Servers taking a hit during the recession
When you watch Redd Gerry wait tables at Milo’s City Cafe, she’s a blur of motion, hustling plates loaded with crab cakes Benedict and corned beef hash to regular customers she knows well enough to address as “baby” or “hon.”
On a regular weekday, Gerry might serve 50-60 customers breakfast and lunch. During weekend brunch, it’s often twice that number. If Gerry does her job right, when all those diners leave the popular Northeast Portland restaurant, they’ve left her nice tips that make up the bulk of her income.
“Tip money is pretty much all the money we make as servers,” Gerry says. “A good paycheck for a server is maybe $150 because taxes from our sales more or less cancel out the hourly money we make. The money that we make from tips is what we rely on to live on.”
Like most waiters, Gerry is seeing fewer tips these days, not because her service isn’t up to snuff or because diners are being stingy when it come to the percentage of gratuity they leave. Diners aren’t ordering as much, and smaller checks means smaller tips.
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