Cocktail Waitress Tips

I agree with cdg333. Hit the bank and get a couple of packs of $2 bills...the waitresses appreciate them

 

Water or coffee, 2-3 bucks. Gin in the afternoon/evening $5.

 

Nobody is cheaper than me.I have always been a $1 tipper , i see how many people don't tip at all ever. SO i still don't feel bad for my $1 tip. The wife is always next to me so its $2 every time they come by us guaranteed and we are basic miller lite kinda peeps. If the tray has 10-15 drinks on it every time they go by i feel a dollar by each person is fair. I don't care if others tip higher , just so long as they don't stiff the waitress i am good with it. We have been doing it for 20 years so maybe in the future i will have to adjust for inflation.

 

just tell the bartender you’ll do a depth charge, a boilermaker.

 

I tip $2 dollar bills generally. Waitresses seem to like them. If they go out of their way for me I tip $5 dollars.

 

Tried that, bar manager told me she didn’t have any glassware that I could drop a shot in without fear of breaking it. I then said that I’m not going to drop the shot in the beer glass. Her reply still sticks with me today and is the one sentence I hope to hear any woman say: “Why don’t you just tell me what you really want?”

 

2 dollars a time and I find I'm never thirsty and have a smiling, happy server.

 

My host says that all the time when I respond I don’t know to her “How much do you need to eat?”
The menu changes all the time and I don’t like going over but will to satisfy my needs. So then she usually goes overboard and I order all kinds of stuff for the room a d chocolate cake to take home now it’s just a game. I like women who don’t play games…and she says “No” quite often.
She’s not a waitress but she is tipped well.

 

BHB this past Friday?

 

So what did the cocktail waitresses tell them was “reality?” I think that would be informative given the speculation.

 

@Bgoll279 the reality is that while they may serve 150k drinks in a year a large percentage of individuals don't tip. Whether it be a cultural issue (europe and asia typically are not tipping cultures), or just people not wanting to tip on a free drink or people who are just jerks, there are many, many drinks served that go untipped.

Locally I am good friends with a couple of cocktail waitresses from my local casino. These are girls that skipped college because of the promise of great income as a waitress with opportunity to advance. While the income is solid for our area it is nowhere near 100k per year. I asked one of them one night how it all breaks down, because she was looking at going back to school and leaving. She makes about 50k per year as a waitress which for our community puts her firmly in the middle class. She also has pretty good benefits as well.

Because she is a tipped employee her minimum wage is 2.83 per hour. She has gotten 2 longevity raises and makes 3.57 per hour base. The system our casino uses puts her as either an order taker or an order deliverer so it is tip sharing and then they have 2 dedicated bartenders who also get tipped out. Rather than tip pool among all shifts, shifts are awarded in a way where the most senior and or best waitresses get the busiest shifts. At the end of the shift, all tips are combined for that shift and divided evenly by the number of hours worked (so people who get rotated out early or work a swing shift get tipped out less from each shift or less total for leaving early) Usually a shift hour consists of 10 people 4 takers 4 servers and the 2 bartenders and the tips are divided by 8 and then each gets 10% of that number). On a Friday night she will typically move 100-150 drinks per hour. Her guess is that about 60% of the people at the local tip and her average tip is between 1 and 2 bucks. So assume 90 tips hour at 1.50 average is 135 per hour 1120 per shift x 4 servers is about 4500 in tips per shift. The divide that back by 8 hour 562.50 per hour divided 10 is 56.20 per hour so with her pay about 60 an hour and 480 for the shift.

Certainly very good pay on the best night. On a Wednesday morning she said it's closer to $10 per hour because she might move 30 drinks the whole hour. She ends up with some of those shifts to ensure she has enough hours to stay full time and as such average about 1k per week in income.

I would imagine in LV there are certainly some cocktail waitresses who can do very well at strip property high limit rooms and such, but also some that do really poorly at properties like Jerrys nugget and the pass.

Personally I tip 2-3 for the first drink and then 1 thereafter if I am at the same machine. Typically in AC I will sit at the same machine for hours and order a drink every 15 minutes so it's 5 dollars in tips the first hour and 4 per hour after that.

 

Usually if I'm going to be at a machine or bar top video poker machine for a while, $5 to start then $2 or so after. Excellent, engaging service - I'll move that up a bit.

 

I usually order a beer and a water. My tip is usually $3.

 

Generally my wife and I play side-by-side machines and each order a drink and sometimes a water as well. Five dollars minimum as I know that even the waters take up "real estate" on the drink tray.

This tip usually assures us that it won't be too long between drinks.

I know if I order a Corona or a drink at the bar these would cost us a lot more than five dollars.

 

I use $2 bills as well. They are well received.

 

I used to tip better (by that I mean 2 weeks ago) now it's $1 a drink. I kept track during my last 2 week trip. After 5 days I had spent $300+ on tips. That's approaching $1000 for my trip. No, no, NO.

 

I’m a table player, and tipping is complicated. Well, it’s not really complicated, it’s just that I’m in Vegas and I’m drinking, and I’m trying to manage a bankroll and tip both a dealer and the cocktail waitress. Anyway, I try to keep my wallet stocked with small bills. Ideally I have a fiver, and first beer I give that to the waitress and tell her it’ll be $1 from here on out, $2 if things are going well. Service is usually pretty good when I do that. Not infrequently I find myself with nothing less than 20s in my wallet and red chips on the felt, and… well, the waitress gets a red chip, and that’s ok with me. This system seems to keep everyone happy, self included.

Also, at least at the low-rent tables I tend to frequent, people are generally terrible tippers. Just terrible. I’m not the paragon of generosity but if the waitress doesn’t decide to blow off the entire table, it’s probably because of my subsidy.

 

Why don't you tip in chips? After I order a drink, (in a break in the action). Ask for $1 chips or $5 or whatever you want to pay.

 

I used to never tip in chips because I was OCD about keeping gambling records even,
trying to move to tipping in chips because I realized it might make it look like I'm losing more.
but a cash fiver on the rack might incentivize those that do the flyby, still TBD.

throw a few reds out if you're thirsty, and see how it goes, ymmv.