Garfield was right: Mondays are the worst day for restaurant servers to get tipped

By Kevin Pang  |  January 24, 2017 | 8:54pm
Aux Features Food

As if we need another reason to hate Mondays, now comes a report from Eater that shows that if you’re a restaurant server, Mondays are when all the cheap bastards are dining out. Using data from restaurant management technology company CAKE, the story shows how customers are likely to tip the least on Mondays nights, where the average tip is 15.94 percent. The tip is even less so if you’re a restaurant with breakfast service, where the weekday average is between 13 and 14 percent.

On the other hand, customers are more likely to be in a benevolent mood on Sunday mornings, when the average tip is between 20 and 21 percent. Still, the best night of restaurant servers remain Friday nights—despite a slightly lower tip average than Sunday brunch, the overall check is higher, which means servers are likely to take home more.

But here’s the bottom line: Many restaurant servers really rely on your tips to get by even a living wage. A third of U.S. states and territories have a tipped minimum wage of $2.13, meaning restaurants could pay servers as low as $2.13 an hour, because they’ll make up the average in whatever tips you give (many restaurants, of course, pay a higher tipped minimum than $2.13—California pays all workers, regardless of whether they receive tip, a minimum of $10 an hour). Meaning if you’re stiffing your server because you’re in a bad mood, you’re really screwing them over.

 
Join the discussion...