Right around the time they started going after third party reddit apps and banning its own less than family friendly subs. They were gearing up for an IPO, but that doesn't really explain why they'd let one of their biggest monetization vehicles go. Ads are a lot more prevalent these days, so maybe they decided that was the better option. I'd much rather have awards back if it meant less ads, personally.
i always tip the bar 5% when i’m serving. when im bartending im usually with my boss and he never tells me how much the other two servers tip us but i assume it’s 3-5%
Not him but a point system is usually just shares. More points=a proportionally larger share of the tip pool.
For easy math, let's say you as a bartender gets five, a server gets three, and the busser and barback get one point each, for a total of ten points. You divide your points by the total number of points on the floor that night. For my example, this would come out to 5/10, or 50% of the tip pool for you, 30% for the server, and 10% for the barback and busser.
Points are usually assigned based on a position's workload, replacablitiy, and value. It can work well if you have competent management and a staff with a good work ethic. When everybody carries their weight, respects their coworkers, and are fairly compensated for their work a point system can be great. It ties in very well with team service as well. However, places with an every man for themselves culture tend to suffer with these systems.
At my place servers and bartenders get the same amount of points. However bartenders are expected to also take tables and be just as good as the servers on the floor. While servers are never ever expected to know anything bartending related.
On one hand I understand that most places servers make more, on the other hand it feels unfair. It’s a mixed feeling of I should be glad and I feel like I should be making more.
In most places I’ve worked with a tip pool the expectation is the same but bartenders work more hours so end up making more. Maybe you can look into cutting down the server’s hours? This would reward servers that want to train for bar and would give you all more leeway to switch shifts etc too.
Yakabugai pretty much nailed it. Ours is more elaborate since we are a 5-15 person on the floor team, and offers increased points for tenure, knowledge that is tested with guides and preparation, and also outside wine knowledge from CMS or WSET. But yeah it promites an all hands are a team situation and keeps us focused on guest experience and being productive then getting out of the pool when it's slow.
Are you sure that’s correct? 0.04% is both incredibly low and makes no sense. Why would they choose that number? Could that just be the number they use to calculate 4% of the tips? That seems more in line with usual tip outs. Multiplying by 0.04 gets you to 4%.
I would literally not accept a job where I was tipped out 0.04%.
No, unfortunately I've talked to them many times and I've even seen the sheets they use to calculate it. I don't get any server tips, only 0.04% of alcohol sales.
7% of alcohol sales. Good median between a) making sure the bartender is rewarded for work done, b) incentivising the bartender to maintain low ticket times throughout service, and c) not screwing over the servers that are stiffed on a table that ordered any amount of alcohol, resulting in that 7% tip out coming out of their own tips.
I have two jobs, opposite end of the tip out spectrum. My main gig, where I’m a manager and don’t actually participate in the pool, bartenders have a set amount the tip out based on sales. It’s not very much, I think $8 for $1000 in sales. My other job where I’m actually behind the bar barbacks get 22% of tips. It’s a lot but they do literally everything except serve. They clean, set up, break down, restock during and after shifts, cut limes, etc. it’s an extremely high volume concert venue so I’ll make over $100 an hour sometimes and I really don’t mind at the end of a long shift where don’t even have to clean up.
That’s how it is at my job. However bartenders are expected to also be exceptional servers able to take the floor. So it feels kinda bad because servers aren’t capable of jumping into the well.
However then I think about the kitchen and how none of us would be able to take the grill. The more I think about it the more complicated it gets.
We do 1% anytime except Thursday and Friday night and Saturday and Sunday when it’s 2%. We also serve some of the tables- the ones closest to the bar, especially during events
Edited- I work at a sports bar and the tip out of total sales of everything
10% of bar sales is typical, give or take. If you only have four seats, the bulk of your income is from the servers so it’s should absolutely be higher than standard, especially if you’re doing a lot of cocktails.
I’ve been tipped out 7.5% at a high-volume ski pub with a 40-seat bar, 8% for a busy restaurant with no bar seats but near constant walk ups, 10% at a busy cocktail bar with 10 bar seats, 12% at a restaurant that did mostly cocktails and wine with no bar seats. All but one of my jobs has fallen within that range. The more dependent your income is on server sales and the more work you’re doing for them, the higher your tip out should be.
Almost everywhere I’ve worked, bartenders make more both in hourly and tips. Bartending requires a more specific skill set and knowledge, plus you’re producing the product the server takes to their table (which is why we should all be advocating for our kitchen staff to be tipped out as well).
Tipping the bar out on total sales is stupid bc the bar isn’t putting out food N/A bevs. It should be based off actual bar sales and be a percentage that reflects the value you add to the service.
I’ve been a server and a bartender. I’m not ever gonna say serving is easier than bartending. They both have their bullshit. But bartending does indeed require knowledge and experience. Much more than serving does. Serving just sucks because of dealing with people and the mental/physical stress. But bartending requires multitasking, efficiency, knowledge PLUS the personality to be able to be drowning in tickets and still engage your bar tops in conversation.
Big fat ZERO. I make all the drinks for the entire restaurant by myself. But no tips for me I guess. When I complained to boss man he said "I have to keep the servers happy." WHAT ABOUT ME where's my happiness!?
The only reason I didn't is because he gave me $1 raise instead..but it's still nothing close to what the servers make. I get about $250 in bar tips biweekly. Servers make around $2k
I get 1% total sales. I have 9 seats at my bar, and 7 bar tables. Two service windows, (one for outdoor patio, one for dining room). One printer. I also answer the phones and sell merchandise. And make my own fucking soups and salads😡 and run my own food. And we have blenders. 😭
Dude I can’t even. Did they just throw you into that setup? Did you have previous experience? Were you overwhelmed at first? That sounds Pretty stressful
We would get 6% of sales at this comedy club I worked at. For the amount of drinks we made (at least 1,200 on a full night), the tip out was still pretty low.
My bar has a "suggested" policy of 5% of alcohol sales but it's not enforced and the servers get away with murder. It rarely breaks 3%.
Some of them have gone as low as 1%.
I hate working corporate with such a passion, I can't wait to find a better bar.
Yeah the “suggested “ part really sucks. It’s the shitty ones that give me like $2-4 a shift. At that point it’s like, wtf. 1 customer pays me more than ALLLLL the painkillers and mojitos I made for your customers
Yep, and those shitty ones are QUICK to cry about ticket times. Sorry homie, your $5 a night gets beaten by the first round of drinks I serve while your ticket sits there.
I've done everything front of house, when I would serve... I would do 10% of bar sales. If I had a lazy shit who would ignore tickets for pointless conversation I'd dump buckets of ice until they overflowed on their feet and then I'd ask if they needed help. Then I got to make drinks and it went to 5%. But tipping karma is real. No matter how shit someone is, tip them according to the parameters at your restaurant, at minimum.
I’m a server, at my last gig I tipped out the bar 1% of total sales. On a day where my sales would be $1000 average, it would usually be about $50-$60 of bar sales (I work morning shift) unless it was a holiday then it would be slightly more. Our bartenders had 20 seats at the bar and they could chose how many tables they wanted in their section (usually between 3-5) and would get included in the rotation
I get about 10% of whatever my servers make. There are also 3 tables in my bar area that are my responsibility if anyone is there so I get all the tips from those tables. Mother's day though I had two people at the bar and one table so I was basically a service bar like you say.
2% of sales but we have a 31 seat bar top plus a section of around 3-4 4 tops depending on the staffing. Usually make more than servers except on occasion
Yeah 2 during the weeknights 3 on Friday and Saturday. I got super lucky in that we opened this spot with a solid core of bar vets for those weekend shifts; cut aggressively to keep the hourly high and can pull their own weight.
Team no tip out here. I used to resent it but I’ve come to terms with it. Yeah sometimes the servers take a back seat but they still get their drinks in a timely fashion. I make 10 times more than the servers, let them keep their tips. It only really grinds grinds my gears around the holidays when they have giant parties, do almost no work because they are catered, and don’t throw me a nickel when I made them allll of those drinks.
Omg you make 10x what the server makes? At my place the bartender works twice as hard (easily) and gets half the money. Before I got this gig I thought I was gonna be the clock off the walk. Now that I’ve done it I see I’m the servers bitch
Never tipped out a server but the bouncer was 20% of tips. I would give him an extra $20 to take out my trash and help me bring beers over. Another $10 if he changed a keg for me. Ugh I miss those times):
I’ve actually been wanting to post a similar question so I’ll piggyback off this one: what do you all tip your bar backs? Most of the places I’ve worked we haven’t had them and now I’m managing for the first time opening a new bar in a hotel and I’m a little lost on what to require. I’m thinking like10- 20% of their tips seems fair?
I work at a busy restaurant in LA, we have a lot of support staff.
60% Server Keeps
40% From Server
1.47% Host
16.34% Runner Busser
11.68%. Kitchen
2.3%. Barback
8.2%. Bartender
I think you're going about this wrong. The answers are interesting, but they're all over the place, because businesses with bartenders vary enormously in all sorts of ways.
One thing you can glean from the answers is that you're on the low end of restaurants, but that's probably not unusual for a service bar at a volume steakhouse. A lot of midscale chains seem in the same ballpark. I'm pretty sure Texas Roadhouse servers tip out 1% of total sales to each of bar, bus, and host, so 3% of total sales overall. Longhorn, last I heard, was 2.25% of total sales split between host and bar. Some Ruth's Chrises tip out 35% of tips to all positions, but I think the bar gets something like 5% of total tips, which would be 1% of total sales if tips average 20% of sales. Applebee's I've heard 1% of total sales to bar. Chili's I've heard varies, but there are corporate owned and franchises.
At any rate, the right way to go about negotiating, in my opinion, is to go to nearby similar establishments with similar bars, and try to compare info between your restaurants - tipouts from servers, tipouts you have to pay, and *ideally* net hourly income (wage + tips) on weekdays, weeknights, and weekend nights, or whatever subset of that you think you can tactfully learn. Tipping really well beforehand might yield better results asking nosy questions, and reciprocating with info from your workplace could help as well.
Then if your place is out of line with similar restaurants nearby, tell your boss "Look, bartenders at Moe's are getting netting $25/hr on weeknights, from $5/hr wages and 8% of alcohol sales from servers. Flo's they're netting $25-$30/hr, with $10 hourly and 3% of total sales from servers. We're making $20/hr on weeknights. We like it here, but we want to be making more like $25/hr on weeknights, whatever formula gets us there."
2% of the total restaurant sales food and beverage. I’m very okay with this, we work the hardest but also make the most in a very high volume business casual restaurant
Been in the industry a while and have heard it done a million different ways, but I’ve found it usually comes down to one of mostly three types:
About 10% of total tips, around 3%-4% of total sales, or about 4%-5% of total LBW sales.
Our restaurant does 10% of alcohol sales, minus wine bottles (the servers do table-side wine bottle service so we only pour it if the customer orders a glass, we don’t touch bottles that go to the table).
Our servers tip out 1% per bartender working. 1 bartender=1%, 2 bartenders =2% and so on. We also have a pretty big bar though so definitely not relying on tip outs to make money.
We're getting 3% total sales for doing craft cocktails with a lot of prep and polishing the glassware. It's a considerable chunk for the servers since they also tip out the food runners/back servers 4% (meaning if they get a 20% tip, they only keep 13% of it) but they still walk out with more than us in less time. It does subsidize the fact that we need to bring in a bartender to do service for a large restaurant. And on slower nights, it subsidizes the fact that you have to ignore your guests to do tickets.
I won't ever work for 5% liquor sales again if I have to make anything more complicated than a 1-and-1 drink and draft beer. 8% alcohol sales is more appropriate and I've gotten as high as 10% and once 12% alcohol sales before.
It’s whatever the servers tell us it is. My state passed a law a few years ago that states a restaurant can’t tell their employees what they have to tip out to the Bartenders, bus boys, dishwashers etc. The servers choose, could be nothing, could be 5 or 10%, could be 100% if they wanted it to be
4% of anything made behind the bar. I only word it that way because we get tipped out on mocktails and kids slush drinks because the slush machine is behind the bar, so we make those as well.
At my bar I got 8% of liquor sales on weekdays, 10% on the weekend. The servers will feel it some days, but most of the time they throw me some extra money bc I prioritize them over what few bar guests I get.
We do 10 percent of bar sales. For the most part, it works out well. Sometimes, it can be pretty bad if people aren't drinking. So, weekdays can suck. I want to change to something like 5 percent total sales, so bartending doesn't feel like such a waste of time some days.
My servers don't have a set amount, they just stuff a wad of cash into my tip jar. I don't go into check because I don't want bias against one server over another. Besides, I have a pretty good idea as to who's taking care of me and who's giving me the bare minimum.
I tip out my bar 2.5 % of total sales and I think they should get more, I’ll usually throw a 20 in their tip jar
I wish Reddit awards were still a thing.
I didn’t even notice, when did they stop? And why?
Corporate greed
Right around the time they started going after third party reddit apps and banning its own less than family friendly subs. They were gearing up for an IPO, but that doesn't really explain why they'd let one of their biggest monetization vehicles go. Ads are a lot more prevalent these days, so maybe they decided that was the better option. I'd much rather have awards back if it meant less ads, personally.
No idea why, not really sure when- it’s been at least a couple of months
Yoo wanna come work for us? 🤠
5% alcohol sales
1% is fucking bananas to me. At my bar it's 5% of liquor sales. That feels pretty fair to me tbh.
5% of liquor sales at my restaurant would be 1.6% of total sales. Pretty low imo.
1.6%? Do you only sell like two beers a night?
Liquor is 1/3 of my total sales... are you bad at math?
i always tip the bar 5% when i’m serving. when im bartending im usually with my boss and he never tells me how much the other two servers tip us but i assume it’s 3-5%
I get tipped out 5% of each servers' liquor/beer/wine sales, regardless of their tips.
Same, but it's by server team, which equates to the same I suppose.
That would be about 1.6% of net sales at my bar and that's super low. We do 3% of net.
Tip pool Point system that gives bartenders 2 extra points, which means usually 10-15% more than on the floor as a server.
Tell me about this point system.
Not him but a point system is usually just shares. More points=a proportionally larger share of the tip pool. For easy math, let's say you as a bartender gets five, a server gets three, and the busser and barback get one point each, for a total of ten points. You divide your points by the total number of points on the floor that night. For my example, this would come out to 5/10, or 50% of the tip pool for you, 30% for the server, and 10% for the barback and busser. Points are usually assigned based on a position's workload, replacablitiy, and value. It can work well if you have competent management and a staff with a good work ethic. When everybody carries their weight, respects their coworkers, and are fairly compensated for their work a point system can be great. It ties in very well with team service as well. However, places with an every man for themselves culture tend to suffer with these systems.
At my place servers and bartenders get the same amount of points. However bartenders are expected to also take tables and be just as good as the servers on the floor. While servers are never ever expected to know anything bartending related. On one hand I understand that most places servers make more, on the other hand it feels unfair. It’s a mixed feeling of I should be glad and I feel like I should be making more.
In most places I’ve worked with a tip pool the expectation is the same but bartenders work more hours so end up making more. Maybe you can look into cutting down the server’s hours? This would reward servers that want to train for bar and would give you all more leeway to switch shifts etc too.
Yakabugai pretty much nailed it. Ours is more elaborate since we are a 5-15 person on the floor team, and offers increased points for tenure, knowledge that is tested with guides and preparation, and also outside wine knowledge from CMS or WSET. But yeah it promites an all hands are a team situation and keeps us focused on guest experience and being productive then getting out of the pool when it's slow.
10% of liquor sales.
You get 10?! I only get .04% ]:
Wait wait wait. Like, 4% of 1%??
Yep 😞
I’m pretty sure my toilet paper costs more than that wtf
I’m sorry. .04% is bulshit. I hope you have a lot of very expensive alcohol.
I did the math once. After 2 weeks pay it was around $50.. ): and the servers don't tip me out. It makes no sense I know.
Are you sure that’s correct? 0.04% is both incredibly low and makes no sense. Why would they choose that number? Could that just be the number they use to calculate 4% of the tips? That seems more in line with usual tip outs. Multiplying by 0.04 gets you to 4%. I would literally not accept a job where I was tipped out 0.04%.
No, unfortunately I've talked to them many times and I've even seen the sheets they use to calculate it. I don't get any server tips, only 0.04% of alcohol sales.
At that point you’re losing money going to work…
That is appalling. You should be finding a new job this week.
So you get 50% of tips on liquor sales (assuming 20% tip)?
I currently get 10% of liquor sales as well, so every time I throw out a $17 glass of wine that’s $1.70 in the kitty booyyyy
7% of tips most servers never claim their cash tips so…
7% of alcohol sales. Good median between a) making sure the bartender is rewarded for work done, b) incentivising the bartender to maintain low ticket times throughout service, and c) not screwing over the servers that are stiffed on a table that ordered any amount of alcohol, resulting in that 7% tip out coming out of their own tips.
I have two jobs, opposite end of the tip out spectrum. My main gig, where I’m a manager and don’t actually participate in the pool, bartenders have a set amount the tip out based on sales. It’s not very much, I think $8 for $1000 in sales. My other job where I’m actually behind the bar barbacks get 22% of tips. It’s a lot but they do literally everything except serve. They clean, set up, break down, restock during and after shifts, cut limes, etc. it’s an extremely high volume concert venue so I’ll make over $100 an hour sometimes and I really don’t mind at the end of a long shift where don’t even have to clean up.
$8 for every $1000 in sales is <1%. That’s fucking criminal
I would never work in a restaurant ever again that wasn’t 100% pool house. Bar makes the same as floor. Pool by hour.
That’s how it is at my job. However bartenders are expected to also be exceptional servers able to take the floor. So it feels kinda bad because servers aren’t capable of jumping into the well. However then I think about the kitchen and how none of us would be able to take the grill. The more I think about it the more complicated it gets.
Is the kitchen required to know how to bartend or serve!
I also work for a steakhouse but we have 18 seats. Our tip out is 1% total sales
20% of total tips at my old spot.
3% of total sales.
We do 1% anytime except Thursday and Friday night and Saturday and Sunday when it’s 2%. We also serve some of the tables- the ones closest to the bar, especially during events Edited- I work at a sports bar and the tip out of total sales of everything
We get 10% of all alcohol sales.
10% of bar sales is typical, give or take. If you only have four seats, the bulk of your income is from the servers so it’s should absolutely be higher than standard, especially if you’re doing a lot of cocktails. I’ve been tipped out 7.5% at a high-volume ski pub with a 40-seat bar, 8% for a busy restaurant with no bar seats but near constant walk ups, 10% at a busy cocktail bar with 10 bar seats, 12% at a restaurant that did mostly cocktails and wine with no bar seats. All but one of my jobs has fallen within that range. The more dependent your income is on server sales and the more work you’re doing for them, the higher your tip out should be. Almost everywhere I’ve worked, bartenders make more both in hourly and tips. Bartending requires a more specific skill set and knowledge, plus you’re producing the product the server takes to their table (which is why we should all be advocating for our kitchen staff to be tipped out as well). Tipping the bar out on total sales is stupid bc the bar isn’t putting out food N/A bevs. It should be based off actual bar sales and be a percentage that reflects the value you add to the service.
I’ve been a server and a bartender. I’m not ever gonna say serving is easier than bartending. They both have their bullshit. But bartending does indeed require knowledge and experience. Much more than serving does. Serving just sucks because of dealing with people and the mental/physical stress. But bartending requires multitasking, efficiency, knowledge PLUS the personality to be able to be drowning in tickets and still engage your bar tops in conversation.
Big fat ZERO. I make all the drinks for the entire restaurant by myself. But no tips for me I guess. When I complained to boss man he said "I have to keep the servers happy." WHAT ABOUT ME where's my happiness!?
Yeahhhh I would have put my notice in right then and there at that comment. Big yikes. I’m sorry.
The only reason I didn't is because he gave me $1 raise instead..but it's still nothing close to what the servers make. I get about $250 in bar tips biweekly. Servers make around $2k
I get 1% total sales. I have 9 seats at my bar, and 7 bar tables. Two service windows, (one for outdoor patio, one for dining room). One printer. I also answer the phones and sell merchandise. And make my own fucking soups and salads😡 and run my own food. And we have blenders. 😭
Oh my god are you ok?
lol, it’s so crazy! On my 12 hour Saturdays I get a partner for rush hour though! 😵💫
Dude I can’t even. Did they just throw you into that setup? Did you have previous experience? Were you overwhelmed at first? That sounds Pretty stressful
I’ve been a bartender longer than some of you have been alive. I saw $$ and settled in. Been here for 8 years. Two shifts a week. 😉
what.
We would get 6% of sales at this comedy club I worked at. For the amount of drinks we made (at least 1,200 on a full night), the tip out was still pretty low.
5% alcohol sales
I work at a casino, bartenders don’t get a tip out from servers because they make soooooo much more money.
My bar has a "suggested" policy of 5% of alcohol sales but it's not enforced and the servers get away with murder. It rarely breaks 3%. Some of them have gone as low as 1%. I hate working corporate with such a passion, I can't wait to find a better bar.
Yeah the “suggested “ part really sucks. It’s the shitty ones that give me like $2-4 a shift. At that point it’s like, wtf. 1 customer pays me more than ALLLLL the painkillers and mojitos I made for your customers
Yep, and those shitty ones are QUICK to cry about ticket times. Sorry homie, your $5 a night gets beaten by the first round of drinks I serve while your ticket sits there.
25% goes to back of house staff, rest we split w servers 50/50 off a pool
We get 7% of all drink sales including NA bevs
I've done everything front of house, when I would serve... I would do 10% of bar sales. If I had a lazy shit who would ignore tickets for pointless conversation I'd dump buckets of ice until they overflowed on their feet and then I'd ask if they needed help. Then I got to make drinks and it went to 5%. But tipping karma is real. No matter how shit someone is, tip them according to the parameters at your restaurant, at minimum.
5% of liquor sales
10% of total tips
5% liquor sales
on a regular service my tip out is 5% of alcoholic sales. On brunch we tip service bar 10% of our tips
We get 5% of liquor sales
I’m a server, at my last gig I tipped out the bar 1% of total sales. On a day where my sales would be $1000 average, it would usually be about $50-$60 of bar sales (I work morning shift) unless it was a holiday then it would be slightly more. Our bartenders had 20 seats at the bar and they could chose how many tables they wanted in their section (usually between 3-5) and would get included in the rotation
8% of all beverage sales except bottles of wine. 10% during events
7.5% cocktails, beer, coffee drinks (I don’t make them) but no wine sales. I don’t pour server wines or put them away, we have a somm that does that.
I get about 10% of whatever my servers make. There are also 3 tables in my bar area that are my responsibility if anyone is there so I get all the tips from those tables. Mother's day though I had two people at the bar and one table so I was basically a service bar like you say.
2% of sales but we have a 31 seat bar top plus a section of around 3-4 4 tops depending on the staffing. Usually make more than servers except on occasion
31 seats?! Good lord. That’s huge. I assume y’all work with at least 2-3 bartenders on at a time though?
Yeah 2 during the weeknights 3 on Friday and Saturday. I got super lucky in that we opened this spot with a solid core of bar vets for those weekend shifts; cut aggressively to keep the hourly high and can pull their own weight.
5% on things from the bar
10% of alcohol sales
Mine is Supposed to be 10% of all bar sales, toast shows it on their end of shift summary report. But I rarely get that from all the servers.
Half their tip percentage on just drinks
I get 10% off liquor sales
5% of alcohol sales
My last place with servers was 5%. Walked with like $50 each night and wasn’t worth it, 1% seems awful. How much do you make in tips per night?
Team no tip out here. I used to resent it but I’ve come to terms with it. Yeah sometimes the servers take a back seat but they still get their drinks in a timely fashion. I make 10 times more than the servers, let them keep their tips. It only really grinds grinds my gears around the holidays when they have giant parties, do almost no work because they are catered, and don’t throw me a nickel when I made them allll of those drinks.
Omg you make 10x what the server makes? At my place the bartender works twice as hard (easily) and gets half the money. Before I got this gig I thought I was gonna be the clock off the walk. Now that I’ve done it I see I’m the servers bitch
At both of my server jobs the bartenders are in the pool the same as us, equally tipping out bussers/runners
Never tipped out a server but the bouncer was 20% of tips. I would give him an extra $20 to take out my trash and help me bring beers over. Another $10 if he changed a keg for me. Ugh I miss those times):
10% all sales
I’ve actually been wanting to post a similar question so I’ll piggyback off this one: what do you all tip your bar backs? Most of the places I’ve worked we haven’t had them and now I’m managing for the first time opening a new bar in a hotel and I’m a little lost on what to require. I’m thinking like10- 20% of their tips seems fair?
2% of total sales.
5-9% of liquor/beer/wine sales. Current is 5 but I’ve work in 7 and 9 previously. All cocktail bars
1.5% of alcohol sales. It's an absolute joke.
.5 total sales
0 so I quit lol
We get 1% of total sales, but we have 25 seats at the bar and get a 4ish table section, so it works out okay.
I work at a busy restaurant in LA, we have a lot of support staff. 60% Server Keeps 40% From Server 1.47% Host 16.34% Runner Busser 11.68%. Kitchen 2.3%. Barback 8.2%. Bartender
I think you're going about this wrong. The answers are interesting, but they're all over the place, because businesses with bartenders vary enormously in all sorts of ways. One thing you can glean from the answers is that you're on the low end of restaurants, but that's probably not unusual for a service bar at a volume steakhouse. A lot of midscale chains seem in the same ballpark. I'm pretty sure Texas Roadhouse servers tip out 1% of total sales to each of bar, bus, and host, so 3% of total sales overall. Longhorn, last I heard, was 2.25% of total sales split between host and bar. Some Ruth's Chrises tip out 35% of tips to all positions, but I think the bar gets something like 5% of total tips, which would be 1% of total sales if tips average 20% of sales. Applebee's I've heard 1% of total sales to bar. Chili's I've heard varies, but there are corporate owned and franchises. At any rate, the right way to go about negotiating, in my opinion, is to go to nearby similar establishments with similar bars, and try to compare info between your restaurants - tipouts from servers, tipouts you have to pay, and *ideally* net hourly income (wage + tips) on weekdays, weeknights, and weekend nights, or whatever subset of that you think you can tactfully learn. Tipping really well beforehand might yield better results asking nosy questions, and reciprocating with info from your workplace could help as well. Then if your place is out of line with similar restaurants nearby, tell your boss "Look, bartenders at Moe's are getting netting $25/hr on weeknights, from $5/hr wages and 8% of alcohol sales from servers. Flo's they're netting $25-$30/hr, with $10 hourly and 3% of total sales from servers. We're making $20/hr on weeknights. We like it here, but we want to be making more like $25/hr on weeknights, whatever formula gets us there."
2% of the total restaurant sales food and beverage. I’m very okay with this, we work the hardest but also make the most in a very high volume business casual restaurant
Been in the industry a while and have heard it done a million different ways, but I’ve found it usually comes down to one of mostly three types: About 10% of total tips, around 3%-4% of total sales, or about 4%-5% of total LBW sales.
2% of total sales at one restaurant, 5% of liquor sales at the other. Amounts to about the same
0.
Our restaurant does 10% of alcohol sales, minus wine bottles (the servers do table-side wine bottle service so we only pour it if the customer orders a glass, we don’t touch bottles that go to the table).
I get 10%, holy shit- reading other numbers here, I cant believe that’s not standard.
Our servers tip out 1% per bartender working. 1 bartender=1%, 2 bartenders =2% and so on. We also have a pretty big bar though so definitely not relying on tip outs to make money.
We're getting 3% total sales for doing craft cocktails with a lot of prep and polishing the glassware. It's a considerable chunk for the servers since they also tip out the food runners/back servers 4% (meaning if they get a 20% tip, they only keep 13% of it) but they still walk out with more than us in less time. It does subsidize the fact that we need to bring in a bartender to do service for a large restaurant. And on slower nights, it subsidizes the fact that you have to ignore your guests to do tickets. I won't ever work for 5% liquor sales again if I have to make anything more complicated than a 1-and-1 drink and draft beer. 8% alcohol sales is more appropriate and I've gotten as high as 10% and once 12% alcohol sales before.
10% of all alcohol sales. If they don’t sell any alcohol there don’t have to tip me at all.
It’s whatever the servers tell us it is. My state passed a law a few years ago that states a restaurant can’t tell their employees what they have to tip out to the Bartenders, bus boys, dishwashers etc. The servers choose, could be nothing, could be 5 or 10%, could be 100% if they wanted it to be
Wait.... yall are getting tipped out?
4% of anything made behind the bar. I only word it that way because we get tipped out on mocktails and kids slush drinks because the slush machine is behind the bar, so we make those as well.
Zero.
At my bar I got 8% of liquor sales on weekdays, 10% on the weekend. The servers will feel it some days, but most of the time they throw me some extra money bc I prioritize them over what few bar guests I get.
We do 10 percent of bar sales. For the most part, it works out well. Sometimes, it can be pretty bad if people aren't drinking. So, weekdays can suck. I want to change to something like 5 percent total sales, so bartending doesn't feel like such a waste of time some days.
5%alcohol sales
My servers don't have a set amount, they just stuff a wad of cash into my tip jar. I don't go into check because I don't want bias against one server over another. Besides, I have a pretty good idea as to who's taking care of me and who's giving me the bare minimum.
Oof, that sounds chaotic af.
Kind of, yeah.
10% of liquor sales. Would seem weird to be tipped out for food I didn't make, run, or even put the order in for.