NEWBERRY — When you work as a waiter, waitress or server, your livelihood may not be coming from how many hours you work, but rather what tips you receive each shift.
What are the responsibilities of a server? The list is extensive.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the definition of a server is quite lengthy. Among the responsibilities are greeting customers, presenting menus, explaining daily specials to customers and answering any questions related to menu items.
Those same people can be responsible for taking food and beverage orders and relaying them to the kitchen staff. They might also be required to prepare drinks, carry trays of food and drinks from the kitchen to the dining area as well as clear off tables once patrons have left.
They also prepare itemized checks and take payments from customers, clean and set up dining areas, refill condiments, roll silverware into napkins and stock service areas. In addition, servers are responsible for ensuring that customers have satisfying dining experience.
With the responsibilities of a server in mind, the question becomes how much a server makes.
According to the Department of Labor, the minimum wage for tipped employees in South Carolina is $2.13 an hour, which means if a wait staff person works 30 hours a week, he or she will make $64 that week. Tips are meant to fill the gap between tipped employee minimum wage and standard minimum wage, which is $7.25 an hour.
According to the Fair Labor Standards Act, if an employee’s tips combined with the employer’s direct wages of at least $2.13 an hour do not equal the federal minimum hourly wage, the employer must make up the difference.
How servers receive tips can vary from restaurant to restaurant.
For example, the wait staff at The Grille on Main at 1212 Main St. splits all tips evenly. Owner Neville Glover said the waitresses help each other and do not have set tables like other restaurants might.
“One server may take an order and another may serve the table. We all try and help whomever may need it,” he said. “This way, we do not need other people, like a host/hostess.”
At Ronnie’s Buffet and Grill at 2067 Wilson Road and R&W’s Fish House, the wait staff keep 100 percent of their tips. The owners pay their staff above the minimum tipped wage but tips are still the main source of the wait staff’s income.
For many the standard tipping rate is 15 percent. After putting the question to Facebook, here are some of the responses we got:
Lynn Riddle of Little Mountain: “I always start at 15% and it can go up or down depending on quality of service.”
Katrina Gallman of Newberry: “I make it a habit of tipping no less than 15%, regardless of service. I’ve been a waitress and what some people call bad service could just be a waitress being overwhelmed or having a bad day. In the end, they are just trying to make a living.”
Lucy Turner: “Good service..good tip. Poor service..no tip. If I wanted to serve myself I would stay at home.”
Rhonda Shealy: “We tip according to our service…bad service equals bad tip…great service equals great tip. Makes sense to me.”
Many servers in Newberry said their customers are good and fair tippers. Mona Taylor has been a waitress at Ronnie’s for 16 years and said patrons in Newberry County do a good job of tipping.
“They tip based on service. Most of my Ronnie’s Customers are good tippers and people could not ask for better customers,” she said.