up 25-30 hours a week so they needed more to make ends meet. Then one night I watched the server as she buzzed around six tables and I started doing some rough math and at 20% the waitress would be looking at between $80-120 for that hour alone. I know this is not a constant open to close thing, but I figure you get at a minimum three full cycles on the tables, so even on the low and of $80 per six table she would be netting $240 and likely more. Combined with the fact that common practice here in NH is to only claim 10% of your actual tips and after missing the bulk of the taxes the waitress would be making more in her five hours then I make in my 10 daily...That just seemed like total Bullfluff...I can appreciate paying someone a decent wage for a job well done, but I just have a hard time justifying paying the person carrying plates back and forth more then our local law enforcement, fire fighters and teachers get paid...So now I tend to base the tip not on the bill necessarily, but on service and how long I was there...Typical tip is around a $10/max for the ~45 minutes we are there, if service was just unbelievable and makes us want to come back based on that alone they may see more, but that doesn't happen too too often..
One thing I forgot to mention is that the only real time I deviate is if it one of those places where they have to split tips with the bartenders and the bus staff. Then I may leave an extra 25-30% tops, but that is not the norm by any means...
Edited By: Marthaen on Jun 8th 2010, 12:22:49