Industry Standard: Servers - What do they do all day anyway?

[Robin Garr]

Industry Standard: Servers - What do they do all day, anyway?
Insider Info For Those Who Dine Out
With Columnist Marsha Lynch

It looks easy, doesn't it? I mean, they just walk up to your table and take your order. Half the time they don't even bring your food, right? A food runner delivers your plates - and a busser picks them up after you're done. Of course your server may help you with wine or beer pairings (and also bring the bill!) but, all told, they may spend 10 minutes or less with you. So what exactly do servers do to earn a tip?

First of all, be aware that most servers make far less than minimum wage (the minimum for tipped employees is $2.13 per hour in Kentucky). Yet they must come in two hours or more before opening to get the restaurant ready for service. So, for less than five dollars (before tax!), they have to attend to all sorts of duties before the guests arrive.

Floors must be vacuumed and walkways swept. If the restaurant offers al Fresco dining, all patio furniture must be wiped clean of dust, road grime, rainwater and unmentionables. The fingerprints of yesterday's patrons must be scrubbed from glass doors. Flatware must be polished and rolled into clean napkins. If there's a bar, it'll have to be buffed to a warm gleam. Wine glasses must be polished until clear of water spots. (If you've ever done this at home, imagine how tedious it would be to do several dozen.) Picture frames and artwork get righted and dusted. Menus are wiped or reprinted. Plants have to be watered and maintained. Liquor deliveries must be checked in and put away. Bathrooms are cleaned and inspected. Coffee, tea and lemonade have to be made. Salt, cheese and pepper flake shakers, pepper mills and sauce bottles have to be filled to the top.

After service there are additional duties to perform. Gum has to be scraped from underneath tables - yes, really. Chairs must be stacked away from the dining area for the morning's vacuuming. Money is counted, and each server has to settle up with management, declaring their tips for the shift. They may also have to distribute part of their tips to other members of the staff who form their support system (such as bartenders, food runners and bussers). Servers can't begin many of these post-service duties until the dining room is empty of patrons; however, good servers will never make it obvious that they are waiting for you to leave.

Good servers do make it look easy, but in a properly run restaurant, it takes backbreaking, foot-aching, hot, exhausting labor and strict attention to detail to perform the daily miracle of smooth service. So, diners: Be mindful of all that servers do to make your dining experience pleasant. Standard, well-informed service should be acknowledged with a tip of around 20 percent of your bill. And if your servers go above and beyond the call of duty, reward them well, because they've earned it.

Marsha Lynch, a graduate of Sullivan University, has worked at many Louisville independent restaurants including Limestone, Jack Fry's, Jarfi's and L&N Wine Bar and Bistro. She is now the pastry chef at Café Lou Lou.

Read the complete report in LEO and on LouisvilleHotBytes.

Thanks Marsha for bringing to life the hard work done by this segment of the entertainment industry. I've always said that working in a restaurant is a great deal harder than it looks. To add to the difficulty, some people seem to think it's OK to show their worst side to a server simply because they are a 'server'. I've know some kind, hard working individuals that normally would do anything for a friend turn into the most obnoxious butt when dealing with those that work for tips. Why is that?

Well done, wonderful read and very informative. I feel most of the general public are unaware of the inner workings of a restaurant and sometime are unappreciative. It is difficult to fathom the not all have worked behind the lines at one point in their lives, but certainly obvious in certain circumstances. Thank you for all you have contributed.

Very nice... Thank You!!!

I thank you for the reality on the wages. Yeah, it needs to change, but maybe it will help people to realize that we get a 2 dollar check every other week on a regular basis. And we don't all work at $200 gigs. Thanks for the shout out Marsha.
xoxo

I understand the rationale for paying less for tipped employees. I don't necessarily agree with it.

Why should servers have to clean floors, table tops before opening and all of the other stuff that a lot of places require? Simply because the restaurants can get away with it and I assume the wage and hours regulators ignore it. This is not server work .. it is janitorial work and you will never get a janitor to work for 2.13/hour. Same with polishing glasses and silverware. That should be the dishwasher work. And you will never get a good dishwasher for less than $ 8/10 per hour.

Would it increase costs to owners? Sure. Would it be passed on to customers? So what.

Would it increase costs to owners? Sure. Would it be passed on to customers? So what.[/quote]


It is difficult enough to make a profit in this business without alienating the guests especially with the economy in shambles; that's what. I also think people need to look at it from a little different perspective. First, if you are employed at a restaurant you work for the restaurant, that means your job is to do what is needed to run the operation as smooth as possible; period-end of story. Second, every place I have ever worked the servers always end up making more than the cooks(not a complaint, just an observation) this occurs with the servers generally working less hours than their back of the house counterparts. I am sure some that there are exceptions to this but they only prove the rule.

I understand the rationale for paying less for tipped employees. I don't necessarily agree with it.

Why should servers have to clean floors, table tops before opening and all of the other stuff that a lot of places require? Simply because the restaurants can get away with it and I assume the wage and hours regulators ignore it. This is not server work .. it is janitorial work and you will never get a janitor to work for 2.13/hour. Same with polishing glasses and silverware. That should be the dishwasher work. And you will never get a good dishwasher for less than $ 8/10 per hour.

Would it increase costs to owners? Sure. Would it be passed on to customers? So what.

i do not agree with ANY of this.
and i know what im talking about.

why should it be dishwasher work as if they dont have a hard enough job already?
why should every task that noone else wants to do fall on the person who does the job that noone else wants? and as for janitorial work... show me a janitor that walks with $100 - $200 a night.
i mopped the floor basically EVERY single day at a very nice/prominent local restaurant for over a year and never minded doing it. just because its not my hobby or favorite thing to do doesnt mean its not something that has to be done. and if a service team is to , truly, fire on all cylinders, there has to be an unspoken knowledge that NO job/task (within reason) is above/below anyone at any given time.
when youre serving at a place where the money is good consistantly, why would that mean you shouldnt use some elbow grease or get your hands dirty when neccessary for the good of the house?

in the biz, this is either 'something you get' or 'something you dont'. ALL elite service teams 'get it'.

Matt, that is what I was getting at, but you said it better. I'd bye ya a beer if I wasn't 700 hundred miles away.

Stepping outside of this thread just for a moment - this is another reason why I like this site. There are all aspects of the restaurant business represented here. From the owners to the food servers, bartenders , bussers and dishers. Everyone.

And now, back into the fray...
Passing the costs along to the customer doesn't matter? Did you miss that thread about customers complaining about their $2 ice tea?

I remember working as a dishwasher and being envious of servers because they made more money than I. All the while, I was made to mop up dirty floors in a kitchen; after a 12 hour work day. The biggest thing they had to do was merry ketchup and use a crappy vacuum on the welcome mats for the Front of the House.

Then, I stopped being envious after discovering some people's behavior dinning out. You could not PAY me enough money to deal with some patrons that waddle their way into a restaurant and feel it's a given right to treat people as they desire; simply because they ordered a chicken salad.

On the subject of cleaning floors, there are restaurants using services to clean Front/Back of the House; thus keeping cost of labor down. It all depends on the needs of a particular store.

Thanks for the props, guys. I wish I'd had just a little more room to say that not EVERY restaurant owner pays servers that minimum of $2.13. Most higher-end places do, though. And I didn't want to leave the impression that servers were being made to slave away for $2.13 during the time the restaurant's not open for business - only that it all evens out (somewhat) in the end.

I always try to be informative when I write Industry Standard, and tell the casual diner something they don't know - and I've often overheard non-tippers and low tippers discussing how they don't think standard service is worth a 20% tip, because "all they did was walk up to the table and take our order". Also, please keep in mind that this column is reprinted in LEO, so it's for wider consumption than just the HotBytes congregation - I know most of the regular posters here aren't necessarily being "educated" when I write.

And yes, at some point I will address the disparity in take-home pay between cooks and servers

"And yes, at some point I will address the disparity in take-home pay between cooks and servers."

YES!

Very nice article Marsha. We pay everyone about the same, and everyone does a little bit of everything.
With a base salary and tips, they all walk away with 12 to 15 per hour. I do the lions share of cooking, but the register and bussing and food running and cleaning ( that is the hardest to prod employees to do) is done by all our staff. It takes a special person to work both front and back, and we have had a huge turnover in our four years, with a thank god really good staff now. I had all my employees read the article just in case they had forgotten what they were responsible for... I've done fine dining waiting and chef duties and it is all the hardest work in town. Thanks for letting the public in on what goes on behind the scene. Peace. Bill

And yes, at some point I will address the disparity in take-home pay between cooks and servers

This issue definitely exists, but cooks do have a choice. If you want to make more money serving, you have every right to do so. I don't really see how it's fair to be upset about. Everyone knows what they're getting into when they take the job.