Working for Tips in the Food Service Industry
This is an expansion of the Starting Your Own Restaurant or Getting a Job at One post. For both Job Seekers and Employers to educate them as to the types of Tip Earnings there are. My Wife and I have worked at a number of different Food Service related companies.
The first type of Tips could be called Fully Restrictive. This is basically how it is at any Job, you don't expect a tip but if one comes it is dependant on company policy as to whether you can accept that or not. When you are a Cashier, or work in some kind of Concession or Kitchen Job, there is actually very commonly times when people want to give you a tip. Because when people buy food, they expect to pay 15% for the Cook or Server or person behind the Counter. But in many Stadium or Event Jobs, you can not have a tip jar out. But in many places this is unspoken and sometimes not worried about, because the customers who want to Tip really do want to Tip.
(https://www.pinterest.com/pin/559079741211575238/)
At Aramark at Coors Feild in Denver there was a lady that would walk around removing Tip jars. But you were allowed to accept Tips. We were staying in Boulder 1 month when we worked there, and we were happy if we got enough to pay for the Bus which was like $20 each round trip on the Public Transportation but the Denver-Boulder route was a Greyhound type Bus, and we often didn't even get that; but the Bus went straight to where we were staying in Table Mesa and to the Stadium so we took that every day. Anything helped. My Wife would always get more there than I did because there are a bunch of drunk guys at Baseball games. She got 1 single $80 Tip once there.
TIP POOLS
The next layer of Tips is a Tip Pool. Maybe you work at a Restaurant like Chili's, or anywhere that has the archetypical hostess, seating, waiters, chefs, maybe a bar, and a bathroom, model of business. This is also existant at Cinepolis (Studio Move Grill from Mexico), there the Runners, Taking Popcorn/Concessions, and Meals/Burgers/Pizza/Alcohol, etc. to the customers. They get something like a 2% cut of daily income in Tips. This is achieved by having Waiters pay out 4% of their daily sales out of their Tips.
This becomes a whole calculation, assuming you get 15% of sales in Tips, 4% makes that 11%. If you get bad tips it effects your take home more, if you get good tips it effects it less. I will get into this, and Working for Tips in a minute. The Waiters earn less per out but come out better usually with the larger Tips.
That 4% goes in a Pool, and 2% gets divided amongst the Runners, and the other 2% goes to the Kitchen or who ever. The Managers should not be part of a Tip Pool, as it looks bad. A Manager should be a neutral party in every relationship between a Waiter and Customer, able to come in and resolve conflict by offering current or future Service. If Managers are taking cuts of Tips they may also start feeling like they deserve a bigger cut, or just take a bigger cut. Or the Waiters and Runners might think they are. It is just best to keep the Managers out of the Tip Pool and it is illegal in some places if not all over America.
WORKING FOR TIPS
When working for Tips you are usually in a Full Service role. Bartender, Waiter, Valet, etc. When you work for Tips you usually get less hourly pay. Sometimes as low as $2 per hour. Tipping is usually done in the form of writing on a Receipt with a Credit Card, or with Cash and usually around 15%. When you work some places people do not Tip extremely well, and others they tip better. Just as an example, at a Studio Movie Grill people are already spending a lot on the Movie and Food, they may not have the money to tip. Especially in the City.
But the people that can Tip, do. You might get a 20% or 30% Tip, sometimes a 100% Tip. This is like Uber, or Lyft. You might do 5 Trips at $20 each, and maybe 2 don't tip. But a $5, $8, and $20 Tip on top of 5x $20 Trips is $133. You can maybe do that every 2 or 2.5hrs on Uber. Pizza Delivery is similar. Same thing being a Waiter. You have your tables, you get their orders, you get it to the Kitchen, then you get their Drinks, check on them, ask if they need anything else, and bring the Receipt. Then they presumably write in a 15% Tip.
If you do 5 Tables in an Hour, and one has 2 meals, 2 have 3 meals, and 2 have 4 meals, you might end up with any number of Tips. This depends on each customer's ability to Tip, usually a Family Tips more, but a Rich guy taking his friends out Tips the best, it shows he is generous to his friends and maybe it is just an actual fact and that is a generous person doing that all the time. It depends on the person. I noticed at Cinepolis when the Bombshell Fox News Sexual Harassment movie came out, I got tipped well by the groups of girls drinking. And at Jumanji the single Mom's who were drinking tipped well. My Wife started to get Jealous and I told her to go to Star Wars, and she got good Tips from drunk guys watching Star Wars.
Working for Tips can be great, and you can earn way more than you would working hourly in most jobs. You can make far more than $15 hr at a Tip Job easily. But sometimes you don't get Tips, and then there is the Taxes. But if you have an I9 you can use Gas and other Receipts and Bank Statements to counteract your Tax numbers. Because lots of Tip money ends up spent on Work. Almost like a Teacher buying supplies for the Classroom, but for your Job.
There is also the Tip Pool, so this becomes a larger factor over time for waiters, and when you go calculate your Tips at the end of the days, with Sales, and get any Cash payments in the machine to match your Sales; you then deduct and pay into the Pool. You are not Taxed on the money Pooled. And Tips are usually writen on a Receipt, so you put it in all together at the end or throughout the day in the Credit Card processing system used by the company; then pay the Pool in Cash. Unless they have a Pooling system. They used Vista at Cinepolis and we did cash Pools, then the Accountant was a machine called Mimo. At Stadium Concessions they have a whole bankroom with tellers.
At Cinepolis and many places now, you have to learn a new Handheld Menu app, like a Tablet, to enter orders and get them directly to the Kitchen. There was also a TV at the set up area of every theater, where the straws and trash on the way out were. These TVs showed who in the Theater had clicked their button to request Food or Help. So you use the Handheld Menu app and the TV to put all the orders in, then bring them out with the Runners.
(https://www.catholicjournal.us/2011/10/02/automobile-advertising-still-a-three-ring-circus/)
If you are Running a Business that involves Tips, you are basically putting together a show. You want characters almost. You want charming people, who are outgoing and not afraid to talk to people or make mistakes. Maybe a person or 2 with some jokes or bar tricks. As a Bartender just getting people to talk and having good discussions with them can be a talent. You want people there that people are going to come back and see, like a 3 Ring Circus each Waiter and Bartender, or at least set of people, should be like a little operation of their own attracting customers.