did you know...?
My first day in Grove City, I ate lunch at a fabulous little restaurant called the Iron Bridge Inn, & the waitress was a sweetheart. Luckily, the dinner rush hadn't started yet, so we had lots of time to chat. She even gave me an extra meal to take home because I'd been torn between two specials & then someone ordered the one I didn't by accident & she said it was just going to be thrown out. So I took it, & it was delicious. And I gave her a book because she reads romance. :-)When I went to pay, I put it on my credit card because I can earn extra points at restaurants through December, but I scratched out the spot to write in a tip amount & left cash for her instead. Which led to a discussion about something I don't think many people are aware of...
Servers don't always--probably don't usually--get tips that are added into the total when paying by credit or debit card. I don't remember how I first learned of this, but no matter how often I pay a restaurant bill with a credit card, I always try to leave cash for my server. It's the only way I know they'll get their tip.
Some places pool the tip money left on credit card slips & then divvy it up amongst all the servers who work there. But, I'm sorry, I tip according to service & if I get a really great waiter or waitress...or a really lousy one...then I want to know s/he's getting every dime s/he deserves.
The waitress Friday said she doesn't know if they ever get tips that are left on credit card slips. The only tip money she sees is the cash she picks up herself, & she had no idea what happened to those added to bills paid by credit card. She didn't know if they were divvied up, added later to her paycheck (though she said her paychecks didn't seem to reflect any great additions of tip money :-p), or if the restaurant simply kept the amounts for themselves.
Now, I am not trying to imply that all the restaurants out there are being devious & keeping their servers' tips, I'm just saying that even the servers don't always know where the heck that money goes when you pay both the bill & tip by credit card. And since even I wasn't aware that things could possibly be that bad, I promised her I'd blog about it. (My good deed for the day. *g*)
Knowledge is power, right? And I think this is something that most people probably simply aren't aware of.
So now you know, & maybe you can keep a few extra bucks in your wallet when you go out to pay tips in cash, even if you charge the meal to your credit card.
There. Lecture, rant, & good deed of the day over. :-D
