Question for DUers who have worked as servers

[ok_cpu]

Can you pick up more tables at the same time during breakfast or lunch vs. dinner? Or how do you make up for the small check sizes? I've always been curious. I've seen people leave 20% at breakfast and it only be a buck.

[uppityperson]

1. For me, breakfast and lunch were smaller tips but faster turn over. Dinner had large tips but fewer

customers.

[ok_cpu]

4. Thanks. I wondered if you could make up for some with volume. n/t

[Incitatus]

9. Did people really tip just a dollar if their meal was $5?

It doesn't surprise me, but how common was that?

[Locut0s]

11. There are lots of people who don't tip at all...

My mother would be one of them if it weren't for us. In her case it stems from a chronic inability to spend money. She doesn't mean to be rude or an ass hole so much as she is TERRIFIED, or incapable of spending money.

[Glassunion]

2. That's where the 13 to 14 hour days come in.

You want to work dinner (where the real tips are)? You have to work lunch. So, you come in at 10:00am to setup for lunch, do the kitchen prep, get through lunch, then clean and prep for dinner, then get through dinner and do take down and clean up after the kitchen closes and you bus your tables.

You don't make up for it in volume. You simply are not making money. But they make you work lunch if you want to work dinner. You're making sub-minimum wage if you just work lunch.

[ok_cpu]

5. That's a long day

And you're probably only making tips for what, 5-6 hours of it?

[Glassunion]

8. Yeah. It's tough work.

That's why to this day I tip the shit out of my server.

[Chan790]

7. I worked a place where they scheduled two shifts a day.

One was lunch 10:30(open) to 4:30. The other was 4:00 to 10:00PM (close)

Nobody ever wanted to take the first shift and a lot of them would no-call early shifts (this was entry-level table service) so then those of us scheduled to be off...would get called in. That was supposedly voluntary but if you consistently refused lunch call-ins, they'd find an excuse to fire you. So I'd end up having to work 2/3 of my days off on lunch shifts, as well as my regular 2 lunches, 2 dinners a week. If you got close to going into F/T, they'd cancel your later shifts in the week to keep you under 30 hours, which for me as a longer-tenured server, was Thurs-Sun dinners. Prime money-making shifts.

I should have quit that place sooner.

[Chan790]

3. I always hated Lunch shifts.

It's the middle of the day so the whole day is shot, you have to cover more tables because there are less sheduled staff, the tips are smaller because the checks are smaller and more people stiff you on tips for lunch in my experience than the rest of the time.

[ok_cpu]

6. I wouldn't have guessed that about the stiffing

I would have thought the opposite. I would have thought better tips at lunch from the business crowd. Might be showing my bias.

[Chan790]

10. Oh, this was rural.

Bumblefuck NW CT in a place that could only generously be called a restaurant but was closer to fast food with servers. There was no business crowd.

[applegrove]

12. The most tips I've ever made was on the breakfast and lunch shift. I got a dollar

a person. Shows you how busy the diner was. But it is hard work.