[QUOTE=NFRs2000NYC,Feb 7 2009, 07:29 AM] As someone who is in the restaurant industry in NYC as a career, you can take this to the bank....

1)You do not NEED to tip for takeout.

 

Carhop at sonic is a great highschool job. They make decent money for what they do.

I never tip for takeout either.

 

For bartenders: if you're having one drink, toss in a buck. If you're going to be there a while, run a tab and tip 20% if you got healthy pours.

Here's a question - several places (Chili's, for example) do a curbside to go pickup - what's the consensus? I usually toss a couple of bucks on the tab for boxing and bagging the chow and walking out in the cold.

Got Snappy Tomato pizza last night - kid had the pizza there in 20 minutes, and "it was just out of the oven" hot - gave him a fiver.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tip#United_States

How in the world is a person supposed to know all of this?

 

This is for you and the other Bill Gates and pro athlete story tellers and dreamers out there...

How many of these '250k net' waiters do you have working for you? I find that figure highly suspect, but will take you on your word for it. The amount of revenue required for a restaurant to provide those kinds of earnings for waitstaff would be ridiculous. Either your margins are astronomical, or you do an extremely large number of covers (or both). And yes, even if they make that supposed amount, they could still be uneducated... unless you have people with doctorates waiting tables for you.

The two groups you mentioned (the rich and the educated) are not mutually exclusive, but education and earning power ARE correlated. Just so we are clear, education != intelligence.
ref:The date and nominal figures in this data are irrelevant, the relationship is the important part to note: http://www.bls.gov/emp/emptab7.htm

Back on topic... I still stand by what I said about tipping.

 

^^^I agree 100,000% Waiters dont even make that at 5star restaurants. The place would have to be a total front.

 

also you have to take in consideration the tip outs some servers have to do. My wife recently took a part time job as a server at a nicer sushi/teppanyaki restaurant. She has to tip out the Bar, Sushi chefs, and Teppanyaki chefs. A percentage of her tips are taken at the end of the night for each of these. She also only makes the 2 dollars and change minimum.

so if you think that money you left at the table for a tip is just going to the server at some of these joints, think again.

and now that she has taken a job doing this, when we go out to eat I'm tipping a good 25% at least usually

I do not tip carryout, but do tip curbside (rarely do curbside though)

 

I find the 250k cash highly suspect. IF they worked EVERY day in the year, they would have to cash out $685 per day. If this is a top tier restaurant, and they're making $100 in tips per table, you're looking at 6-7 covers.

The numbers just don't jive. I can see making 100k/year, but 250k just sounds waaaay out there.

 

it's slightly possible, depending on the price of the food and the clientele that are there.

but shit, NYC? money there doesn't go a long way. maybe you'll make $100k+ a year, but how much is rent?

 

This ain't your local Red Lobsters here folks....this is high-end dining, and in most cases you need to make a reservation well in advance to get in these places, and they are usually packed.

I wouldn't underestimate the numbers. Having eaten at quite a few of these types of restaurants myself when I worked in the city I can tell you that if you are out with clients or colleagues, in say a party of 8....you will be dropping at the very least $1500-2500 on food alone. Add wine for dinner, and then after dinner drinks, that's another $500-1500, depending on what you are drinking. This is just one table mind you. There are also private rooms in a lot of these types of restaurants as well, to go along with the other 30 or so tables in a restaurant.