I used to work at olive garden, it is true that we were told to give less on subsequent bowls (can’t tell you how much was wasted where people ordered a second or third bowl and took like two bites) but not coming back around after… that wasn’t something we were specifically told to do in my experience, probably just had a lazy server.
One thing is the unlimited soup and salad was like $6 and some people would only order water, get like 4-5 refills on soup/salad/water and then tip like a dollar. That is one whole table for an hour+ I could have had sat with someone else who wasn’t being stingy as hell.
On the other hand, tipping culture sucks the company should just pay a living wage instead of the like 2.50 an hour they pay.
You nailled it in the last paragraph. It is important to not get angry at customers. It isn’t their obligation to pay you a living wage. Secondly, the company chooses how much the meals are and indirectly how much they rent their tables per hour. If it isn’t viable, they should increase prices.
Customers may be struggling. Could be their first meal out in months. The company invited them in with these cheap prices.
Tipping culture is like “hey, come in, eat cheap. Oh, and please pay our staff on the way out.” You are an employer, not a table rental company.
I tried the all you can eat pasta at Olive garden once.
The first bowl happened.
The second bowl was in like one of those little soup cups.
They refused to come anywhere near our table after that except to slam the check down.
Fuck everything about Olive garden
I used to work at olive garden, it is true that we were told to give less on subsequent bowls (can’t tell you how much was wasted where people ordered a second or third bowl and took like two bites) but not coming back around after… that wasn’t something we were specifically told to do in my experience, probably just had a lazy server.
One thing is the unlimited soup and salad was like $6 and some people would only order water, get like 4-5 refills on soup/salad/water and then tip like a dollar. That is one whole table for an hour+ I could have had sat with someone else who wasn’t being stingy as hell.
On the other hand, tipping culture sucks the company should just pay a living wage instead of the like 2.50 an hour they pay.
You nailled it in the last paragraph. It is important to not get angry at customers. It isn’t their obligation to pay you a living wage. Secondly, the company chooses how much the meals are and indirectly how much they rent their tables per hour. If it isn’t viable, they should increase prices.
Customers may be struggling. Could be their first meal out in months. The company invited them in with these cheap prices.
Tipping culture is like “hey, come in, eat cheap. Oh, and please pay our staff on the way out.” You are an employer, not a table rental company.
In retrospect, all you can eat in a table service environment is just a bad idea all around.
This was back around 2000. We were young, poor, and hungry, so of course we were looking for value. It’s not fair to servers to offer that.