Tips for owners bar tending

[VeryNiceBrewer]

I would like thoughts on tap room bar tenders splitting tips even if one of the tenders is an owner and one an employee.

[ChesterBrew]

Knowing what tap room people generally make, my personal opinion is the owner should forfeit their share of any tip jar unless the employees also have a stake in the company profits.

[VeryNiceBrewer]

Knowing what tap room people generally make, my personal opinion is the owner should forfeit their share of any tip jar unless the employees also have a stake in the company profits.

I hear you and agree for the most part, the only problem is that once two bartenders are hired, all the sudden they have to split tips when before, working with an owner, they did not.

For example, if the tips are $300 for a night, if they were working with an owner, they would get the full $300, if it was another employee, they would only take home $150.

Half of me feels like you do and the other half wants to set a precedent that scheduled bartenders always split tips, owner or employee is irrelevant.

[nateo]

Taking a share of the tips doesn't communicate your ownership of the business or your authority to your employees.

I've never had an owner take tips. I don't think I'd want to work for one that does. I don't think it's unethical to take the tips, but I think it's really tacky and lacks class.

Unless you want to split the equity with your bartenders as well, I'd just let them enjoy their pittance.

[ChesterBrew]

Unless you want to split the equity with your bartenders as well, I'd just let them enjoy their pittance.

Equity -- yes, that's what I was trying to convey when saying "stake in the profits." Thanks for saying it better than I did.

[nateo]

Chester - Yeah, I was agreeing with you, I just didn't bother to insert the quote.

I think it's really important to convey power and success to your employees. If they think you're grubbing for tips, they'll gossip about it. They'll tell people how bad your business must be doing, or how greedy you are. Whether that's true or not, that's what it will look like to some people.

[ChesterBrew]

No worries. True or not (many times not) employees tend to equate "ownership" with raking in the dough far more than they are. I've owned a business for the past 8 years and bitterly laugh at this notion, but can't refute that it's out there.

How do you make a small fortune in brewing? Start with a large one...

[schlosser]

In our Retail and Tasting Room we do this. If there is an owner and employee working, the employee gets all the tips. More than 1 employee working and they split the tips. If there is just owners, then whatever tips we do receive (try not to take them but people will leave them anyway) we take and put into jar for the Company Party. Not as much money as you are talking about in a Tap Room, but it works for us.

Cheers,
Dave

[nateo]

If there is just owners, then whatever tips we do receive (try not to take them but people will leave them anyway) we take and put into jar for the Company Party.

Dave - That's a great idea.

Another option: at one of the restaurants I worked the owner usually tended bar, and sometimes waited tables. She'd save all of her tips, then at the end of each week she'd divvy them up to the people who didn't typically get tips like the busboys, hostesses, and back-of-house staff.

Chester - I hear you about owners not raking in the dough. I'm a junior partner in a small business now. I'm still a long ways from "well-off," but I'm making a hell of a lot more than when I was working in the food industry. I'm amazed at how little I made back then.

[Bainbridge]

I think it depends.
If you have a full on brewpub, lots of staff, and the owner is just there chatting and kinda overseeing things? Yeah, don't take tips. Total dick move and your employees will resent you.
If it's an owner and an employee running a busy small taproom? As an owner, when you look at it hourly I'm not exactly making bank, so I'd support splitting the tips for honest, hard bartending work. (If only so I could splurge and buy the fancy kind of cereal that has a label on it.) But if it was a slow night, it'd be proper to give what tips there are all to the employee. If I help out a bit during the night when it suddenly got busy but I am not fully 'on' (help move some kegs, pour a pint or two, fill a growler for someone) I wouldn't take any tips.

Also things get fun when an owner takes tips and you have an LLC. I believe that technically those tips go in as LLC income. So when you get your share of the profits divvied out to you you could technically get say, 1/3 of another owner's tips.

Love Dave's idea about the Company Party Jar! We fill growlers during the odd hours when the taproom isn't open and I'm thinking any tips I get there might just go in that jar now.

[rudge75]

If the owner is actually bartending, and not just standing around schmoozing, I've seen folks in that situation use the tips for the company party and for the Dine & Dash fund.

[OurMutualBrewer]

We have an extremely busy taproom on weekends. If I happen to be in, and our bartender looks slammed, I help him out. I tell him not to tip me, but he does anyways... its just his way of showing he appreciates it.

[Scott M]

My take....

Owner and employee split the tip jar. Owner uses tips to host a BBQ for employees!

[nateo]

Depending on the particulars of how tips are received from customers and how any tipping out or tip pooling is done in your business you may violate the FLSA and state wage law by taking any of the tips, even if you are bartending or serving along with the tipped employees. If you are the owner (or any non-tipped employee) and you tend the bar with other tipped employees and all the tips at the bar are pooled the Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits you from taking any of the tips.

Interesting. I didn't know that, and had to look it up. Here's a fact sheet with more info, for those interested:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs15.pdf

The big thing is to reinforce is that the tips cannot be taken out of the pool for any other purpose than paying the tipped bartender. So taking tips for a "party fund" is illegal, unless the bartender pitches in from their tips after you give them to him/her.

[mmmatt]

Interesting. I didn't know that, and had to look it up. Here's a fact sheet with more info, for those interested:

http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs15.pdf

The big thing is to reinforce is that the tips cannot be taken out of the pool for any other purpose than paying the tipped bartender. So taking tips for a "party fund" is illegal, unless the bartender pitches in from their tips after you give them to him/her.

Taking tips from a pool is illegal, but there is nothing that says the owner can't earn tips and do with them as they see fit. It is not the employees money if the owner is acting as the 2nd bartender or taking tables or whatever. Many owners have multiple jobs within their business. There was a section in that document that talked about dual jobs, such as the guy who bartends 2 nights and washes dishes two nights or whatever, but that was talking about using tips as (tip credit) to secure the minimum wage. That was saying that you can't count that employees tips from their bartending shift to use as excuse to pay them less than minimum wage for their non-bartending shift. Doesn't say an employer can't earn tips working along side an employee!

As for the right or wrong of it. I know lots of bar owners who work behind the bar and for the most part they take tips or split tips when appropriate. That is taking a shift and working as a bartender. You don't just jump in on someones scheduled shift for a little bit and take tips for the drinks you sold, because that is the employees shift and thus their tips. You maybe jump behind the bar when a bus pulls up to make sure your customers are getting served quickly and keep your bartender out of the weeds, but that isn't taking a bartending shift. But when you are on the schedule for a bartending shift, there is no reason not to split tips. If you don't work as hard or harder than your employees, then you are going to have more problems than just tip issues!! Certainly when its a slow night and the tips are lean, it is good policy to give it all to the hourly employee. Likely you would leave that employee to bartend and go to the office to catch up on paper work!

In my neck of the woods there are many small corner bars and it is quite common for bar owners to bartend along with only a handful of employees because they can't afford to not be working. They count on those tips just like any other bartender does! If they didn't, I promise they wouldn't be working behind the bar. Don't ever skimp on a tip because the guy serving you is the owner! That is an insult to him and only says that you are cheap and lacking class, or that the service was so bad that you couldn't wait to leave. It is absolutely NOT appropriate to stiff anyone who gives good service. If someone turns down a tip then so be it, but if they need to be working behind the bar to make ends meet they want it. Certainly, it may be that the Owner just bops around and gets the occasional drink while the bartender stocks and cleans and serves most of the drinks. That is different and that isn't bartending, but if they take a shift like everyone else, they deserve the tips.

Ideas of using owner earned tips to fund an employee party are great ideas and would be very generous IMHO. There is nothing in that document that says that you can't. If you said "10% of each nights tips from all employees will go to the employee party" than that would be illegal. After earning and receiving your tips you can do with them as you will.

Matt