Dear Wait Staff of the Tipping World
May 29th, 2010 | Categories: Life | 6 CommentsFirst and foremost, I feel that I should say that I have never worked as a waitress, so I’m sure some will discount the rest of this entry because of that fact. But this entry has been a long time in the making and is the result of numerous observations in my experiences dining out at restaurants where there is wait staff involved.
It is customary for wait staff to ask diners if they would like anything to drink once they are seated. Wait staff almost always ask about the drinks first, leave, return with drinks, leave again, and then come back after an interval once the customers have decided what they want to order for food. And so on and so forth, until the bill is paid (inclusive of a hefty tip) and the table is cleared and the next round of diners are seated. Everyone who’s ever dined out before knows this drill.
Based on this pattern and my vast experiences dining out (yay college!), I’ve come to the following conclusion: The quality of service you get from your respective waiter/waitress depends on what type of drink you order.
If you order an alcoholic beverage (expensive), you are treated more attentively by the waiter/waitress. If you order a soda or a juice (average), you are treated decently. But if you order a water (free), good luck with getting the kind of attentive treatment the person who ordered alcohol would get!
It all comes down to the tip factor, doesn’t it? The more expensive the stuff you order is, the more expensive the bill is going to be and thus, higher the tip. Therefore, if you order an alcoholic drink or soda or juice (or anything other than water, really), there’s hope for a great tip yet. But if you order a water, more often than not you get automatically judged for being a cheapskate and one of the following happens: 1) the waiter/waitress tries to subtly hurry you along so they can turn over the table faster, or 2) the waiter/waitress tends to the rest of their tables before they tend to you. Hey, you just ordered water, so unless you order something monstrously expensive your bill isn’t going to be as expensive as the table that just ordered cocktails!
As someone who almost always orders water in restaurants, I find this all to be more than a little frustrating. I don’t always order water because it’s free. (Not that I’m complaining about the price.) No, I order water because 1) I can’t legally order alcohol as I’m underage, 2) I already don’t drink enough water during the day so whenever I get the chance to I drink it, and 3) it’s the healthiest option. If I’m out at a restaurant the chances of me ordering a small-sized, healthy and non-fattening dish are about zero, so the water will help me feel less guilty about what I eat!
What I don’t really understand, though (and this is where my lack of waitressing experience becomes a relevant factor) is why this beverage-ordering theory of mine impacts the quality of service by the waiter/waitress. I understand the whole final-amount-of-bill-affects-amount-of-tip thing, but the percentage paid in tips isn’t set in stone. It’s like a sliding scale; people pay anywhere between 10-20 percent. I’m far more likely to pay a 20 percent tip if the quality of service I receive is great; I’m more inclined to pay only 15 percent if the waiter/waitress blows me off after I place my order for water.
So, wait staff of the tipping world, take note: if you roll your eyes at me when I order water (this has happened before), it doesn’t matter how much the dishes I order are or what the final price of my bill is. Your tip is not going to be anything to write home about.
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Hi, I'm Manda. I'm a college student studying communications and languages. I like to read, shop, bake, and travel. I have a tendency to listen to my favorite songs on repeat for hours on end. Sometimes I catch myself thinking in a language other than English. 
I’ve been to restaurants and ordered an alcoholic drink and had equally as poor service as if I had ordered water. In fact I usually have a couple (sometimes more) but due to an unattentive waitress, was unable to get another.
The drink theory does sound most feasible, but atleast in my city it doesn’t hold true. Here, the more people that are in your party the more apt for the waitress to return frequently, forgetting about the other tables.
Regardless, this is a definite pet peeve.
I recommend living in a country where the entire concept of an “expected gratuity” is illegal (you’re allowed to tip, but the establishment isn’t legally allowed to “expect” it like in the US).
That way, the quality of the wait staff reflects on the quality of the restaurant, rather than the waiter’s perception of how likely you are to tip them. :X
Yeah, I’ve lived overseas in countries where gratuity wasn’t required by law (and in some cases, it’s actually considered rude to leave a tip because it’s considered rude) and things were so much easier. Not just in terms of having a smaller amount to pay when the bill arrives, but because the dining experience wasn’t dependent on what the waiter/waitress thought of you and the amount you’d tip!
When I was a server it never mattered what you ordered as a drink, you still received the same level of quality service. I will say that my managers used to push us to pay more attention to tables that purchased lots of alcoholic drinks, and I would still pay them the same level of attention as all of my other tables.
Once I had a eight-topper, and four of them got about three alcoholic beverages each. They didn’t tip me even though I gave them my all and ran around getting their drinks and food promptly. They actually paid me to the penny, lol!
But that is just my experience. When I go out now I normally get an iced tea or water with lots of lemon, or a tea :)
I came across your blog & i’ve been reading it for a couple of months now. This is my first time commenting on a post. I will agree with Renita, it doesn’t matter what someone/a table orders as a drink… you will still get the same level of service.
First of all, a table that is ordering alcoholic beverages often require more attention than those who order water. Alcoholic beverages are served in smaller quantities than water (for obvious reasons), so people are naturally going to finish their 8 oz cocktails before one would finish a 20 oz water.
Second of all, you’re right about the wait staff assuming they will get a bigger tip from those drinking alcohol than those drinking water. It is, however, usually a correct assumption that a server makes from experience. Even if you do tip 20%, which I applaud, on your check, it probably won’t be more than $10-$20 without sodas or cocktails. A table who orders alcohol will most likely yield a higher tip for the server, regardless of the percentages. If you were given the opportunity to work one day for half of your normal hourly wage versus another for double, the correct choice is pretty obvious.
Finally, maybe eliminating tips would make dining out easier and more consistent, but you have to understand that the cost of your meal would also increase dramatically. I make $2.13 an hour as a server, and to make the job worthwhile, restaurant employers would have to significantly increase their hourly pay rate. I wouldn’t put up with a lot of the things I do for less than $15 an hour, and this wage increase would only ultimately affect the diners.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying: everybody who spends their hard-earned money on dining out deserves great and attentive service. I think its important to remember though that servers, just like everybody in the work force, ultimately come to work to make money. We make assumptions and snap judgments based on experience, and although they are sometimes wrong, they are usually correct.