Deluxe Waiter Caddy™

There are a few tools that every server should have in their arsenal. A good cork screw, a crumber, a lighter, maybe a penlight and certainly a presentation book style organizer. Up until now all of these items have been old standards – unintuitive and generic. Enter the Waiter Caddy™

Developed by former server Katrina Degel, this innovative little organizer has 7 pockets: two of which can be utilized for concentrated sales improvement and up-selling tools. The unique clear, front pockets of the Waiter Caddy™ are the perfect size for standard POS paper or order pad paper. In each pocket, servers can slide the daily specials, menu notes, cocktail list, wine suggestions/pairings, and whatever else you may need quick access to.

Both available models, Original and Deluxe are sold individually to servers at www.TheWaiterDepot.com, and are also available in bulk to restaurants who want to provide a better sales tool to their servers, not only improving their bottom line, but improving the tips of their servers which is sure to boost morale.

The Waiter Caddy™ is a system, not simply an organizer.  It is very easy to use and is a much needed solution for servers to keep their menu and wine notes front and center. Conveniently, each book comes with a brochure discussing several “Cheat Sheet” ideas, as well as tips on how to make more money and pump up sales.

Katrina Degel, creator and owner of TheWaiterDepot.com and TheWaiterCaddy.com, offers free menu and training consultations for her clients on how to motivate staff and improve product knowledge while minimizing server mistakes. Check out the websites at www.TheWaiterDepot.com to view the product, as well as www.TheWaiterCaddy.com to view the ongoing server Learning Forum, and see the endless ideas that are being discovered for this innovative server book.

So throw away that ratty old American Express/Discover Card/Visa presentation book you have been fumbling around with and get your hands on a Waiter Caddy™!

It is a “no brainer” for Tip20! to endorse this fabulous product and we know much benefit servers and restaurants alike will see from it.

This is a paid endorsement. All opinions are 100% ours.

From Purple Slinky,  by Jo Oliver
Re-printed without permission

These are sure fire ways to decrease or lose a tip.

1. Correct sequence when serving courses. Drinks……appetizer……salads…..main course……dessert. Don’t bring me an appetizer and salad at the same time. Who wants their appetizer to get cold while they eat their salad or salad to get hot while they eat their appetizer? I don’t! I especially don’t want my salad, appetizer and main course all served at the same time or within 3 minutes of each other.
2. Proper etiquette, not to mention common sense, dictates that when someone is finished eating a dish they will move the plate to the side. If a plate is still in front of me, then don’t ask if you can take it. Not all of us inhale our food. Some of us enjoy savoring our food, chewing it up, and periodically pausing for conversation, etc.
3. If someone raises a finger, hand, or arm at you, that means they need your attention. It is not a wave goodbye or friendly gesture. So, don’t wave back, just come see what I need.
4. When serving dishes and drinks, don’t put your fingers inside my glass or plate. When I see a waitress pick up all four glasses at the table and carry them with her fingers inside the glass my yuck meter goes haywire. Not only is that spreading germs and completely not acceptable, but how in the world are you going to keep up with whose glass goes where if everyone is drinking the same thing?
5. Don’t ask me if I want dessert when I am not even half way through my meal. How do I know if I want dessert if I am still not sure how much of my meal I am going to eat. I may be too full for dessert. Wait until someone asks for a to go box, pushes their plate to side ( remember this signals someone is finished eating,) or asks for a dessert menu.
6. If you see my glass is empty and I am engaged in conversation, please don’t interrupt me to ask: “Do you want some more drink?” Just fill up the glass.
7. For some reason most servers fit into one of two categories. Either they come by every 2 minutes and ask if everything is good, refill, etc. OR they set your entrée down and you never see them until the bill comes. It is so easy to make yourself seen and accessible, without worrying someone to death.
8. Don’t clean the windows or sweep the carpet next to my table while I am eating. I once had a waitress who sprayed Windex all over the window that was literally two feet from my table. The spray went all over my food and arm. Who wants to eat that? I also don’t want to eat dust from the floor being swept around me.
9. I really can not stand to see a server clean a table, which includes taking their hand and raking crumbs etc.. up, and then come directly over to my table with the germs from the other table. Wash your hands! I don’t want someone else’s half ate crumbs stuck to my glass that you are about to pick up and refill.
10. You put the bill on the table and you see me digging through my purse for correct change, don’t come stand over me. My purse and wallet are none of your business. When the bill is ready for your attention it will be pushed to the side of the table or handed to you.
11. Once you get the bill, don’t ask if I need change. Just go pay the bill. If I do get change, then bring it to me. This is my biggest pet peeve and I can not tell you how many times I was going to leave my server 20-30% tip, but instead answered: “No, I don’t need change anymore” and the server only got the dollar or two left over from the bill.

Our first Tip20! Poll addresses something that is neglected in most tipping vs. no-tipping arguments. If you don’t like tipping, what do you think a fair hourly  wage for servers should be?

Discuss below, also does your answer apply to bartenders as well? or would that change things?

By John Dimsdale – Reposted from PublicRadio.org

The IRS figures the food and beverage business should be sending in some 200,000 tip disclosure forms every year. But only about a quarter ever show up. The IRS wouldn’t go on the record, but said it recently hired an outside contractor to identify slackers and that it’s conducting more audits.
Here’s the way it’s supposed to work: Servers and valets are supposed to report their tips to the boss. The boss reports that cash as employee income. Both the establishment and employees pay taxes on it. But Patrick, a former parking valet in Nashville, who didn’t want his last name used, says it didn’t worked that way in his experience.
“It was more of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with ignorance being bliss on both sides,” said Patrick.
He says restaurants aren’t anxious to pay extra taxes, and neither are workers. The National Restaurant Association wouldn’t grant us an interview about IRS compliance, but says it is working to improve tip reporting. A narrow sample of food service workers finds most decide not to report about half their cash gratuities. We granted them anonymity so they would speak freely.
Erik, a former bartender and waiter here in Washington, says he started out reporting all his tips.
“Originally, I was declaring 100 percent until an older server told me I was essentially being a moron,” said Erik. “She told me, you never declare all your tips, especially not all of your cash tips.”
Tips on credit cards have a paper trail so they have to be reported, but not cash tips. Restaurants say they do advise employees to report all tips — and Jessica, a former waitress from Upper St. Clair, Penn., says hers did.
“In the break room of the restaurant where I worked, they had an entire wall of posters and a lot of them had to do with reporting your tips and what happens when you don’t report your tips correctly,” she said. “There were newspaper clippings of people who got investigated by the IRS.”
Still, cash transactions have long been an opportunity for tax evasion. Sheldon Cohen started the national tip compliance program when he was IRS commissioner 50 years ago.
“Waiters are not less honest than other people,” said Cohen. “They have more opportunity than other people. We discovered it basically doesn’t go necessarily with the occupation, it goes with the opportunity.”
For example, Cohen says, back when he was commissioner, doctors were frequent tax scofflaws.
“Forty-five or 50 years ago doctors received most of their payments in small amounts,” he said. “Doctors’ visit was $5 or $10 and people left cash most of the time.”
It wasn’t long before insurance companies and credit cards put an end to cash changing hands, so doctors had a harder time hiding income. But restaurant servers and bartenders still get an average 40 percent of their tips in cash.
Chris Bergin, publisher of Tax Analysts, says the IRS is under the gun to capture more of that lost revenue.
“We’re running huge deficits. We’ve got an enormous debt,” said Bergin. “The IRS is under political pressure to close what’s called the “tax gap” and go after people who are not paying their taxes.”
But as long as tips are cash, and essentially a private transaction, there may be only so much the IRS can do.

Continued from “Jipped on the Tip” by Doreen Linder of the Allentown Headlines Examiner

Last week told the story of two college students who got arrested for not paying their gratuity.  Well as anticipated, the charges have been dropped.  Northampton County DA John Morganelli said that this is a

Lehigh Pub

matter that should be processed civilly, not criminally.  The City of Bethlehem put out a police statement saying that Northampton County DA John Morganelli felt the,  “charge was not adequate.”

John Wagner and Leslie Pope had drinks, wings, and salad.  They had to go up to the bar to refill their drinks and they had to go find their silverware.  The waitress spent most of her time outside smoking.  When their bill came they refused to pay the 18% gratuity.  They refused to pay it and the bartender called the police.  The police then arrested Wagner and Pope.

The story has made national headlines.  When one looked up Lehigh Pub in an internet search, the second tab down, Yelp.com.  Some of the comments are, “Close this place down,” or “I get better service in a soup kitchen.”  Wagner and Pope are scheduled to be on CNN today.

Even the head of the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, Mr. Patrick Conway said that he did not understand this.  Restaurants typically go on repeat business and want happy customers.  Well Pope and Wagner are not happy and now the whole world knows it.

When the restaurant manager William Sheehan was asked about the charges being dropped, he said it was, “news to him.”  He then read a statement crafted by his lawyer.  They got lawyers involved?  How much is that costing them.  I’m sure much more than the $18.60 lost.

According to the Morning Call Newspaper the definition true definition of gratuity is, “A gift of money, over and above payment due for service, as to a waiter or a bellhop; tip.”  Therefore if you do not like the service, you do not tip.

By the way, who has ever heard of a bar having an 18% gratuity?  This is a pub.  Not a first class restaurant.  Lehigh Pub is not exactly the hotel Ritz.

Tip20 is pleased to welcome Shoes for Crews to it’s list of officially endorsed products! Shoes for crews has been in the business of creating comfortable slip resistant shoes for the service and hospitality industry for over 25 years.

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POINT

Add 10% or 15% to the bill? I think not
Posted By DENNIS THOMPSETT of TheSunTimes

My mother was a waitress at the Trio for years, but even so, I must admit, I don’t understand the idea of giving tips to people in restaurants. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

I don’t get it. Why am I expected to pay extra to have someone do their job in a pleasant and efficient manner?

And apparently I’m not the only Canadian with this feeling. In Florida and Los Angeles and Hawaii and Las Vegas and most of the other big tourist towns of the world, the natives hate Canadians because we’re just not big tippers.

Apparently we expect value for money.

To get a really memorable tip from me or from any other sensible Canadian, a waitress has to set herself on fire, cartwheel across the floor and deliver hot, heavy plates to the table with her feet. While whistling Dixie.

Otherwise, forget it.

I remember going on a cruise with my family years ago and, at the end, everybody expected a tip. And not just a little tip either. They all wanted $300 or $400 each. We got a circular about it before we disembarked. There were sure a lot of disappointed faces as we waved a fond farewell to that ship of fools.

The common argument is that these people depend on tips to make a living. Well here’s a tip: get a job that pays better. No one should have to depend on the kindness of strangers to support their families.

The only people who really benefit from tipping are restaurant owners who can continue to offer low pay and no benefits. Some places, like pizza joints, often pay nothing and the delivery guy only makes tips. In other parts of the world, or even here in Canada when you have a big crowd, they automatically add a tip on the bill. You have no say in it. You are, in fact, forced to pay the wages of the help in addition to paying for your food.

So here’s something to think about — every time you give a tip in a restaurant or bar, you are supporting an insidious kind of slavery. Low-wage slavery. Sweat-shop slavery. You are perpetuating a system where good people are chronically underpaid, in the hopes that the customer will subsidize that pay. Maybe.

It’s not all the restaurant owners’ fault. It’s your fault, too, for wanting to be well thought of by your waiter or waitress.

And here’s something else to think about for those sad sheep who give tips: There are all sorts of people who work just as hard for your custom, yet you never think of tipping them. Have you ever agonized about whether to give 10% or 15%% to the checkout person at the supermarket? To your bank teller? To the person in the convenience store? To the guy who reads your hydro meter? No? Well let me tell you something; they make the same kind of low wages that restaurant workers make. They often work harder. They’re often nice people. And they have families to support, too. Why don’t you subsidize them, if you buy into the flimsy arguments for tipping restaurant people?

And if you work in a restaurant and take tips, be aware that you’re essentially taking charity. You deserve better.

So what’s the answer? Only tip people who really need it.

I know it’s difficult to accept a new idea. Often you have to digest it a little at a time. So let me take you by the hand and lead you to a new life. First pick a bunch of people who are bitter, overweight, underpaid and shunned in social circles. Then send them a tip.

Address it to your poor Owen Sound Sun Times columnists. We’ll all share it and maybe get a crust of soggy bread to munch on.

Through our grateful tears.

————————————————————————————————-

COUNTER POINT

Letter to the Editor at TheSunTimes by Jesse Wilkinson

Contrarian off base about tipping

Editor:

Add 10% or 15% to the bill? I think so.

In reading Dennis Thompsett’s article on the exercise of tipping, two things became glaringly obvious: one that the Contrarian has never worked as a waiter himself (his attempt at insight using his mother didn’t cut it for me) and that two, he is writing after a bad experience, in which he feels the need to spout his flawed logic and spiteful naiveties.

It’s funny how a person who has no experience in an occupation can speak with such confident condemnation regarding said job. Waiters, waitresses and bartenders work very hard in a fast paced industry that demands you be personable, hard-working and able to “cartwheel across the floor and deliver hot, heavy plates” while singing birthday songs (not Dixie tunes).

Sorry they can’t light themselves on fire for your tip, Sir. I’m sure they’re all dying to impress you.

I agree that many other low paying jobs require hard work and admirable attributes but there is an expectation for good service when spending the night out for dinner.

If that expectation is not met, then you certainly shouldn’t feel compelled to tip. If you have a good experience and your server has been a part of that then they deserve a tip.

Servers make less than minimum wage, which Thompsett blames on the “slave-driving” restaurant owners, and therefore rely on tips to make the job affordable.

The notion that patrons are subsidizing the restaurant industry is flawed. If servers were paid a higher wage, then restaurants would need to charge more for their meals to cover the overhead, which would take the place of the tip anyways. As it stands right now Mr. Thompsett, you should keep quiet. You are riding on the backs of all the other tippers out there to ensure that you get cheaper menu prices and you don’t follow all the “sad sheep” and leave a tip yourself. If your ridiculous, demeaning argument influenced the industry, you would be shelling out a lot more of the precious bills and coins you seem to covet so closely.

I guess by your logic, no one should accept a year-end bonus because that is tantamount to charity as well. Servers are merely given tiny bonuses everyday is they have earned it for a job well done. They sure don’t receive anything of monetary value at the end of the year, merely the hope that they may possibly not have work Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day so that everyone else can go out and have a good time.

As for getting another job; well there aren’t many jobs one can work between five and midnight while trying to put themselves through university or college. I guess they should just absorb the increasing student fees and try not to keep on top of their debt.

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In your world Mr. Thompsett, many students would be graduating with an even heavier burden than they already have.

I know you really don’t believe all of what you said, because you are self-admittedly “The Contrarian” but for those people who may think your flawed logic makes sense, shame on you and shame on the Sun Times for printing your column.

Owen Sound has many restaurant owners who are struggling during these tougher times and many young, bright, energetic waiters and waitresses who work hard to ensure that when people want to have a good night out, they can.

If one does not enjoy their service, then they shouldn’t tip their server: it will help the waiters that truly strive to work hard and provide a valuable service.

I have lived and worked in other countries that do not subscribe to the culture of tipping and the level of service is far lower than here in Canada and I would hate to see that happen in our country.

I guess it depends on how much we value our ability to enjoy a night out and be taken care of after a long day. Maybe you need to get out a little more often, Mr. Thompsett, and while you’re at it, get to know your servers.

I’m sure you’ll find that they are working harder than you think. And it’s better you keep your tip if you think it’s charity. You’ve insulted enough people already. I can’t wait to see what industry you try to offer your brilliant insight into in your next column.