I worked in the restaurant industry for decades. I can assure that servers aren’t even close to the lowest paid employees. I regularly saw servers leaving with $2-300 cash EVERY NIGHT. Their paychecks were always very small because some had insurance taken out of their hourly base.
If you are going to a locally owned restaurant, it's a good idea to pay the whole thing in cash. Payment processors typically take 2-3% of the bill as fees. The restaurant keeps 100% of a cash transaction.
This is the law. They are finally cracking down on all restaurants. This is the correct way credit card tips are supposed to be handled because they are supposed to be taxed. Always tip in cash when possible!!!
I always leave a cash tip when possible, and, unless the service was absolutely horrible, I typically leave 25-30% for said tip. No, I've never worked as a waitress myself, but so long as the service was good I'll reward my servers appropriately.
Been going on since Covid.Just another way for rip off employees. Tips dropping a significant amount before taxes ...after they started keeping track, they were being short changed AND the credit card fees were being taken out of their tips! (I am one of those people)
All three of my kids worked in restaurants and the advice is to:
1. Draw a line through the “tip” entry on the bill. Do not write “cash” or zero.
2. Pay tip in cash. Easy to figure out 20% is to double the amount and move the decimal point one to the left. $20.00 x 2 = 40.00 ~ the tip is $4.00.
Typically dishwashers were off the books. It depends on the restaurant, there are a fair share of poorly run ones, you would never want to know about what other things they do to cut corners.
Haha. How naive you are. That is the “tip credit” amount. If a servers total wage: tip credit + tips doesn’t = min wage, the employer must make up the difference. In 30+ years, I never saw this happen once. In fact, it was quite common for the servers to make more money than the managers.
That’s because they made more than minimum wage. That is federal law. And to be clear, people working in a local burger joint probably do me close to minimum wage however, those working in chain restaurants and finer dining restaurants can make LOTS of money.
The state that I am in, servers are paid much less than minimum wage. Employers must make the difference up between the wage and what is minimum (here it’s $7.25, servers no less then $3.26). My daughter made average $45.00/hour w/tips at a busy restaurant, but ZERO benefits, no PTO or holiday pay.
When I pay by credit card at a restaurant I leave the tip section at zero and ALWAYS tip in cash. The server can report as much or as little of the tip as they like. It’s usually 20%. Hopefully they get to take it home this way.
The hourly rate isn’t really the issue. At the end of two weeks you will have made the same amount. Most people starting a job wait two weeks for their first paycheck.
First of all, many chain restaurants have followed this process for decades. Restaurants don’t maintain a safe full of cash to “cash out” servers.
Secondly, I have to pay taxes on my earnings, you probably do too, why shouldn’t servers pay tax on their earnings?
I always put a nominal tip amount on the CC & leave cash. Except when I have a shitty server & know I will never see them again, which is a rare occurrence.
Comments
1. Draw a line through the “tip” entry on the bill. Do not write “cash” or zero.
2. Pay tip in cash. Easy to figure out 20% is to double the amount and move the decimal point one to the left. $20.00 x 2 = 40.00 ~ the tip is $4.00.
Secondly, I have to pay taxes on my earnings, you probably do too, why shouldn’t servers pay tax on their earnings?