Most memorable tippers

I'm backkk! Well, not to work yet, but my computer is fixed thanks to this genius guy. I'm still at home searching for jobs. And it's going fairly well. I have two interviews set up for next week.. so hopefully one of them works in my favor. I will be sad to leave my job at the college bar because mostly I will miss the coworkers and some of the customers. I will miss my roommate because it's nice to have one of your best friends just a living room away. I will miss my Independence.. as I will have to move in with the fam until I get back on my feet. I will also miss the high I get from bartending.. but I will be looking for weekend work once I settle into a full time position. I'm trying not to think about leaving too much because I need to start developing my career.. it's just the best thing for me to do right now, and my hometown is just the best place to do that for me right now.

Anyway, on to my post..

Recently I have been writing a lot of negative things about customers. In light of that, I have three stories about my most memorable tippers, which are meant to be positive stories. I do love my work and most of the customers that come through.

**One of our more exciting times is around parent’s weekend. The college students bring in their family and most families know how to tip. This particular parent’s weekend I was the first cocktail on. I was doing pretty well, but I had one demanding table. The guy kept ordering rounds of jager bombs for his kid and his kid’s friends (which was like ten of them per round). I would give him his round, visit my other tables and come back in time for him to order another round.

This went on for about two hours. When one of the other girls went on I made sure to stick by my table because I didn’t want to have to split my tip with her if she put something on his tab as I had been working hard to serve him all night. So I made sure to let the father know that all he had to do was flag me down if he needed me. For once, I didn’t mind being waved down because I was keeping this tip.

Finally he asked me for his tab and I was relieved because I was the only person who served him. I asked him to sign it and brought it up to the cashier. The bartender who was serving me was pleased as he paid it out to me because he knew he would be getting his share of the 75 dollar tip he left me. I was very pleased and had a night full of really good tippers. That night I walked away with 250 dollars AFTER tip out. At my bar, that is an amazing night. Most of the girls now are lucky to make a hundred, which is why I switched to bartending where it is not so rare.

I came to find out later that my 75 dollar tipper who was ordering jager bombs all night was the president of jager. I’m not sure if that means he represented jager distributors around our area or if he is actually a president of the company. All I know, I was pleased with his tip and he was pleased with my service, as his tip showed. It’s nice when you work really hard to keep customers happy and they acknowledge that effort.

**I started working during the summer. It was definitely not the best starting point because it is unusually slow in the summer, moreso than most places because our main customers are college students. This day was more slow than most, as there were only three people in the bar. One was a coworker and his friend. And one was an old scruffy looking man. I asked him if he would like anything and he asked for a Pepsi.

I brought him his drink and asked for the two dollars. He handed me a 50 dollar bill and I told him that I would bring his change back, since I didn’t have enough to make change. He told me to keep it. My manager asked me to leave ten minutes later because it was so slow and thanks to this old man I made 48 dollars for working approximately twenty minutes. Probably much more than the bartender did who had to stay there for the full five hour shift.


**There is a regular at our bar, a lawyer no less. This man made it quite clear to me that he was a VIP at the college bar. The first night I worked solo I came into the bar to relieve one of our girls. She had been helping the lawyer and his wife. I wasn’t on my game as well I should have been because he was going through his beers like it was water.

I later found out that he regularly drinks like this and he is a very demanding customer. If he feels like he is waiting too long he will go to the bar and **gasp** you will have to split your tip with them. So it’s best to keep checking in on them every five minutes. There were other people that would hang out with them who included our drug court judge, a republican senator, and a police officer. So generally they all tipped very well.

On this particular day, the first day I served them, I wasn’t getting to them as quickly as I should have so they were going to the bar. When I closed their tab up they left a 100 dollar tip and made sure to let me know that this was only to go to the waitress who was on before me. I was upset that I wasn’t going to get any of this tip, but I understood. This was my first serving job and I wasn’t very good at it yet.

I made sure to let the bartender know that he wanted the tip to go to the other server. He then came up behind me to make sure I told the bartender that the tip was going to the other server. This was all sort of embarrassing for me. However, after that I made sure to check their table as often as I could and got on their good side. And now I get to keep the tips because I earn them.

As a bartender now I laugh when the lawyer comes up to the bar to get their drinks because I know that he will leave a small tip for this girl. I always tell the girls to make sure to take care of them if they want a good tip, but I don’t mind when he comes up to the bar because that means that I get to split the tip with her.