One Guaranteed Way to Annoy Your Bartenders
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Happy bartenders equal happy customers and happy customers like to spend money. It makes a lot of sense to ensure that these very important staff are taken care of, but it’s easy to overlook one guaranteed thing that will annoy your customers.
I was asked a very good question by a bar owner during the week. He wanted to know what the best way was to handle the fact that customers were arriving at his bar, having a drink or two at the bar before moving to table for dinner. The drinks consumed at the bar were being added to the restaurant check with the wait staff benefiting from the full tip for food & beverages.
He wanted to know if bartenders should get a percentage of each check, or whether tips should be pooled, or if it all balanced out in the end anyway?
He said that his bartenders were fuming at the money they were losing on busy nights in the restaurant.
My initial thoughts are that it depends on the establishment and how much of a problem this is perceived to be. This bar owner maintained that customers would not be interested in cashing out at the bar and the table as it is too much work for them.
I personally don’t think it is too much to ask of customers, but if your service level is such that you don’t want to inconvenience customers in any way, then you may need to address this issue by enforcing some kind of tip share policy to ensure that all staff get their fair, earned share of the tips.
One method would be to pool all tips and split them according to the food & beverage split percentage in the establishment and divide between bar and restaurant staff.
Whatever the solution, it looks like there is no solution that pleases everyone. what would you do?
Ignoring the issue doesn’t seem to be the answer so all suggestions are welcome!
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Thats ridiculous no one I know, refers to RadioShack as the Shack? In these tough times companies come up with the dumbest ideas trying to stay viable.
We've run into this issue quite a bit, to the point that it segregated our bartenders from our servers and we really ran into the problem on our golf course when tabs were started in the bar and the guest would go golf for four and half hours. We have the bartender print a copy of the receipt when the guest either goes to a table or out to golf. When everything is added to the final bill, we divide the bartender's inital tab by the final tab and get a percentage of tip that the server has to give the bartender or beverage cart gal. In the end numbers to don't lie to your staff and your customer's hassle free experience is always best for business!
Hi Chris, thanks for your feedback. I like the idea of being as transparent as possible with your servers while keeping the guest happy!
Cheers,
Barry
I'm going to take the high road on this one, and say that "the customer is always right". The current protocol on this is Not to cash out the customer. I agree with Barry that it is the best solution, so I bend the rule and let the customer decide.
Many times customers "prefer" to cash out. If they don't then I make sure the server gives the bartender their fare share of the gratuity. I don't like riding shotgun over such matters but I insist on promoting an Atticus Finch philosophy by "doing the right thing".
This is a management issue, not left to allow servers and bartenders to bash it out.
Great article Barry,
PT
As long as there is a policy, I think both customers and staff will adapt to what works best for the business owner. Worst of all, would be to not define the position you want to take. Thanks for your comments Penelope!
Newer POS systems should be able to report based on the dollar amount of items created by opening the bar tab before the tab is transferred to a table. If this an important enough issue for your establishment I would work woth your POS vendor to find a solution. Once you have the data (dollar amount of sales produced at bar before customer transfers to table) say 10-20% of those sales could be tipped out from waitress' tips to the barstaff.
If this same bar staff is servicing the waitstaff for drink orders then a tip-out solution should already be in place. However if a seperate service bar is handling this post the tabs being transferred from the bar then you would need the additional step mentioned above of easily taking a % of the sales that were made at the bar prior to being transferred out.
Great points Dave. Thanks for your comments
Yes, the eternal struggle between bar / wait staff.
Adding to the connundrum is that the bar people arguably have a higher skill level (read - must know cuisine + libations) and are even more customer facing (read - cannot walk away) and thus provide (in the good places) an even higher level of service.
My personal recommendation is that mgmt support the bar's ability to ask clientele to pay before moving to the dining room.
This strategy has exceptions, of course, and certainly operates under the "customer is always right" maxim - ie - if they complain, you transfer the tab, and your tip often gets lost in the wash.
Having supportive mgmt will always help in this situation - even if it comes down to the old good cop / bad cop rigamarole that is so often necessary with an uppity guest.
Thanks @ManageYourBar!
I agree Bob, Thanks for your feedback
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About Barry Chandler
Barry Chandler works with bars and restaurants to bring more customers in the door through effective use of social media, online tools and customer engagement.
Since 2004, more than 2500 bars, restaurants and hotels have used his tools and services to improve their bottom line.
TheBarBlogger.com contains daily tips and strategies to grow a profitable hospitality business.
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great blog. hope i got your experience come back soon.
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