I get so tired of hearing tipped workers on Social Media crying about how little they make. Watch this:
So in a 12 hour shift, he made $503. That works out to $42 an hour, plus add in the $11 an hour a server in Florida would make, and that comes to $53 an hour. Tips are crazy. It’s how a business gets away with not paying their employees and puts that responsibility on the customer.
We need to get rid of tips and just make servers hourly employees like everyone else. I haven’t seen a single rational argument as to why we still do this, other than servers loving how much they make by tricking people into thinking they are not making $$$.
15 Comments
oldguy · January 5, 2026 at 12:33 pm
I worked as a tipped employee and used to make that much a shift 30 years ago! I typically bartended at higher-end dinner houses, so I got tips for drinks, for diners at the bar, and tipped out by the waitstaff for their drinks. Figure a cost of $30-35 per plate, 7 dollar drinks, $50 bottles of wine. I did real good, but got out because it is a youngsters game.
Of course, you always had the crappy or non-tippers. Mostly the same people you’d imagine. You just sucked it up and dealt with it. If not, your night could be ruined.
Tipping gives you some influence over your service and the quality/amount of the food. Especially if you are a regular and avoid chain restaurants. It also keeps the price of your meals down. If a restaurant had to pay servers $42/hour, your food would triple in price at a minimum.
I don’t mind tipping at all, except when I get asked by computer screens. Just let me put it on the cc receipt or pay cash.
Don Curton · January 5, 2026 at 1:32 pm
Being an engineer with a head for numbers – I sometimes work out math scenarios out of boredom (what we used to do before cell phones!). So if I’m sitting in a restaurant, I’ll look around and estimate that the average table bill is $100, so $15 tip for good service, maybe 1 hour per party per table, three hour dinner rush, and a server can cover 5 tables. So the average server in a 3 hour period at full capacity will clear 15 dinner groups, at $15 tip average, and make $225 just on tips. That’s $75 per hour. Not bad.
But of course they may have to share tips with kitchen and cleaning staff, and that’s only at full capacity, and only for several hours a day. The rest of the day may be half that. But still, not bad money.
Given that he made $500 over 12 hours, that probably means he had a busy lunch and dinner crowd and a lot of slack time in-between. Still, if he can pull that 4 days a week for an entire year, that’s a 6 figure salary (just barely, $104,000). Given that that is just tips and not base pay, he’s doing pretty well.
I agree though, set the price per meal at the correct value and pay your waitstaff a decent salary and eliminate tipping.
Rick · January 5, 2026 at 3:01 pm
Don, your math is in the ball park. Except now add in dead air, such as the month after Christmas and New Years. And when the kitchen closes for a week at a time 2 or four times per year. Or, depending upon the type of fare there may also be a second seasonal doldrum.
Anyway, it is the bottom tier of wait staff who always complain about this or the other.
Don Curton · January 6, 2026 at 8:04 am
The old joke is that if you ask any normal person what their salary was, they’d take what they actually made last year and round it off a little. If you asked a used car salesman, he’d take the best month he’d ever work, in any previous year, then multiple by 12 and then round up quite a bit to provide a number you’d never expect from Leisure Suit Larry. That’s the situation here.
So yeah, implying that guy could make 6 figures involves working the perfect 12 hour shift, at least 4 or 5 days a week, every week, no downtime, for the entire year. Really don’t expect that to happen. But if he can hustle, he’d probably do much better than what you’d expect from a Texas Roadhouse server.
Rick · January 5, 2026 at 2:49 pm
I suspect the guy is lying by ommission.
My brother is a server at a very high end Michelin rated restaurant. He is very experienced in food and beverage and is a fully credentialed sommelier.
He knows what he’s talking about when he says that out of that chunk of money, the server will give cuts to the maitre de, the hostess, the bar tender, the chef, and bus boys. Those people support the server and he them.
Any of those people can make the server’s job difficult, or just stop him, such as giving his tables to another server, or slow walk his orders, or giving him the terrible diners. Or any number of things.
That isn’t just his restaurant, nor a reflection on his person. (he has very well known wealthy personalities who ask for him by name. He has their personal phone numbers.)
What I’ve described is usual in the business.
A server who doesn’t share the wealth, or is cheap about it, is going to die on the vine.
Divemedic · January 5, 2026 at 5:54 pm
It’s Texas Roadhouse. There aren’t THAT many people to tip out.
Botan · January 5, 2026 at 5:23 pm
I have a degree in engineering and over 20 years of industrial experience and am constantly getting calls from H1B agencies offering contract positions 200+ miles from my home for $42/hr all inclusive (no expenses) as a 1099 (I pay all taxes). A FTP position at $42/hr would be $87,360 plus benefits.
Dan D. · January 5, 2026 at 10:27 pm
You can tell the email is from an H1B factory when they ask you to list your salary requirement “per annum.” I just mark as spam and roll my eyes.
Don Curton · January 6, 2026 at 7:57 am
I get those too. Given that my salary is several multiples of that after 40 years in the industry, my guess is that they expect you to reject it. They can then say that it’s a job that Americans don’t want to do, therefore they must import 3rd world trash.
If I was to take a contract position after retirement, it’d have to be $150/hr or more especially if it was the 1099 as discussed. They really don’t want me or you at all.
Danny · January 5, 2026 at 6:07 pm
People who work service jobs and don’t realize they need a good, engaging personality are just slugs who expect everything to be handed to them. SO fucking annoying.
Stealth Spaniel · January 6, 2026 at 12:45 am
Nope, I will disagree here. A good server MUST (in Kommiefornia) split the tips with all of the folks involved. Some restaurants even pool all of the tips and divide them equally among the staff. So, while you are rating the server, he/she is helping fund the bartender, the host/hostess, the cooks, the cleanup kids, and he/she must also pay taxes on tips. In Kommiefornia, the restaurant automatically figures tips and reports them to the IRS and State Income Tax-per meal. I never mind tipping a good server because they put up with incredibly CHEAP, rude, and sometimes violent customers. If you want fast food, you can avoid tips but Ruth Chris Steak House is going to be better food and a better meal. Frankly, if some asshat ate MOST of his meal and then wanted to send it back to the kitchen because it wasn’t cooked correctly and wants it replaced for free on top of that-I would fight for self control not to beat the bastard to a pulp. So being a server would not be a good job fit for me. Bless the folks who do. The correct answer to this problem is to get the Government and the Colleges out of the job industry.
Bill · January 6, 2026 at 6:47 am
My Mother was a waitress for 40 yrs. Not everyone tips or gives 20%. If they worked by the hrs. You will get some crappy service like most places nowadays. I’ve never met a rich waitress and I knew lots of them. I worked in the biz in my youth and it sucks.
ghostsniper · January 6, 2026 at 10:05 am
We rarely eat out, and the last time we did was over a year ago at Texas Roadhouse, and I never tip.
It’s none of my business how other people work and/or get paid.
Just like it’s no ones business how I get paid, especially the IRS.
arizoni · January 6, 2026 at 10:22 am
Tips are one of the few places where the customer gets a not merely obligatory chance to offer feedback on specific employees, but a chance where the feedback is actually and directly meaningful. The result as far as I can tell is that two waiters at the same place (weird tip splitting rules excepting) can make massively different quantities of money for (ostensibly) the same work. As they should! because a good waiter is just so much better than a bad one. Tips remove the middle man of the manager trying impotently to discover who is doing his job how much better and just let the aggregated customer declare the answer.
Frankly I wish tips were the norm in more customer service jobs.
JebTexas · January 6, 2026 at 1:32 pm
Like so much else in America, the tip system depends on a moral people doing what’s right. It pushes the restaurant to hire only those who will do a good job, management who can recognize & train good people; it allows the customer to influence the entire operation through rewarding excellent service and penalizing poor service. People like ghostsniper have been a small enough minority (here in Texas at least) to have minimal impact on the system. Pooling tips is a direct cancelation of the reason for the system. Given the (lack of) character of the average American today, the tip system is increasingly irrelevant.
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