Advice on increasing tips as a barista
Does anybody have any advice on how to increase tips as a barista?
I might be opening up a can of worms here. I’m not trying to start a discussion on whether or not baristas should be tipped. I just want some tidbits of advice for baristas so that I can include them on my website.
I have a few common sense suggestions including:
- Be personable to avoid being a non-entity behind the counter
- Know your stuff – brew good coffee and be able to answer coffee-related questions
- Use humor – maybe a funny tip jar (Yep, this might open up another can of worms. Some people are very anti-tip jars.)
- Prime the tip jar – put some loose change in there so that customers won’t feel that putting in a 50 cent tip would be an insult and leave without tipping at all
- Good hygiene – no perfume or cologne or cigarette smells that interfere with the aroma of the coffee, etc.
- Give the right change – if the change is $5, give five singles just in case they want to leave a $1 tip
Any other advice?
Thank you,
Rick
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Joseph Robertson on
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Jarred,
Thanks for the clarification. I'm on the same page with that one employee that we are about ready to hire. If they work the front that will be the end of my tips. I want to put this person first for reasons you have stated plus I want them to know what they mean to me.
Cheers,
Joe
Jarred Hoffpauir said:I guess ive always thought that owners should be giving the tips to the employees but that also assumes that the owner is not generally doing the majority of the work that is being tipped. If you are strictly an owner opp setup then I suppose that would be a non point and you should just take what tips you get. But even if you have only one employee the tips should be going to the employee. The entire point of a tip is to make up for low wages when exceptional service is delivered. With an owner that simply does not apply, owners are compensated on weather or not they run a good business or not. I found several bits and pieces through a search that agree with my point of view as well as several that do not. Most were not worth the read but I did find an article on tipping that I think is worth the 2 min read.
http://www.smellingthecoffee.com/2007/04/the_point_of_tipping.html
Well written, good points, and humorous.
Joseph Robertson said:Jerred,
I guess another shop owner like me might ask, in what book of regs. is it taboo? Do you mean unethical? or? Grant, at this point in our business we have no employees. I guess this leads me to the next question what kind of relationship do you have with your staff?
Joseph
Jarred Hoffpauir said:You take tips as an owner? Isnt that tabu?
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Permalink Reply by Coffee Dude on
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All good advice above I found Sometimes-Not all the time placing the change on the counter like a bartender works.
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Permalink Reply by Creme'cles Greek God o' Coffee on
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HOnestly the best advice to give on this. Treat everyone like they are your best friend, who knows in time you might be havin a beer with some of these folks. I'm a closer in Seattle and I average about 40 to 50 dollars in my pocket.
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Sorry I meant 30 to 40 a night.
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Still good money by any measure.
Joe
Creme'cles Greek God o' Coffee said:Sorry I meant 30 to 40 a night.
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Permalink Reply by joshua wagner on
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yeah... the same thing happened at our shop. People were fighting over morning shifts because the tips were better so we started pooling them. Now they're divided up weekly proportional to labor hours. Seems to be working alright.
Sara Appleyard-Pekich said:Here are some of the things we do at our shop...
*Always make consistently quality drinks.
*Know your customers names, stories and drinks.
*Make sure you are honest, if someone asks you how your day is and you are just okay, you say "I'm doing alright today". (This is especially true for those regulars who really know you..our customers hate fake)
*If it is someone who comes in less frequently, be helpful in answering their questions.
*Treat everyone like a friend, not a customer.
That is just a few... what we do notice is that our morning and afternoon staff make a ton more in tips than our evening staff. Anyone else experience this?
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Joshua,
Sure makes sense. I'm about to start hiring so information like this is good to hear. Thanks for sharing. I have always wondered how some shops deal with this. Your solution would seem to get everyone on the same page as to working as a team instead of a bunch of independent baristas. I could see this being tough for a new hire that was making a pile of tip money with her or his own jar compared to a ( divide up at the end of the day system ). I hope to build a team as we grow our business. It seems that a happy team will bring in and bring back happy customers.
Joe
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Ambassador for Specialty Coffee and palate reform.
joshua wagner said:yeah... the same thing happened at our shop. People were fighting over morning shifts because the tips were better so we started pooling them. Now they're divided up weekly proportional to labor hours. Seems to be working alright.
Sara Appleyard-Pekich said:Here are some of the things we do at our shop...
*Always make consistently quality drinks.
*Know your customers names, stories and drinks.
*Make sure you are honest, if someone asks you how your day is and you are just okay, you say "I'm doing alright today". (This is especially true for those regulars who really know you..our customers hate fake)
*If it is someone who comes in less frequently, be helpful in answering their questions.
*Treat everyone like a friend, not a customer.
That is just a few... what we do notice is that our morning and afternoon staff make a ton more in tips than our evening staff. Anyone else experience this?
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Permalink Reply by Jarred Hoffpauir on
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I was thinking a little more about the original question and I wonder if there is not some tie to the restaurant industry in that bigger tips come from not only good service but from larger tickets and more customers served.
My theory is this, if you want more tip money, increase your average ticket and/or number of people served. This can be done in a few different ways like introducing new products which will draw in new types of customers or focusing on getting more customers to purchase food items with their coffee. BTW I would recommend adding Chef Stack Pancakes to do those kind of things (I sell them hehe).
So while I know that adding those kind of things are great for the shop and owners bottom lines. I see it work every day when we set up shops with our pancake machines, but will that money trickle down to increased tips...Im not sure that customers would not just throw the same change or dollar into the jar no mater what they ordered. Im going to start paying attention but I would love other opinions on the basic theory.
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Permalink Reply by Rick Post on
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Jarred Hoffpauir said:My theory is this, if you want more tip money, increase your average ticket...
I know this works in the restaurant industry, but there, people are consciously tipping a certain percentage of the bill. I doubt if people in a coffee shop are thinking in terms of percentages.
Back to the $5 or ones discussion. Everyone I talked to who weren't "in the industry", just common customers, all of them expected to get back singles, not a fiver. Just sayin'...
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Permalink Reply by Maggie Cook on
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I work at the same shop as Sara. My theory is that at night, even when we're busy, it's people who are either high school students, or college students who stay most of the night studying. Neither tip well :( In the afternoon and morning there's more variety in customers.
Sometimes it feels unfair when I end the night with $3 and there was a line all night, but I don't think I'm in favor of pooling tips. It seems like it would generate complaints as soon as a week rolls around where we're dead at night or afternoon. The way I see it, it's my own fault I go to college and can only work nights :)
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Permalink Reply by christopher myers on
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Yeah, I'm pretty anti-tip pooling. For one thing part of the reason for having a tip system is for the barista to feel like if they do a great job, they'll earn more. And even though technically the pool will be bigger if you do a great job, you still feel like you're giving your tips away to people who aren't bringing the funk. Also, true, most people like morning shifts more, and they should be distributed as evenly as possible, but the fact is, you get more tips because there's a line out the door and you're working your ass off.
For a few days I tried a psychological experiment at my cafe. Studies show that people's dopamine levels shoot up when they experience human contact. So every time I gave change I would "accidentally" touch their hand. About 90% of them tipped. I'm not really recommending this as it's kind of creepy, but I just thought it was interesting.
Also I don't necessary think there's anything wrong with giving back 5 ones. Sure, some people will take offense and feel like you're "forcing" them to tip. But you're not, you're just giving them the option. If they get pissed off that you're daring to suggest they might want to tip you a dollar, if they feel like it, then fine. I think the people that drop a dollar because now they have one outweigh those other people.
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Permalink Reply by zack burnett on
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Lorenzo you are spot on. Sounds like you are running a stellar shop. Is the $7 average the staff total? If so that seems low. I am not a barista so I don't have anything to base this on but it seems like the level of service you are giving deserves much more than this.
Lorenzo Perkins said:At my shop, we pool tips by the day and split them up according to the hours you worked that day. This makes it pretty fair. The openers have to deal with 200+ customers, the closers have to clean up everything...
That being said, we average around $7 an hour in tips.
-We are personable, but not in your face. We know most of our customers on a first name basis, as well as their kids, and where they've been when we haven't seen them in two weeks.
-We make stellar drinks.
-We keep the bathrooms clean. (The regulars really appreciate that)
-All of our employees are authorized to give away two free drinks a shift (rather than have a punch card buy 10 get 1 free deal).
-Most of our employees live in the neighborhood the cafe is in . . . this helps with knowing the regulars.
-We are accomodating. You want that espresso to go, no problem. It's much better in a demi, but anything for you.
-We love what we do, and it shows. In our product and in our faces.
-We leave our personal problems at the door. We are here to serve you tasty coffee, not sulk or be pissy.
-We work efficiently when we're busy, but still find time to talk and make nice.
That's about all I've got...
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