How Suggested Gratuity Can Increase Tips

In the restaurant business your employees can become like a second family. You want to see your waitstaff excel in their positions and that means maximizing the revenue they bring in from tips. However, many types of customers can come between your employees and their 15 to 20 percent, including: drunk customers who forget to tip, customers from overseas who aren’t familiar with tipping customs in the U.S., cheap customers who will tip as little as they feel they can get away with, split check where no one remembers their servers, and more. Yet your employees depend on their tips to make a living. According to Consumer Reports, the federal minimum wage for tipped employees (or workers who make at least $30 monthly in tips) has stagnated at $2.13 per hour. This wage has remained the same since 1991, when it was equal to 50 percent of a regular wage, then $4.25. Minimum wage today is close to $9 an hour, depending on your state. 

If your servers don’t make enough in tips to cover…