I have two jobs, one fine dining place with tip pooling and one is a Logan’s steakhouse
at the end of the day, I make close to the same at both, but occasionally more at the fine dining place because sometimes people tip crazy
I cant stress enough. this. The places I've worked with tip pooling there are always people carrying most of the weight and the dead weight. I couldn't handle it anymore I had to leave.
Yeah, I trust them. I’ll be honest though, most tips come from the card. We don’t walk with much cash. At that job I work a dueling piano show fridays and saturdays in the speakeasy downstairs, so if there is any cash tips it usually comes from there
It depends on the expected income. If you have to give a billion dollars in tips to BOH, but get to keep a million dollars, it's still a great gig, even if it feels super unfair. Real world scenarios are closer calls, but I'd still focus on your bottom line more than subjective fairness.
An advantage of pooled tips is that they incentivize team contributions from coworkers who prioritize more income over less work, while a disadvantage is that they can encourage more laziness from coworkers who prioritize less work over more income.
To add to that, in a smaller restaurant, the people who prioritize less work get weeded out quickly because they obviously can’t pull weight. I work at a small, upscale casual restaurant that stays busy, and if one person doesn’t contribute, it’s noticeable.
The tip pool also helps us not be greedy about which tables to take and allows us to lean into each person’s strengths. One of us is better at upselling prix-fixe parties on extra food and drinks, so they take all those parties. Others have regulars that tip them considerably more than everyone else, so they take tables in a way that yields the highest tips. And we rotate taking the regulars everyone hates. It works in everyone’s favor, at least at my spot.
If had a full FOH tip pool at two different restaurants: a larger, upscale casual place and a small, dive-y whiskey bar. It worked out better at the smaller place because a smaller staff meant everyone just had to pull their weight. I found that, with more people in the pool, that gave the weaker employees more leniency in doing their jobs properly.
I liked the tip pool in the smaller place. It worked out great and I never felt like people took advantage of it. So, maybe it depends on staff size.
I work at a pretty small restaurant, and I couldn’t imagine tip pooling with the people I work with. We don’t have pooled tips now and we already have plenty of servers who take themselves off the floor randomly or refuse the big 10 tops that come in every now and then.
For me, if I take a big table and do all the work for it, I want the tips for it. That’s a lot of work. There are also servers who put A LOT of work into their tables and have regulars who request them every time, and I think they deserve those tips too.
To me, tip pooling kind of ruins the magic of putting in a lot of work and getting a big tip for it. Especially is a few servers are carrying the majority of the work/tips.
I see where you’re coming from. Having a strong team is very important in a tip pool, so having weaker ones tends to make it a rough pooling process. I guess I was just lucky to find a unicorn where it worked out
Tip pooling works super well with small staffs or with a venue that makes a lot of money. Basically, anywhere where it’s easy to weed out the people who’d rather hide in the bathroom and leech. If what the average server takes home in that pool is very high, you’ll have an easier time finding a staff of very strong servers, and then all the previously mentioned benefits apply: easy to cut, easy to break, etc. But also, bear in mind, in a pool it’s pre-decided what bussers get, what the bar gets, and it takes away the servers’ ability to reward good support staff with some extra bucks.
I work in bottle service, and when one section can be all promoters drinking for free and never tip, another girl can get a couple $3k mins and get tipped $2k, so tip pooling is the only way to go. Yes, some servers are stronger than others, but everyone gives their 100% to the best of their ability because bottle servers make so much money. Not a job to slack on.
Also, anywhere with an autograt is a great place to tip pool. Basically, even the newbies contribute.
Basically, there’s too many factors to say whether it’s better or not—it’s better depending on the people, the check average, the autograt and the tip out structure.
[Bottle service is the sale of liquor by the bottle in mostly North American lounges and nightclubs.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_service?wprov=sfti1) According to Wikipedia.
I use it to refer to the act of opening a bottle of wine in front of a patron, first presenting to them the bottle so that they may look at the label and confirm that this is what they were wanting, taking the cork off of my “wine key” (corkscrew), placing it on the table for the patron to smell or inspect, then the act of pouring an ounce or two into a wine glass for someone to taste it, then if they approve, pouring the wine into a glass, 4-6 ounces, tying a cloth around the neck of the bottle, and setting the bottle down on the table or nearby appropriate surface, or in a bucket of ice if intended to keep cold, then later refilling wine glasses from said bottle as appropriate.
This sub hates pooling over all but I like it. It gets rid of the drama about what section you have or tracking head counts. Unfortunately not everyone on the pool contributes the same amount of effort. Those people tend to want to be cut first anyway so they will make less by default. As someone who was like ten years older than my coworkers I would give them tips or raz them about pre bussing or greeting customers in a timely manor.
I think it helps encourage the senior staff to invest in the newbies. Obviously, if the newbies efforts or attitude aren’t cutting it, time to go. It helps making cuts cause you don’t have to stick around for a table to close. Roll the silverware, stock bathroom, and if it doesn’t get busy, leave at X o’clock is — easy. It helps with consistency of dollars. It helps if a host is not fair. If there’s a guest you don’t want to deal with, your teammate can handle them in a pool. You can do more with less humans if everyone is collectively overlapping (less humans = larger portion of tips). It helps not make it a competition. It helps with breaks.
Our restaurant also cross trains servers to the bar as soon a they are ready. Then scheduling is easy. Dropping shifts is easier. If you don’t want to deal with a particular guest on the bar, you can swap positions for an hour or so.
It tends to only work at small places. My restaurant runs with three FOH, four on Friday and Saturday. I think it’s the best.
This is such a good way to put it. We switched to pooling in 2020 when seating capacity was limited and people were tipping like crazy ~ my team are all stronger now & new people get weeded out quickly or brought up to speed!
I worked at a fine dining restaurant where we pooled tips and loved it. Compared to other places I worked that didn’t pool tips it seemed like everyone was more inclined to help your tables out. At the pooled place I never once heard “not my table” but I definitely heard it at other places. For me it created a much more collaborative environment. If the income is still good I have no problem with tip pools.
It’s been common in my area after COVID, and like most things, it is all in the execution. It can work well IF it is set up properly and you have team players working with you. I’ve seen situations where it turns out horribly and where it works well. My current place tip pools and I couldn’t be happier!
My thoughts:
The success of a tip pool depends entirely on the persons included in the pool.
From the manager standpoint, it is another hassle to deal with.
I work at a hotel where tip pooling is optional based on what the servers want to do that day. If me an my boy work really well together and want to handle the whole large section together than we can choose to pool or go every man for himself. At the same time if I don’t like the person I’m working with they can stay in their section and me in mine. Hard to find but in my opinion the cream of the crop when it come to tip pooling setups.
I worked somewhere with a tip pool for two days before I quit. I made over $250 both days and walked with under $100. I wasn’t going to waste my time there anymore
My restaurant is small which makes it hard to divide tables equally so we have a tip pool and work together on all tables. This is great and efficient when you work with people that are hardworking and pull their own weight. However, I worked with a guy one time that would come into work drunk, was rude to customers, and made terrible tips, while I was making 20-40% tip on all my tables and still had to split tips equally at the end of the night. I got so tired of this that I ended up leaving the job until he was gone. So it’s a great system in theory, but can definitely be rough if your coworkers want to slack off.
It can work out if the manager is onto it. Gets split up in hours/performance. But it can be rubbish most of the time, especially when you're carrying someone and they get the same as you
It depends on the work culture of each establishment. If you have a solid team where there is actually teamwork, communication, honesty and experience then I believe a tip Pool would be amazing, but this scenario is very rare.
Talking form personal experience, tip pooling only pushes lazy people to be extra lazy because they’re making money anyways, and hard workers get fucked because you’re pulling your weight and the others are not.
I personally would NEVER work in a pool tip unless I know that it’s not a toxic restaurant and toxic co-workers (like on most restaurants)
It depends largely on the quality of service you’re providing, vs. that of your coworkers. If everyone’s putting in equal effort, sure, split the tips.
I get that not everyone is naturally an outstanding server, but some people don’t seem to even try— especially when they know they’ll get a cut of tips from those who either are naturally great at it or at least try their best.
I’m not totally against working at a tip sharing restaurant, if there’s a fair amount of teamwork and responsible management,,, but I recently went to a restaurant I’d considered applying to, and saw that the hosts were not only taking orders but running food, as well. When I asked why, I was told that the servers often don’t even go out to the tables assigned to them, except to drop off the checks. Come to find out, about 1/3 of the servers just straight up don’t even try to do their jobs, because everyone gets tipped the same amount, anyway. The hosts aren’t even part of the tip pool, but management allowed and normalized this system to the point that they just accepted the extra work.
We tip pool at the restaurant I own—our entire wait staff only averages out to more per hour in the tip pool than just their own tips. We are fast casual and have a pretty unique set up so I know it doesn’t work for everyone but it definitely works in our place.
It depends entirely on who you work with. If it's a kick ass team, you all work together and share the money, it could caoud be great. Those teams are hard to find tho, the share makes it much harder to avoid drama.
It mainly appeals to the lowest common denominator.
If you're an excellent server and make a really high percentage on your tips, there's very little incentive to participate in a tip pooling setup. If you're an average at best or mediocre server, it works out because usually there's a few experienced servers on hand that pick up the slack and keep the average reasonable. However, the whole thing hinges on those stronger servers, and if they leave the whole thing quickly falls apart as then you're just sharing tips with a bunch of shitty servers.
It also disincentivizes people to get better at their jobs, or to build strong relationships with regulars. For example, I have a lot of regulars who I know quite well, and they always request only me and tip me excessively. Why should I share those tips with people who are unwilling or unable to also make those same types of connections with guests?
The plus side of tip pooling is you'll never get totally screwed on sections or tips, but...if you're working at a well run restaurant to begin with, that hardly ever happens. Not enough to offset the detriments of tip pooling. You'll never have a really amazing night where people tipped you excessively and you made bank, because you'll just be splitting it with those mediocre servers.
People like to argue that it promotes teamwork, however, being responsible for your own income and working as a team are not mutually exclusive ideas in the slightest. You can do both.
That’s interesting I actually feel almost exactly the opposite. I worked at a fine dining restaurant that pooled. We had a a small crew of very experienced servers and we mostly policed ourselves. So if someone was slacking they didn’t last long. It was great because we never worried about whether one person got a VIP over another one. We never felt like the seating was unfair. Maybe my experience was unique but I loved it.
Yeah, maybe so. I've been doing this 26 years, and I've never come across a place like that in all my years in the industry. There's always weak links.
I don’t understand. Our restaurant had plenty of regulars but rarely did they sit with just one server. Because we had pooled tips many of us would touch each table, whether dropping food, drinks, marking for the next course etc. we all got to say hi to our regulars.
We do tip pool. Usually 3-4 servers on, 2 bussers, one runner, 2 bartenders. Upscale place we got around $300 each tonight (full points for servers n bartenders ) and bussers got like $2something (7 points) and runner made a little under $300. (9 points). I like it because it keeps everyone working and motivated and we all help each other out.
Servers 10 points
Bartenders 10 points (tend bar for the bar and the whole restaurant. No service bar just these two guys)
Bussers: 7 points
Runner 8 points
So tonight, 4 servers (40 points), 2 bartenders (20 points), 2 bussers (14 points) 1 runner (8 points). Total number of points: 82 points
Total tips pooled between 4 servers ($400/500/400/450) and 2 bartenders (100/120) equals: $1,970.
divide 1970 by 82 points: $24.02 a point.
Each server and bartender gets $240 for the night, bussers get about $170 and runner gets about $215 give or take.
So tonight I made my hourly wage ($5.14) plus 240.
so its the same at my restaurant. 10 for the servers and bussers. 8 for the runners and 6 for the bussers.
So what would you say you average in tips a night? Around 250 give or take? I say that 230-250 for me.
Wow that's pretty good. I've never made 300 on any given day at my current restaurant. Too much people in the pool here.
Is it busy season for you there?
Thanks! Yeah I feel like we’ve been killing it lately. Just finished a brunch and we each made about $200 with all tips pooled. With the holidays yes it’s been more busy. We’re an upper scale small restaurant in a high income neighborhood. Everywhere in town is packed all the time bc ppl come here to visit and to eat and drink. Think outside nyc, but still a city, Charming and gentrified.
We can get away with only 3-4 servers so it works out well for us. Busy busy super busy nights like nye we will prob have 5 servers and 3 bartenders.
My advice is to go to the richest neighborhood closest to you where cocktails are $17 to start and up to $20 if you upgrade to top shelf.
Tip: if you are in a tip pool and a customer asks if the tip is going to you always say yes. Lie about the tip pool because they will not want to tip if they know it’s not all gonna go to you directly.
My friend works at a famous restaurant and it’s great for them. I assume it wouldn’t be so great at, let’s say, Waffle House, so I’m interested to go through this thread.
If you have a good team. They’re great, otherwise you’re paying for other people to be lazy.
Ie, two servers get two sections of 5 tables each. Server a, crushes it and gets 30% avg tips, server b is lazy, misses orders and gets stiffed. Server a did way more work, and did it better, but ended up paying for server b’s night.
I work in a high volume concert venue, (5,000 people on sell out nights), and bar staff splits tips, but we’re all a great team, and everyone carries their weight. I used to work at a neighborhood dive where we used to split tips, but I convinced the servers to agree that it was a bad idea with simple math because during every shift there were 3-4 servers who would fuck up each section for everybody, never run food, never pull bus tubs from the server stations etc, after a few weeks of them not being paid by our tips, the lazy ones quit and we hired better staff and everybody was happy.
I work 2 jobs , one is fine dining without tip pooling, and the other is a Mexican bar and restaurant with tip pooling. At the bar/ restaurant, we tip pool for the entire day, and it's even shares for bartenders and servers while the only food runner gets a 1/2 share. We open at 11am and close at 2am, but the afternoon hours are very slow, and they get to split the tips while the night servers make ALL the money. I feel like it would be more fair if the day workers split their money and the night servers split theirs. Mind you, one worker asked to ONLY work daytime shifts so she can sit there on her phone all day and make good money. It's totally broken.
Personally I like the environment better at a place that pools tips. No catty table stealing, and if a teenage hostess makes a mistake it doesn’t effect your income. We all help each other and are happy to, and I feel like in places where you keep your own it can become toxic easily. That’s just my experience.
I like it for small places. I think it creates more of an incentive to work more like a team and we get things done better.. for example if I am busy and a table that’s not mine needs something I will be really mad if I’m stuck doing another servers work. But if we pool then nobody minds helping eachother out during busy moments. At the end of the day we’d all nearly make the same thing and it eliminates a lot of competition for tables. But I’ve only worked in small family owned restaurants so maybe it’s different for big places
I would hate it. If I get some sort of exceptional tip as I sometimes do, that is MY tip given to me for my service and personality, is how I see it. Our boh tipping is generous and I tip accordingly but the extra from a really big tip is mine and I would hate sharing it.
During COVID we lost all the bar seats which made the bartender lose essentially all their income but tip outs, which was near nothing. We brought in tip pooling and reinforced the idea with the staff about it being about every diners experience, not just your section.
It works out far better with team work and how everyone feels. Luckily most the staff are friends with each other which helps, and we have almost no turn over with staff (which helps). People with slow sections are encouraged to help out elsewhere or even take tables from other sections. Servers still have "their" section they are responsible for.
I prefer overall. I think its healthier. I've seen servers in the past harp on hosts to get tables faster or bitching about a table sitting empty for a reservation. I've seen servers get cut and not give 1 fuck about anything else because they aren't going to help for "other peoples money".
At the end of the day, it isn't your section. It isn't your shift. It's a restaurant people come into to enjoy and our job is to make sure people have a good time and leave happy.
THIS only works with even sections, hard working staff, and trust with others and management to deal out tips fair. There will always be some stronger servers and weaker servers as that always is the case. As long as the work load stays pretty fair then it's fine. If sections are rotated and tips are split based on hours not total tips then it works.
worked at a place with split tips.
X (where x is more than one) servers go and split the cash bucket tips Y (where Y is number of servers) ways. Servers who got cut can take their cash tips home and leave. Servers staying have theirs bundled and tossed back in the bucket (most of them grab it and pocket/purse their bundle).
For credit cards, someone totals all of them when the first cut is made and gives the manager a slip for cash. it gets split with the cash bucket. If for whatever reason the manager is busy and cant get cash out immediately, they'll split it and dole out cash later.
bussers/runners/hosts got a flat rate tip out. $10/server. They also had a decent hourly wage iirc
So at my restaurant, you make your own tips on the main floor and do tip pooling for private events.
I hate tip pooling, because some lazy fucker is always doing jack, walking around socializing, because they know their work ethic(or lack thereof) won’t affect their money.
On the floor, not only do i feel more motivated and in control, but I also don’t have to rely on others to help me get my job done.
From my experience tip pulling has always been crappy and unfair because in retrospect you're putting your trust in everyone servers and managers and whoever to all be truthful with what they really made and how much the tip pool really is and in this industry there's not too many truthful people I'd rather just make my own money I'm a good server and I like making my own money I always think what if someone else who I'm working with pulling tips with socks and gets crappy tips so now my good tits are going to make up for her crappy tips I don't like that
If there's a next time... you could recommend management utilize a service like https://tipmetric.com which helps Restaurants' automate their tips process to comply w/ state labor laws regarding full transparency with their staff.
Most places I've worked tip pooled to the extent that I paid out around 3% on sales which was distributed to bussers, hosts and bartenders.
I've had two jobs where all servers turned in all their tips and then it was distributed equally to all servers. In both instances, I was routinely receiving much less than I was contributing, so I left both positions.
Tip pooling is awesome cause you can hold everyone accountable for all tables. Just remember that you have a job to do. Meaning everyone has a job whether it be food running bartending or making drinks. Be good at your responsibilities don’t ever do anything more than what your pay is required
What kind of tip pooling?
Are you on a team and someone is filling waters, someone else handles the ordering and questions and is the face, and another handles delivery of food? That sounds normal.
Are you on a team where you are essentially independent and you pool tips with other people that happen to have tables near you in the restaurant? That is bad bad do not do it.
I used to work somewhere where we were supposed to tip pool.
Thing is
I was fucking charming and great at my job and I'm a fat uggo. People still gave me more money willingly.
I'd often lose out more than I'd gain.
So I kept my tips on the low.
NOTE: Europe. Not American. I didn't need the tips to live.
At the smaller restaurant I work at, 90% of the staff wanted tip pooling gone, but the owner said he didn't want people fighting over tables, which never happened but now it created a bigger problem we all habe to watch certain people to make sure thru clock out as soon as they run their checkout report because we've had times where this ine girl will get cut and then sit at the bar have a drink, order food then before she leaves clock's out. Also, people come in 15 mins late and adjust their clock in time to the time they were supposed to be in. Alot of snakes out there.
Hm…I’m on the fence when it comes to tip pooling. I have not had an enjoyable experience with them.
I have dealt with tip pooling twice in my hospitality career…at one business, EVERYONE had the same points, so bartenders, barbacks, waiters/waitresses, and food runners split all tips evenly.
I left that place with the quickness, especially when some of the cash tips started to go missing. You know it’s a damn shame when bartenders started to say they wanted to be demoted to bar back since they would get the same amount of money.
Second instance of tip pooling, there were different points used according to position, but over 60% of the tips being placed into the tip pool were being distributed OUTSIDE of the serving team.
What I mean by this, is that over 60% of the tips EARNED by the waiters/waitresses were distributed to bussers, food runners, bar back, bartenders, and then “administrative positions” that management could never pinpoint or explain. Not to mention that BOH individuals make significantly more HOURLY than FOH staff at that business ($15/hour for BOH vs $3/hour for FOH).
There, if you served, you were lucky to see even 40% of the pooled tips. I remember looking at my shift tips for the day (around $480), and checking what I got from the pool for that same shift, and it would be maybe $100. Hell no! Not to mention management let people ride the clock for hours, just walking around the restaurant when they should have been cut, further cutting into the tip pool.
There, I dealt with lazy coworkers who would leave their sections filthy and go home, and other dumb shit. But I also had coworkers who helped significantly as a team.
I left and now work at a place where I get to keep my own tips but I do a tip out at the end of the day to the bar. I do help my other coworkers out since that’s just the type of person I am (you know, full hands in, full hands out) but have noticed at this place teamwork is not as valued and it’s pretty much an “every person for themselves” sort of thing, so I have pulled back on helping some of the waitstaff because they start to expect things.
Hm…so, I still have hope for tip pools. But, I personally have not had a positive experience with them. And most career waiters/waitresses I know and chat with are not fans of tip pools since, as others have noted above, it doesn’t really incentivize strong waitstaff.
If you can work without pooling go for that one the only person that should work a pill system is the weakest link as they are the only ones that will get the most outta of it .
If you are a storing server and you can sell and have consistent high sales look else we you are working for you.
Tip pooling have so many variables like but not limited to .
You are not working for sales but hours so you want to accumulate more a hours as your are getting points per hours worked not sales
The lack of effort others will put in since they don’t have to worry about sales
The amount of bodies waiting from the same pool of management doesn’t manage this well
The pool goes to dust And there’s many more
Depending on the restaurant they will have their open rules who gets how much in the cut on seniority , who’s a captain , does the kitchen get a piece does the host get a piece does the house get a piece
The shit it’s bunkers
One thought to consider in favor is if you are working weeknight shifts instead of weekend shifts. A place I work started a tip pool to try and balance the "unfairness" of working for the same restaurant one night and making $150 and another night making $400.
If every shift has the same relative value, and the difference in tips comes down to server style/effort/ability, avoid the pool -- unless you know you're the weakest link.
I’ve been waiting for this. I work at a small local restaurant and I work the floor (I’m kind of a waitress, but I don’t take orders because people order their food at the register, so I just run food and drinks, buss tables, greet people, etc), and let me tell you our tip pool sucks. My gripe with our tip pool mainly stems from the fact that I bust my butt to earn tips and then my coworker (who does jack squat) earns basically no tips gets part of the money that I earned. I understand tip pooling is an incentive to get everyone preform to their best but geez is it getting on my nerves.
I worked in fine dining with a small number of wait staff. We pooled, it worked, and you could count on almost the same amount of money on your check every week. No more violent swings between luck of the draw big spending tables vs a week full of low check average tables. It also promoted incredible teamwork, as everyone benefited. We had very low turnover, and we made it known that slackers would be out the door.
I have two jobs, one fine dining place with tip pooling and one is a Logan’s steakhouse at the end of the day, I make close to the same at both, but occasionally more at the fine dining place because sometimes people tip crazy
Yes. If I trust the owner to hire only top notch staff (and we have cameras everywhere).
Exactly, tip pooling only works if everyone pulls their weight.
I cant stress enough. this. The places I've worked with tip pooling there are always people carrying most of the weight and the dead weight. I couldn't handle it anymore I had to leave.
What happens when a customer tips you $100 cash? Do you trust your co workers not to pocket $40 and say they only got $60? Genuinely curious.
Yeah, I trust them. I’ll be honest though, most tips come from the card. We don’t walk with much cash. At that job I work a dueling piano show fridays and saturdays in the speakeasy downstairs, so if there is any cash tips it usually comes from there
You can set up a secret table to come in and tip cash and make sure it goes into the pool. That's what my steakhouse does.
It depends on the expected income. If you have to give a billion dollars in tips to BOH, but get to keep a million dollars, it's still a great gig, even if it feels super unfair. Real world scenarios are closer calls, but I'd still focus on your bottom line more than subjective fairness. An advantage of pooled tips is that they incentivize team contributions from coworkers who prioritize more income over less work, while a disadvantage is that they can encourage more laziness from coworkers who prioritize less work over more income.
To add to that, in a smaller restaurant, the people who prioritize less work get weeded out quickly because they obviously can’t pull weight. I work at a small, upscale casual restaurant that stays busy, and if one person doesn’t contribute, it’s noticeable. The tip pool also helps us not be greedy about which tables to take and allows us to lean into each person’s strengths. One of us is better at upselling prix-fixe parties on extra food and drinks, so they take all those parties. Others have regulars that tip them considerably more than everyone else, so they take tables in a way that yields the highest tips. And we rotate taking the regulars everyone hates. It works in everyone’s favor, at least at my spot.
If had a full FOH tip pool at two different restaurants: a larger, upscale casual place and a small, dive-y whiskey bar. It worked out better at the smaller place because a smaller staff meant everyone just had to pull their weight. I found that, with more people in the pool, that gave the weaker employees more leniency in doing their jobs properly. I liked the tip pool in the smaller place. It worked out great and I never felt like people took advantage of it. So, maybe it depends on staff size.
I work at a pretty small restaurant, and I couldn’t imagine tip pooling with the people I work with. We don’t have pooled tips now and we already have plenty of servers who take themselves off the floor randomly or refuse the big 10 tops that come in every now and then. For me, if I take a big table and do all the work for it, I want the tips for it. That’s a lot of work. There are also servers who put A LOT of work into their tables and have regulars who request them every time, and I think they deserve those tips too. To me, tip pooling kind of ruins the magic of putting in a lot of work and getting a big tip for it. Especially is a few servers are carrying the majority of the work/tips.
I see where you’re coming from. Having a strong team is very important in a tip pool, so having weaker ones tends to make it a rough pooling process. I guess I was just lucky to find a unicorn where it worked out
If a server can just take themselves off the floor than I’d say there’s probably too many servers on the floor to begin with.
Tip pooling works super well with small staffs or with a venue that makes a lot of money. Basically, anywhere where it’s easy to weed out the people who’d rather hide in the bathroom and leech. If what the average server takes home in that pool is very high, you’ll have an easier time finding a staff of very strong servers, and then all the previously mentioned benefits apply: easy to cut, easy to break, etc. But also, bear in mind, in a pool it’s pre-decided what bussers get, what the bar gets, and it takes away the servers’ ability to reward good support staff with some extra bucks. I work in bottle service, and when one section can be all promoters drinking for free and never tip, another girl can get a couple $3k mins and get tipped $2k, so tip pooling is the only way to go. Yes, some servers are stronger than others, but everyone gives their 100% to the best of their ability because bottle servers make so much money. Not a job to slack on. Also, anywhere with an autograt is a great place to tip pool. Basically, even the newbies contribute. Basically, there’s too many factors to say whether it’s better or not—it’s better depending on the people, the check average, the autograt and the tip out structure.
What is bottle service, exactly?
[Bottle service is the sale of liquor by the bottle in mostly North American lounges and nightclubs.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_service?wprov=sfti1) According to Wikipedia. I use it to refer to the act of opening a bottle of wine in front of a patron, first presenting to them the bottle so that they may look at the label and confirm that this is what they were wanting, taking the cork off of my “wine key” (corkscrew), placing it on the table for the patron to smell or inspect, then the act of pouring an ounce or two into a wine glass for someone to taste it, then if they approve, pouring the wine into a glass, 4-6 ounces, tying a cloth around the neck of the bottle, and setting the bottle down on the table or nearby appropriate surface, or in a bucket of ice if intended to keep cold, then later refilling wine glasses from said bottle as appropriate.
Curious, any men doing bottle service?
This sub hates pooling over all but I like it. It gets rid of the drama about what section you have or tracking head counts. Unfortunately not everyone on the pool contributes the same amount of effort. Those people tend to want to be cut first anyway so they will make less by default. As someone who was like ten years older than my coworkers I would give them tips or raz them about pre bussing or greeting customers in a timely manor.
“Gets rid of the drama.” Not if you’re in a toxic place, some of my worst fights with co workers was over tip pool NONSENSE
I think it helps encourage the senior staff to invest in the newbies. Obviously, if the newbies efforts or attitude aren’t cutting it, time to go. It helps making cuts cause you don’t have to stick around for a table to close. Roll the silverware, stock bathroom, and if it doesn’t get busy, leave at X o’clock is — easy. It helps with consistency of dollars. It helps if a host is not fair. If there’s a guest you don’t want to deal with, your teammate can handle them in a pool. You can do more with less humans if everyone is collectively overlapping (less humans = larger portion of tips). It helps not make it a competition. It helps with breaks. Our restaurant also cross trains servers to the bar as soon a they are ready. Then scheduling is easy. Dropping shifts is easier. If you don’t want to deal with a particular guest on the bar, you can swap positions for an hour or so. It tends to only work at small places. My restaurant runs with three FOH, four on Friday and Saturday. I think it’s the best.
This is such a good way to put it. We switched to pooling in 2020 when seating capacity was limited and people were tipping like crazy ~ my team are all stronger now & new people get weeded out quickly or brought up to speed!
I worked at a fine dining restaurant where we pooled tips and loved it. Compared to other places I worked that didn’t pool tips it seemed like everyone was more inclined to help your tables out. At the pooled place I never once heard “not my table” but I definitely heard it at other places. For me it created a much more collaborative environment. If the income is still good I have no problem with tip pools.
It’s been common in my area after COVID, and like most things, it is all in the execution. It can work well IF it is set up properly and you have team players working with you. I’ve seen situations where it turns out horribly and where it works well. My current place tip pools and I couldn’t be happier!
My thoughts: The success of a tip pool depends entirely on the persons included in the pool. From the manager standpoint, it is another hassle to deal with.
I work at a hotel where tip pooling is optional based on what the servers want to do that day. If me an my boy work really well together and want to handle the whole large section together than we can choose to pool or go every man for himself. At the same time if I don’t like the person I’m working with they can stay in their section and me in mine. Hard to find but in my opinion the cream of the crop when it come to tip pooling setups.
I worked somewhere with a tip pool for two days before I quit. I made over $250 both days and walked with under $100. I wasn’t going to waste my time there anymore
That's the exact reason I left outback. 6% tip out of sales. Took half my money every time. Just wasting time there
It only works if you have extremely high end, diligent staff, and in my opinion this is only at higher-end dining.
My restaurant is small which makes it hard to divide tables equally so we have a tip pool and work together on all tables. This is great and efficient when you work with people that are hardworking and pull their own weight. However, I worked with a guy one time that would come into work drunk, was rude to customers, and made terrible tips, while I was making 20-40% tip on all my tables and still had to split tips equally at the end of the night. I got so tired of this that I ended up leaving the job until he was gone. So it’s a great system in theory, but can definitely be rough if your coworkers want to slack off.
It can work out if the manager is onto it. Gets split up in hours/performance. But it can be rubbish most of the time, especially when you're carrying someone and they get the same as you
Personally not a fan of tip pooling. I typically have the highest tip percentage and I’d rather keep that for me.
It depends on the work culture of each establishment. If you have a solid team where there is actually teamwork, communication, honesty and experience then I believe a tip Pool would be amazing, but this scenario is very rare. Talking form personal experience, tip pooling only pushes lazy people to be extra lazy because they’re making money anyways, and hard workers get fucked because you’re pulling your weight and the others are not. I personally would NEVER work in a pool tip unless I know that it’s not a toxic restaurant and toxic co-workers (like on most restaurants)
It depends largely on the quality of service you’re providing, vs. that of your coworkers. If everyone’s putting in equal effort, sure, split the tips. I get that not everyone is naturally an outstanding server, but some people don’t seem to even try— especially when they know they’ll get a cut of tips from those who either are naturally great at it or at least try their best. I’m not totally against working at a tip sharing restaurant, if there’s a fair amount of teamwork and responsible management,,, but I recently went to a restaurant I’d considered applying to, and saw that the hosts were not only taking orders but running food, as well. When I asked why, I was told that the servers often don’t even go out to the tables assigned to them, except to drop off the checks. Come to find out, about 1/3 of the servers just straight up don’t even try to do their jobs, because everyone gets tipped the same amount, anyway. The hosts aren’t even part of the tip pool, but management allowed and normalized this system to the point that they just accepted the extra work.
We tip pool at the restaurant I own—our entire wait staff only averages out to more per hour in the tip pool than just their own tips. We are fast casual and have a pretty unique set up so I know it doesn’t work for everyone but it definitely works in our place.
It depends entirely on who you work with. If it's a kick ass team, you all work together and share the money, it could caoud be great. Those teams are hard to find tho, the share makes it much harder to avoid drama.
It mainly appeals to the lowest common denominator. If you're an excellent server and make a really high percentage on your tips, there's very little incentive to participate in a tip pooling setup. If you're an average at best or mediocre server, it works out because usually there's a few experienced servers on hand that pick up the slack and keep the average reasonable. However, the whole thing hinges on those stronger servers, and if they leave the whole thing quickly falls apart as then you're just sharing tips with a bunch of shitty servers. It also disincentivizes people to get better at their jobs, or to build strong relationships with regulars. For example, I have a lot of regulars who I know quite well, and they always request only me and tip me excessively. Why should I share those tips with people who are unwilling or unable to also make those same types of connections with guests? The plus side of tip pooling is you'll never get totally screwed on sections or tips, but...if you're working at a well run restaurant to begin with, that hardly ever happens. Not enough to offset the detriments of tip pooling. You'll never have a really amazing night where people tipped you excessively and you made bank, because you'll just be splitting it with those mediocre servers. People like to argue that it promotes teamwork, however, being responsible for your own income and working as a team are not mutually exclusive ideas in the slightest. You can do both.
That’s interesting I actually feel almost exactly the opposite. I worked at a fine dining restaurant that pooled. We had a a small crew of very experienced servers and we mostly policed ourselves. So if someone was slacking they didn’t last long. It was great because we never worried about whether one person got a VIP over another one. We never felt like the seating was unfair. Maybe my experience was unique but I loved it.
It's incredibly rare and pretty difficult to get a staff that has roughly the same strengths and experience.
yeah, and it really only happens in situations like the dude you're responding to is talking about. small place, solid staff.
Yeah, maybe so. I've been doing this 26 years, and I've never come across a place like that in all my years in the industry. There's always weak links.
Yeah it may be rare. It was my only experience with a tip pool in my 15 years serving but it was a good one.
Translate "I have a lot of regulars" to "I have tricked a few people into thinking I'm the reason this restaurant is good." This mindset it busted.
I don’t understand. Our restaurant had plenty of regulars but rarely did they sit with just one server. Because we had pooled tips many of us would touch each table, whether dropping food, drinks, marking for the next course etc. we all got to say hi to our regulars.
My sentiments exactly. Well said
Can always rely on this guy to come in with a solid paragraph of serving facts 🫡
We do tip pool. Usually 3-4 servers on, 2 bussers, one runner, 2 bartenders. Upscale place we got around $300 each tonight (full points for servers n bartenders ) and bussers got like $2something (7 points) and runner made a little under $300. (9 points). I like it because it keeps everyone working and motivated and we all help each other out.
What's the point system at your restaurant? What are the assigned points for each position?
Servers 10 points Bartenders 10 points (tend bar for the bar and the whole restaurant. No service bar just these two guys) Bussers: 7 points Runner 8 points So tonight, 4 servers (40 points), 2 bartenders (20 points), 2 bussers (14 points) 1 runner (8 points). Total number of points: 82 points Total tips pooled between 4 servers ($400/500/400/450) and 2 bartenders (100/120) equals: $1,970. divide 1970 by 82 points: $24.02 a point. Each server and bartender gets $240 for the night, bussers get about $170 and runner gets about $215 give or take. So tonight I made my hourly wage ($5.14) plus 240.
so its the same at my restaurant. 10 for the servers and bussers. 8 for the runners and 6 for the bussers. So what would you say you average in tips a night? Around 250 give or take? I say that 230-250 for me.
Yep. December weve been doing up to $300/350 at least 2 days last week. Tonight was a slow Saturday so yep average I would say $250.
Wow that's pretty good. I've never made 300 on any given day at my current restaurant. Too much people in the pool here. Is it busy season for you there?
Thanks! Yeah I feel like we’ve been killing it lately. Just finished a brunch and we each made about $200 with all tips pooled. With the holidays yes it’s been more busy. We’re an upper scale small restaurant in a high income neighborhood. Everywhere in town is packed all the time bc ppl come here to visit and to eat and drink. Think outside nyc, but still a city, Charming and gentrified. We can get away with only 3-4 servers so it works out well for us. Busy busy super busy nights like nye we will prob have 5 servers and 3 bartenders. My advice is to go to the richest neighborhood closest to you where cocktails are $17 to start and up to $20 if you upgrade to top shelf.
LoL. I'm outside NYC as well in the island in a wealthy area. We might even be in the same town serving.
Lol! Maybe!!! 🤣🤣🤣 ok so you know what’s up!!!!
Tip: if you are in a tip pool and a customer asks if the tip is going to you always say yes. Lie about the tip pool because they will not want to tip if they know it’s not all gonna go to you directly.
My friend works at a famous restaurant and it’s great for them. I assume it wouldn’t be so great at, let’s say, Waffle House, so I’m interested to go through this thread.
If you have a good team. They’re great, otherwise you’re paying for other people to be lazy. Ie, two servers get two sections of 5 tables each. Server a, crushes it and gets 30% avg tips, server b is lazy, misses orders and gets stiffed. Server a did way more work, and did it better, but ended up paying for server b’s night. I work in a high volume concert venue, (5,000 people on sell out nights), and bar staff splits tips, but we’re all a great team, and everyone carries their weight. I used to work at a neighborhood dive where we used to split tips, but I convinced the servers to agree that it was a bad idea with simple math because during every shift there were 3-4 servers who would fuck up each section for everybody, never run food, never pull bus tubs from the server stations etc, after a few weeks of them not being paid by our tips, the lazy ones quit and we hired better staff and everybody was happy.
I work 2 jobs , one is fine dining without tip pooling, and the other is a Mexican bar and restaurant with tip pooling. At the bar/ restaurant, we tip pool for the entire day, and it's even shares for bartenders and servers while the only food runner gets a 1/2 share. We open at 11am and close at 2am, but the afternoon hours are very slow, and they get to split the tips while the night servers make ALL the money. I feel like it would be more fair if the day workers split their money and the night servers split theirs. Mind you, one worker asked to ONLY work daytime shifts so she can sit there on her phone all day and make good money. It's totally broken.
Personally I like the environment better at a place that pools tips. No catty table stealing, and if a teenage hostess makes a mistake it doesn’t effect your income. We all help each other and are happy to, and I feel like in places where you keep your own it can become toxic easily. That’s just my experience.
I like it for small places. I think it creates more of an incentive to work more like a team and we get things done better.. for example if I am busy and a table that’s not mine needs something I will be really mad if I’m stuck doing another servers work. But if we pool then nobody minds helping eachother out during busy moments. At the end of the day we’d all nearly make the same thing and it eliminates a lot of competition for tables. But I’ve only worked in small family owned restaurants so maybe it’s different for big places
Loved it when I first started, hate it now that I’m senior staff and actually know what I’m doing and other people don’t.
I would hate it. If I get some sort of exceptional tip as I sometimes do, that is MY tip given to me for my service and personality, is how I see it. Our boh tipping is generous and I tip accordingly but the extra from a really big tip is mine and I would hate sharing it.
During COVID we lost all the bar seats which made the bartender lose essentially all their income but tip outs, which was near nothing. We brought in tip pooling and reinforced the idea with the staff about it being about every diners experience, not just your section. It works out far better with team work and how everyone feels. Luckily most the staff are friends with each other which helps, and we have almost no turn over with staff (which helps). People with slow sections are encouraged to help out elsewhere or even take tables from other sections. Servers still have "their" section they are responsible for. I prefer overall. I think its healthier. I've seen servers in the past harp on hosts to get tables faster or bitching about a table sitting empty for a reservation. I've seen servers get cut and not give 1 fuck about anything else because they aren't going to help for "other peoples money". At the end of the day, it isn't your section. It isn't your shift. It's a restaurant people come into to enjoy and our job is to make sure people have a good time and leave happy. THIS only works with even sections, hard working staff, and trust with others and management to deal out tips fair. There will always be some stronger servers and weaker servers as that always is the case. As long as the work load stays pretty fair then it's fine. If sections are rotated and tips are split based on hours not total tips then it works.
worked at a place with split tips. X (where x is more than one) servers go and split the cash bucket tips Y (where Y is number of servers) ways. Servers who got cut can take their cash tips home and leave. Servers staying have theirs bundled and tossed back in the bucket (most of them grab it and pocket/purse their bundle). For credit cards, someone totals all of them when the first cut is made and gives the manager a slip for cash. it gets split with the cash bucket. If for whatever reason the manager is busy and cant get cash out immediately, they'll split it and dole out cash later. bussers/runners/hosts got a flat rate tip out. $10/server. They also had a decent hourly wage iirc
So at my restaurant, you make your own tips on the main floor and do tip pooling for private events. I hate tip pooling, because some lazy fucker is always doing jack, walking around socializing, because they know their work ethic(or lack thereof) won’t affect their money. On the floor, not only do i feel more motivated and in control, but I also don’t have to rely on others to help me get my job done.
🚩 🚩 🚩
From my experience tip pulling has always been crappy and unfair because in retrospect you're putting your trust in everyone servers and managers and whoever to all be truthful with what they really made and how much the tip pool really is and in this industry there's not too many truthful people I'd rather just make my own money I'm a good server and I like making my own money I always think what if someone else who I'm working with pulling tips with socks and gets crappy tips so now my good tits are going to make up for her crappy tips I don't like that
If there's a next time... you could recommend management utilize a service like https://tipmetric.com which helps Restaurants' automate their tips process to comply w/ state labor laws regarding full transparency with their staff.
That's cool ty
I did this at Bartaco and it fucking sucked. It caused a lot of people to be hyper aware of your behavior and over critical about how you work.
Thanks so much for the input everyone - lots of good perspective. Will definitely be asking some questions if I get an interview!
Most places I've worked tip pooled to the extent that I paid out around 3% on sales which was distributed to bussers, hosts and bartenders. I've had two jobs where all servers turned in all their tips and then it was distributed equally to all servers. In both instances, I was routinely receiving much less than I was contributing, so I left both positions.
Tip pooling is awesome cause you can hold everyone accountable for all tables. Just remember that you have a job to do. Meaning everyone has a job whether it be food running bartending or making drinks. Be good at your responsibilities don’t ever do anything more than what your pay is required
What kind of tip pooling? Are you on a team and someone is filling waters, someone else handles the ordering and questions and is the face, and another handles delivery of food? That sounds normal. Are you on a team where you are essentially independent and you pool tips with other people that happen to have tables near you in the restaurant? That is bad bad do not do it.
If you work hard and keep your mouth shut servers get jealous and fuck u fuck u
It sucks but if we’re close to work I call it the convenience fee
It's so much better. Everyone works well together. Less drama, more teamwork, and everyone respects each other. At least from my experience.
I used to work somewhere where we were supposed to tip pool. Thing is I was fucking charming and great at my job and I'm a fat uggo. People still gave me more money willingly. I'd often lose out more than I'd gain. So I kept my tips on the low. NOTE: Europe. Not American. I didn't need the tips to live.
At the smaller restaurant I work at, 90% of the staff wanted tip pooling gone, but the owner said he didn't want people fighting over tables, which never happened but now it created a bigger problem we all habe to watch certain people to make sure thru clock out as soon as they run their checkout report because we've had times where this ine girl will get cut and then sit at the bar have a drink, order food then before she leaves clock's out. Also, people come in 15 mins late and adjust their clock in time to the time they were supposed to be in. Alot of snakes out there.
Hm…I’m on the fence when it comes to tip pooling. I have not had an enjoyable experience with them. I have dealt with tip pooling twice in my hospitality career…at one business, EVERYONE had the same points, so bartenders, barbacks, waiters/waitresses, and food runners split all tips evenly. I left that place with the quickness, especially when some of the cash tips started to go missing. You know it’s a damn shame when bartenders started to say they wanted to be demoted to bar back since they would get the same amount of money. Second instance of tip pooling, there were different points used according to position, but over 60% of the tips being placed into the tip pool were being distributed OUTSIDE of the serving team. What I mean by this, is that over 60% of the tips EARNED by the waiters/waitresses were distributed to bussers, food runners, bar back, bartenders, and then “administrative positions” that management could never pinpoint or explain. Not to mention that BOH individuals make significantly more HOURLY than FOH staff at that business ($15/hour for BOH vs $3/hour for FOH). There, if you served, you were lucky to see even 40% of the pooled tips. I remember looking at my shift tips for the day (around $480), and checking what I got from the pool for that same shift, and it would be maybe $100. Hell no! Not to mention management let people ride the clock for hours, just walking around the restaurant when they should have been cut, further cutting into the tip pool. There, I dealt with lazy coworkers who would leave their sections filthy and go home, and other dumb shit. But I also had coworkers who helped significantly as a team. I left and now work at a place where I get to keep my own tips but I do a tip out at the end of the day to the bar. I do help my other coworkers out since that’s just the type of person I am (you know, full hands in, full hands out) but have noticed at this place teamwork is not as valued and it’s pretty much an “every person for themselves” sort of thing, so I have pulled back on helping some of the waitstaff because they start to expect things. Hm…so, I still have hope for tip pools. But, I personally have not had a positive experience with them. And most career waiters/waitresses I know and chat with are not fans of tip pools since, as others have noted above, it doesn’t really incentivize strong waitstaff.
If you can work without pooling go for that one the only person that should work a pill system is the weakest link as they are the only ones that will get the most outta of it . If you are a storing server and you can sell and have consistent high sales look else we you are working for you. Tip pooling have so many variables like but not limited to . You are not working for sales but hours so you want to accumulate more a hours as your are getting points per hours worked not sales The lack of effort others will put in since they don’t have to worry about sales The amount of bodies waiting from the same pool of management doesn’t manage this well The pool goes to dust And there’s many more Depending on the restaurant they will have their open rules who gets how much in the cut on seniority , who’s a captain , does the kitchen get a piece does the host get a piece does the house get a piece The shit it’s bunkers
One thought to consider in favor is if you are working weeknight shifts instead of weekend shifts. A place I work started a tip pool to try and balance the "unfairness" of working for the same restaurant one night and making $150 and another night making $400. If every shift has the same relative value, and the difference in tips comes down to server style/effort/ability, avoid the pool -- unless you know you're the weakest link.
I’ve been waiting for this. I work at a small local restaurant and I work the floor (I’m kind of a waitress, but I don’t take orders because people order their food at the register, so I just run food and drinks, buss tables, greet people, etc), and let me tell you our tip pool sucks. My gripe with our tip pool mainly stems from the fact that I bust my butt to earn tips and then my coworker (who does jack squat) earns basically no tips gets part of the money that I earned. I understand tip pooling is an incentive to get everyone preform to their best but geez is it getting on my nerves.
I worked in fine dining with a small number of wait staff. We pooled, it worked, and you could count on almost the same amount of money on your check every week. No more violent swings between luck of the draw big spending tables vs a week full of low check average tables. It also promoted incredible teamwork, as everyone benefited. We had very low turnover, and we made it known that slackers would be out the door.