…or is $2 per mixed drink actually the baseline tip now? (Outside Manhattan, I mean—they have their own weird rules.) I’d been under the impression that $1/drink was more or less standard; now I’m wondering whether I’ve been gradually accumulating the seething hatred of all the booze-slingers at my local bars.
Was This Article Written by a Bartender…
May 15th, 2007 · 11 Comments
Tags: Sociology
11 responses so far ↓
1 Jacob Grier // May 15, 2007 at 2:13 pm
I’ve been working a couple nights a week as a bartender lately and $1/drink still seems the norm. Or maybe I just make terrible drinks.
The exceptions tend to be very friendly regulars are people who camp out at the bar for a long time without ordering much. Everyone else, $1 is pretty standard.
2 Jacob Grier // May 15, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Oh, and that should say “regulars OR people…”
Guess who’s already visited a bartender today?
3 Nick // May 15, 2007 at 2:47 pm
I tend to open with a $2 tip, and then tip $1 for the rest of the evening. I don’t think any of the local bartenders hate me.
4 Michael B Sullivan // May 15, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I usually try to alternate between $2 and $1 tips, aiming for $1.50 average. Except for bartenders who treat me really nicely, who get $2 or higher per drink. One of the bartenders at the place I go most often has started giving me one drink free most nights, so I’m guessing she doesn’t hate me.
I had a girlfriend who was quite a partier and had been a waitress for some years. She tipped insanely highly — she’d average about a 40% tip, and every once in a while would just lay about a 100% tip on people.
5 Cain // May 15, 2007 at 4:02 pm
I’m usually a $1 tipper, but like Nick I’ll usually try to open bigger.
However, this goes out the window at places where a simple rail mixed drink costs over $7. Then you’re lucky if you get the change.
6 Glen // May 15, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Reaction here. The problem, in short, is the absence of an inflation adjustment.
7 Glen // May 15, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Okay, my embedded link didn’t work. Here’s the link:
http://agoraphilia.blogspot.com/2007/05/tipping-point.html
8 Nicholas Beaudrot // May 15, 2007 at 7:45 pm
I feel like $1 is acceptable, but viewed as the minimum. I try to tip $3 for every 2 drinks or thereabouts.
9 Bartender // May 16, 2007 at 4:33 pm
If anyone in this thread ever visits Pittsburgh, please come to Matrix (nightclub). I assure you our patrons don’t tip anything like $2 per drink. I’d say $1 per drink, on 70% of drinks is more the norm, with the occasional and wonderful outlandish tips by the guy who is trying to impress the girl with his fat (cash) wad.
10 sangfroid826 // May 18, 2007 at 11:49 pm
The initial $2 tip and subsequent $1 for every additional drink was a standard I appreciated in my 7 years behind a bar on the west coast.
11 Jon H // May 19, 2007 at 5:53 pm
The problem is that the article is in ESQUIRE.
Good lord, man, just look at the ads if you want to get an idea of the supposed lifestyle you’re supposed to pursue if you read that. Most of the shit in there is little more than fantasyland for 90% of the readers, if not more.
If the article had run in a free weekly paper like the Chicago Reader, it might be believable. But fucking Esquire? The author could as well have suggested leaving Rolexes and 5 carat diamond cufflinks as tips.