Restaurant Service Improvement: Create An Efficient Waitstaff Tip-Out System
Byby Richard Saporito
The “Tip-Out System” is a very important part of restaurant service success for many different reasons. Tips are the basic salary for most restaurant service employees, and must be divided with utmost respect and care. The staff’s reputation, morale and income depend on a proper and fair tip-out system.
There are certain factors that must be taken into consideration, before deciding on a correct and fair tip- out system. The most important concept of the system is that it must always reflect the work load and responsibilities of each staffer in a delicately balanced manner.
If this concept is strictly adhered to, then one can’t go wrong in devising the most efficient tip-out system for a restaurant. It must remembered that an improper system can make or break a dining room service staff to the point where employees may deliver poor service or actually quit the job.
A standard base system to work from is for the waiter to tip out 15% to the bussers, 10% to the runners, and 5% to the bar. Now, this is only a general guideline as the system needs to be customized according to each individual restaurant and tweaked evenly according to the workload distribution.
For example, if the runners are doing some busser work (clearing plates, replacing dining wares etc.), then another 2.5% can possibly go to the runners while subtracting 2.5% to the bussers. It all depends on the restaurant dining room service system, and on the “desired level of customer service” —so crucial for success.
One must understand that just because the bussers are being tipped out less of a percentage, doesn’t necessarily mean they are not making less money overall than the runners for that shift. It all depends on how many waiters/runners/bussers are working for that shift. Less employees available for the tip-out split means more revenue for each employee.
In some of my restaurant service consulting jobs, I have actually seen where runners made more money than the waiters on average. Surely, they worked for it running giant food plates up 2 long flights of stairs. And, the runner shift was almost as many hours long as the waiter shift. It all comes down to responsibilities and workload distribution.
There are even different types of tip-out systems that exist in the restaurant world such as the point system. For example, if $100 in tips is produced by the waiter, it gets spread out in a point system amongst all staffers. The breakdown might be $50 to the waiter, $30 to the busser, $15 to the runner, $5 to the bar, and so on. Every restaurant is an enigma, so the tip-out system must fit the restaurant’s personality.
To physically perform the tip-out revenue split, the waiters can place the tip-out revenue percentages for the receiving dining room service employees into envelopes. The waiter name, date and particular shift should be included on the outside of the envelopes. Then, this split for each receiving dining room service employee can be put back together in separate envelopes with his/her name on the outside of the envelope to be distributed. The double-check system works best here to have 2 trusted people witnessing all of the money envelopes that are opened.
The restaurant service tip-out system must always be fair and balanced with very few complaints from the staff. In fact, some feedback may actually help for the understanding of the situation as the dining room service staff carries many solutions to restaurant problems. Of course, there will not always be 100% agreement amongst each and every employee.
The tip-out system really works out beautifully if done correctly using the concepts above. Again, most importantly, the balance of the restaurant service labor and responsibilities must be in proportion to the balance of all the employee tip-outs.
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About the Author:
Richard Saporito is the Founder of Topserve Restaurant Consulting, author of "How To Improve Dining Room Service." If you'd like to improve your restaurants' reputation and increase sales, contact Richard today for a Free Initial Restaurant Consultation by calling (888) 276-4808 or visiting his Contact Page.
I have worked at multiple restaurants. Some allow servers to make their own money, while others like the resort I worked at, paid servers an hourly wage. Many restaurants can not afford the overhead cost to pay servers hourly, and would like their pay to be based off of their performance. At the end of the night, with your tip money, you would then tip out the bus person, bartender, and even the dishwasher. Some servers are opposed to this method because it takes money out of their pockets. It was not until I had to bus on Mother’s Day that I had a brand new appreciation for the position. Not once did I argue with the tip out methods. Having a tip out rate is important, and should be based on the amount of work that is performed by those being tipped out. Likely those being tipped out, are making more hourly, and so their amount of cash tips should be a lower rate than the 20% that each server hopes to achieve. This being the minimum of course, as everyone would like to exceed a 20% gratuity. Once the tip out rates are establish, post them in an area that all servers can see and understand. This will help with any later disputes, or the “I didn’t know” excuses. Depending on the restaurant each rate should be set to satisfy all employees to the best of their ability. You do not want a server to feel they have worked so hard, to only turn around and give away a large sum of their tips. On the other hand, you do not want a bus person who helped turned so many tables for servers and the restaurant to feel under appreciated.