You just handed Molly Turner $3 after she poured you a $2.75 draft beer at Spice, the downtown Harrisburg hot spot. She hands you a quarter back.

This is the moment when the bartender, 38, makes a living. This is what decides whether the Lower Paxton [...]]]>

From HispanicBusiness.com
Aug. 4, 2008
Daniel Victor–The Patriot-News

You just handed Molly Turner $3 after she poured you a $2.75 draft beer at Spice, the downtown Harrisburg hot spot. She hands you a quarter back.

This is the moment when the bartender, 38, makes a living. This is what decides whether the Lower Paxton Twp. resident can afford to take two beach trips per month like she used to, or whether she has to continue to live paycheck to paycheck.

It used to be most people would reach into their wallets and find another $1 bill to give her.

Now, Turner said, more and more people are just giving that quarter. And it has cost her a few hundred dollars per month.

“If you can’t afford to come out, then don’t come out,” she said.

Part of the problem for servers who count on tip money is that people are listening. People are going out less and spending less when they do go out during the economic downturn.

All of that cuts into servers’ earnings, and it’s forced John Burkholder, a Spice waiter, to work a lot harder.

Burkholder, 26, of Harrisburg, said he’s found that he has to step it up just to approach what he used to make on a lunch shift. He makes more trips to refill drinks and tries harder to anticipate needs.

Improving his performance as a waiter makes it more likely he’ll get the 20 percent tips he needs, he said. During lunch hour Wednesday, a group of five men and a group of three women left him 20 percent tips.

“You have to pretty much be the best server ever and make them feel like crap for leaving you anything less than you deserve,” he said.

Customers are more thrifty, too. Burkholder said people often order free water.

Turner said she’s noticed more people ask for a bar’s specialty and drink specials. Pitchers of beer are popular.

Several servers in the midstate said they’re hurt by fewer customers, rather than stinginess on tips.

Business usually booms in the summer at the Cocoa Grill, just off Hersheypark Drive in Hummelstown. The diner offers a quick meal for tourists, and it’s home to a load of regulars, largely senior citizens.

But this summer, waitress Mary Zeigler has seen her tips go down by about 25 percent.

Donna Becker of Lebanon often eats at the diner using her employee discount instead of cooking at home, she said.

Four waitresses who just got off the lunch shift Thursday had several theories, including decreased tourism and the uncertainty of an election year.

Some people spend less. Some share plates. Others might have ordered a cup of soup with a sandwich before, but not anymore.

“It doesn’t look like it’d affect our tip,” said Nancy Masker of Palmyra. “But if they were paying $10 before and now they’re paying $7, our tip goes down.”

When Aaron Aiken worked out the budget with his wife, they settled on $25 per month on entertainment.

That usually allows the 22-year-old from Highspire one or two outings per month, usually to the Capitol Diner or McDonald’s, he said.

But the few times he goes out, he still takes care of the wait staff, he said.

“When you go out to the diner, it’s not like you’re tipping a lot, because it’s just a small meal,” Aiken said. “If it’s a good waitress, I don’t skip out too much on the tip.”

HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR TIP: Ready for some mental math? Here’s a way to determine your tip without using a calculator. Let’s say your bill comes to $30.

Step 1: Move the decimal point over one place, so $30.00 becomes $3.00. That’s 10 percent of the bill — remember that number.

Step 2: To leave a 20 percent tip, multiply that number by two. $3 times 2 is $6, or 20 percent of your $30 bill. To leave a 15 percent tip, take the number you got for 10 percent and divide it by 2. In our example, $3 divided by 2 is $1.50. That’s 5 percent. Now take the number you got for 5 percent ($1.50) and add it to the number you got for 10 percent ($3). That’s $4.50, or 15 percent. Or, if you’re leaving a 20 percent tip, you can take the check’s total and divide by five.

A tip on tips: If you aren’t good at math, some cell phones have calculators. Check the tools on your phone menu.

Source: Copyright (C) 2008 The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa.

HAIR ISN’T THE ONLY THING being trimmed at Head Bangers The Salon in Pendleton, Ind. Customers searching for ways to fight high gas and food prices are doing some trimming of their own – in tips.

“Even the regulars are cutting back,” stylist Joanna [...]]]>

Tips anyone?
From Hattiesburg American
Article published Mar 28, 2008

HAIR ISN’T THE ONLY THING being trimmed at Head Bangers The Salon in Pendleton, Ind. Customers searching for ways to fight high gas and food prices are doing some trimming of their own – in tips.

“Even the regulars are cutting back,” stylist Joanna Anderson said. “Usually they are apologetic and say they wish they could give more. But they just can’t right now.”

Lisa Barnes of Purvis agrees. For 18 years, she has worked at Designing Hair in Hattiesburg and said there’s been a definite drop in the number of people who tip.

Two reasons: Customers are tighter with their purse strings, and the price of hair products has gone up because of shipping costs.

She said she doesn’t expect clients to tip and doesn’t blame them for tipping less.

“We don’t fault them for it,” Barnes said. “It’s just hard for everyone right now.”

Many workers depend on tips for a substantial part of their income, and those hairdressers, bartenders, cab drivers and food servers have been among the first to be hit hard by the slowing economy, experts say.

Those workers are feeling a pinch because talk of a recession has consumers putting the brakes on extra expenses.

“It’s simply panic, and people cut back in anticipation of what may or may not come,” said financial commentator Lila Rajiva, co-author of “Mobs, Messiahs and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics.”

When the economy slows, dining out is the first area where people cut back, said John Livengood, president and chief executive of the Restaurant & Hospitality Association of Indiana.

“People still eat out because they have to, but they find ways to cut back on how much they spend,” he said. Namely, the extras, such as appetizers, desserts – and tips.

In the Pine Belt, the news is pretty much the same.

Brandon Christian, a junior majoring in psychology and sociology at the University of Southern Mississippi, works 20-25 hours a week as a barista at Java Werks in Hattiesburg.

He said he has noticed a slight decrease in tips.

“During a six-hour shift, we used to make $10-$15 each in tips. Now we struggle to reach $10,” Christian said.

This has led to more effort being put into the level of service.

“We’ve had to up our game in order to reach gas money,” he added.

Restaurants, where workers rely on tips, are seeing an overall downturn in business. Fifty-four percent of Americans are eating at restaurants less, according to a survey of 1,000 people by RBC Capital Markets. If they do dine out, many are going for cheaper options such as fast food.

Luigi Armao, a waiter at La Fiesta Brava in Hattiesburg, said some weeks his salary including tips has been cut in half – from $400 a week to as low as $200 a week.

“It’s been rough since January. …Tips are going down,” he said adding in some cases he’s had a table of eight leave only $1 or $2 tip.

Armao who works full-time said he earns a base wage of $2.50 an hour, so he relies on tips to make ends meet.

He said at this time last year, the restaurant was usually packed during the lunch hour until 2 p.m. Pointing to the empty seats at 1 p.m., he said that is no longer the case.

Waitress Janet Roush, of Anderson, Ind., also is fighting for what money she can earn from those who do go to the restaurant where she works.

She said customers don’t seem to be as generous as in past years, no matter how good the service is.

“We’ve got plenty of people coming in here, but they aren’t giving me the love, if you know what I mean,” Roush said.

That means she has to be more cautious with her spending.

“I’m not looking forward to spring. We’ve got school clothes to buy,” said the mother of a 13-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son.

Kayda Willis, who works at the RAM brewery and restaurant in Indianapolis, said she has noticed fewer customers, but regular visitors continue to tip well.

She makes an hourly wage of $2.13 and said tips are basically her income. She said she tries to give customer service above and beyond the norm and hopes to make diners forget about $3-per-gallon gas prices.

“You’ve got to put in to get back, and that’s how you work the economy,” she said.

After watching customer tips slip into the 5 percent to 10 percent range, Yakub Ulutas, an Atlanta restaurant manager, started a Web site called fairtip.org. Its mission is to educate people about the importance of tipping, especially in a sluggish economy.

The site urges consumers to remember those workers who don’t earn a steady salary but work for the generosity of customers.

Scott Lowe said his tips are fine from the customers who show up at the Broad Ripple Tavern in Indianapolis, where he tends bar. He just wishes there were more customers.

“You can look down Broad Ripple Avenue on a Friday or Saturday night, and it used to be packed,” he said. “Friday night has just been kind of a ghost town around here.”

For one, Lowe has noticed fewer college students coming in.

“Parents must be putting the clamp down on the credit cards,” he said.