6 Insights from your Server:
How to be a Better Restaurant Patron

by Brayden Wiseman

I started at Utah Valley University in 2017. My vow was to finish my four-year degree without student debt and with tenacity, diligence, and above all else, expediency.

It’s nearly 2024.

For close to seven years now, my financial wellbeing and tuition payments have relied entirely on the kindness (and/or apathy) of strangers—I’m your local bartender. The service industry is rife with myths and misconceptions, so I’m here to explain how you, as a restaurant patron, can make the unpaid (see: $2.13/hour) waiter just a little bit happier that you came in.

1.) Recognize that Serving isn’t Unskilled Labor

The term “unskilled labor” has become a boogeyman of sorts in recent political discourse. Politicians speak on the dangers of immigration, on the terrifying idea of immigrants crossing our border to “steal our jobs.” Yet, simultaneously, the same politicians diminish the work often performed by immigrant persons by deeming it “unskilled.” Landscapers, line cooks, custodians, servers—you see where I’m headed with this.

A job within the nebulous bounds of “unskilled” industry requires various skills. Just as a computer programmer is required to be proficient in HTML, CSS, and other coding languages, so too must a landscaper be proficient with machinery, niche tools, and their hands. Think back to the last time you dined at a restaurant. How was your server? Good? Awful? How did they compare to a previous server you had? Good and bad service is experienced because there are good and bad servers—it takes certain skills to adequately observe, predict, and meet the needs of each individual guest. A good server must be personable, knowledgeable about the menu, attentive, etc., and those things are absolutely skills!

So, the next time you’re out at a nice restaurant, notice the quality of the service, good or bad. Recognize that the quality of service you receive isn’t random, but reflective of the practiced skills of your server. Finally, when you recognize the quality of your service…

american bills and coins laid on a plate and presented as a cash tip for a server

2.) ...Tip According to the Service

Are you shocked that somebody who waits on tables isn’t telling you to tip 20% minimum? While I would certainly love if my tables consistently felt that I deserved 50% tips for my (phenomenal) service, it’s outrageously disingenuous to claim that every server is deserving of a good tip for each table.

Think about your typical service job: some people stock grocery shelves. These people don’t receive tips. Rather, they are paid an hourly wage for the time that they are clocked in. The quality of their work is of some importance, sure, but at the end of the day, they’re getting paid no matter what they do. Oftentimes, salaried workers or workers with an hourly wage are incentivized to do the bare minimum. The person in the grocery store will stock shelves to the extent that their boss finds their performance adequate, but you’d be hard pressed to find a grocery stocker cleaning the filthy bathroom because they ran out of empty shelves.

Servers and bartenders, as mentioned, make an hourly wage so negligible that it is taxed entirely—not a cent of the $2.13 an hour is ever seen in my paycheck. The shelf stocker can do the bare minimum because they’ll be paid regardless; when the server does the bare minimum, I’d argue that their tip should reflect that.

Servers like me need to be held accountable somehow. When a table receives very poor service, which obviously is result of the server and not conditions beyond the server’s control, they have a sort of obligation to tip less than typical. If a bartender recognized that she could get away with the bare minimum and still be tipped well by kindhearted guests, she would never learn to practice and hone her previously mentioned skills. By receiving the occasional lackluster tip on account of service that I know I messed up, it teaches me to be a better server and bartender—the result is better service for you, better money for me, and a general increase in smiles all around.

3.) Please Tip Ugly People

This one sounds awful, I know, I know, but it’s genuine advice, and I’ll keep it quick. In our society, beauty is seen as a good value, and traditionally beautiful people are often treated better than traditionally average or below average-looking people. This prejudice is apparent in the serving and bartending industry perhaps more than any other. Various studies have proven that attractive servers make more money than average, and you can read one of these studies in the additional reading linked below.

As a person maybe a step below “strikingly beautiful,” my reiterative advice here is simple: tip based on quality of service, not quality of face.

attractive man with luscious brown hair and beard wearing a green blazer staring seductively into the camera — Are you as hot as him?

4.) Know that We (Probably) Don’t Want to Date You

Look in the mirror. Are you Ryan Gosling? Sydney Sweeney? If you answered “no,” your server almost certainly is not interested in the phone number you left scrawled in crayon on your BBQ-sauce-stained napkin. The unreciprocated advances likely aren’t appreciated, and hushed comments made when your server was half-listening from the next table over were likely recognized. A smile is no permission to pursue.

Your server is expected to be kind, to smile. Their job—oftentimes their only means of income that covers their bills, tuition, medical expenses, family—exists in your public space. For every moment that a server is in the front-of-house and interacting with tables, their privacy is null.

5.) Understand that Servers Need Breaks Too

The length of a serving shift is generally somewhere between four and ten hours, though I once worked a grueling fourteen-hour Friday with no break because I loathe myself. If you’ve never served or worked in a similar position, it’s near impossible to imagine the social drain of having to “be on” for half of the day. Many jobs, especially those in an office or those that can be done remotely, don’t require you to be present constantly. In a cubicle, you can doze off for a moment, drop your friendly façade, perhaps even pick your nose. Servers aren’t afforded that liberty.

With new groups coming in several times an hour, serving is a constant cycle of repetitive conversation, greetings, goodbyes, and forced laughter. Most restaurants don’t even offer their employees breaks, despite government mandates that breaks are required for all employees who work for a certain amount of time, but that’s a discussion for another time. Because official breaks aren’t given, a server’s only respite is generally a two-minute cigarette out by the dumpster or a quick visit to the bathroom where you scroll on your phone in a stall.

Additionally, there’s occasional tension when a guest spots a server doing something akin to relaxation. It’s considered a restaurant faux pas to look at your phone while out on the floor where tables might see you. If one of your guests sees you while you relax, they often get the impression that you aren’t working hard enough, that you’re lazy because the next table over asked for a side of ranch thirty seconds prior. A guest sees a server relaxing, and it doesn’t match the expected performance of a server—a server is public, and when they attempt to privately relax in that public space, the guest feels that something is wrong.

But nothing is wrong. I remember the side of ranch, and I’ll be hustling back to grab it in twenty seconds once I’ve finished telling my partner that I already fed the dog. So next time you see your server doing something somewhat resembling relaxation, maybe give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they’ll get back to their expected duties soon.

6.) Realize that Servers Don’t Cook

This is a big one. It’s probably my biggest gripe with my job, and while it seems self-explanatory and perhaps not deserving of a place on this list, I’m telling you, people don’t get it.

See, it’s understandable for a table to assign blame to the server regardless of what the issue actually is. Nobody seated in the dining room gets to see how the sausage is made; they don’t see the cooks, and the cooks don’t see them. The server acts as this sort of liminal liaison, not quite on the same wavelength as the kitchen, but also not fully on the side of the guests. They’re simply a bridge between the two groups. Bridges are often walked on.

Imagine this scenario: your table orders two Ribeye steaks, both medium-rare. You, the server, brings them to the table twenty-five minutes later and apologize for the long wait. Your guests cut into the steaks to find them medium-well. Clearly exasperated, they request two new steaks. The kitchen is angry with you as you ring in two new steaks that you need on-the-fly because your table has been seated for thirty-five minutes already. three employees in an upscale restaurant kitchen putting the finishing touches on plated food in preperation for service You take the steaks out a second time, your guests eat, leave, and don’t tip. You head back into the kitchen to receive dirty looks from the cook because he is now drowning in orders.

Some formulation of this scenario happens, genuinely, almost every single night of service. A server can do everything right and still be blamed for problems. This isn’t necessarily wrong of the guests or the cooks either. Each party has only one point-of-contact with the other side—you—so it makes sense that their reactions, good or bad, would be directed at the server. Unfortunately, the experience can have a strangely alienating effect where it feels as though only the other servers can understand their feelings. Even then, however, there remains an innate and unspoken sense of competition among members of the serving staff. Jealousy and resentment are certainly common in most restaurants. All of these factors lead to a peculiar sense of isolation in such a public space. Being a server can be incredibly fun, lucrative, and fulfilling on its good nights; it can also be lonely and distressing on the worse ones. Because you, as a patron, can’t know for sure what kind of night your server is having, I would recommend erring on the side of caution and choosing kindness.

The cumulative crux of these tips comes down to patience. It’s incredibly difficult for servers to navigate the constantly public workplace while retaining a private sense of emotional equilibrium. Certain servers are supremely extroverted, and for them, the job is much easier. Others, like me, tend to identify more with introverted ways of life. For us, our favorite tables aren’t necessarily the ones that tip well, but the ones that recognize us to be doing our best despite the circumstances.

About the Author

Brayden Wiseman is a student of English at Utah Valley University who is set to graduate in Fall of 2023. He has academic interests in the study of popular culture and in literary ecocriticism. In his free time, he enjoys watching and playing basketball, cooking, and writing fantasy. He has bartended to put himself through school for seven years, and despite the palpable pessimism of his manifesto, he does actually enjoy his job most nights.

6 Insights from your Server: How to be a Better Restaurant Patron