New Scaratings

Perusing some stats and am somewhat amazed just how long some people spend playing BT on many days. So after seeing a session where a player was at the same location for over 12 hours (valid scores, no mobile PM) I was wondering just how much a proper tip would be. Worse case scenario they sip tea and eat a meal or two, so one could probably have a tab as little as $25. Best case scenario they drink beer all day and night along with food, that tab could be $100+.

So what do you think the going rate should be for hogging a seat and 1 or more PM's for 12 hours?

As you know, I am writing this response from a number of perspectives: I am a bartender, a restaurant manager and a BT player who has put in marathon sessions playing and will likely do so in the future.

As a player, if I'm at a restaurant for that amount of time, I will be drinking and eating quite a but and likely tipping a hefty bundle, also taking shift changes into consideration. I know several other players around the country who behave in a like fashion. (I'm looking at you, Bill. .)

Given the number of bartender/server rant blogs out there, people might be surprised that we don't always hate campers at the bar. It really depends on the camper's behavior and demands. Whether you're drinking alcohol or tea, whether you're eating or not, if you are polite and undemanding, we'll forgive poor tipping, by and large. There is a regular at our bar who stays three or more hours at a clip, always drinks five or six beers and always leaves one dollar. But - he is never rude, he never interrupts the bartender when the bartender is helping other guests, he makes conversation with others when they engage him, he doesn't insinuate himself into others' business and he doesn't try to involve himself in the lives of the bar's employees or management. Sure, a bartender wouldn't be able to support himself if this customer were cloned and the clones took over every seat for the whole shift, but not a single one of our staff sees him coming and thinks, "Oh crap, not again." He is actually a most welcome sight.

Conversely, if a patron needs to be hand-held through the entire menu, asks the price of fourteen drinks before ordering something else entirely, interrupts you when you are actually speaking with another guest, flags you down regularly and loudly, asks personal questions, must comment about everything everyone in earshot says, etc., not even a well-above average tip will excuse him or make us happy to see him walk in.

In general, tipping should be a function of quality of service, difficulty of demand (hand-made mojito vs. draft beer, e.g.), duration of stay and total bill. The greater each of those components, the greater should be the gratuity. (I hope this doesn't sound like a whiny bartender rant. I chose this as a career and I've been doing it long enough to know that great customers balance out the shitty ones. Part of the job for a professional is to cultivate the good ones, manage the shittiest ones and possibly to turn the shittier ones into average, or at least passable, ones. Meet or exceed customer expectations and you'll make money.)

In general, management will prefer customers who ring up the largest tabs in the shortest amount of time without bothering other guests. That last part is actually hugely important. If a guest is an asshole and insists on spreading his assholery around him, he'll scare other guests away. If a customer is kind and engaging, he draws other guests in and they spend more. The net effect of the patron on the restaurant in either case might not depend on his particular tab. Buzztime can enhance this effect either way. If the BT camper is causing others to stay and play longer, he's more welcome even if he's drinking tea refills and has one basket of pretzels for five hours. If he's a douchebag and scares others away, it doesn't matter if he runs up a $200 tab by himself. As stated above, a good server will also realize this with regard to tipping.

Bottom line, tipping well is very important, especially if you're a camper.
Not being an asshole is essential, no longer how long you're there.

Disclaimer, I have never served as a bar tender nor as a waiter.

Tipping has always been a subject that I have given a lot of thought. Here's my biggest issue. Two people sit at a bar. One orders an appetizer and water (one refill). The other orders an expensive dish and a couple of beers. Effectively, both get the same service (one meal, two drinks), but one has a higher bill. Should the person with the higher bill pay more because percentage wise they had the bigger bill, even though the service was the same?

I have always tipped based on service, not check amount. The ONLY exception is if the service wasn't good from the server ONLY, then I will give 15%. If the food was slow, order wasn't right, or glass wasn't clean, it wasn't the server's fault, so they shouldn't be punished. I tip based on service, and usually tip $1-$1.50 per glass, plus a buck or two for the meal. If I'm drinking soda, and the server keeps my glass full, I thank them for the extra attention. If I don't get refills very often, then equally they aren't tipped as much. Same goes for beer....keep my glass full, you get more of a tip than if I have to wait between drinks. The service should be the same if it was a beer vs a non alcoholic drink like tea, soda or water, therefore the tip should be the same, and based on service not bill total.

I certainly find the above thoughts interesting, especially from those in the business, but my question did request a numerical figure or range.

Personally a dollar to $1.50 per glass served

Fair point and that's why in my too lengthy previous post, I included the size of the tab as only a part of the factor.

That said, the only true comparison would be, say, a bottle of wine at $10 and one at $140. There is usually more work behind bigger ticket items than smaller ones. (At a decent place.) That is, with beer, say, I am ensuring that the beer is fresh, stored properly, served through a clean draft line and properly poured into a proper and properly cleaned glass. With water, I am making sure it's a clean glass. With food, while I strive to make sure that everything I serve a guest is presentable and to their specifications, there are (again, usually) simply more components with a pricey entree than a simple app.

Now, I know all that might seem trivial, but I wanted to point out that at a decent joint with decent staff, there's more to the service than ferrying the plate from the kitchen or mechanically grabbing a beer.

If the server is good, they ALWAYS get $5 for up to a 2 hour stay. If they suck I still leave at least $3. The last time I had an extended outing was a few weeks ago. I got there at 11:30AM and the server clocked out at 5:00PM, dropped her $10. The server that took over got $5 and I left about 7:30PM. I try to treat others the way I would want to be treated if I was in their shoes.

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I usually do $2 per hour, and the staff loves that.

Conversely there's a regular that just does the 25%, no mater how many hours he stays, which often amounts to $3.50 or $4 across a 3-4-5 hour stay. The staff doesn't like that.

I tip minimally $1.00 per beer. That probably comes out to close to $2.00 an hour. If I like the server or bar maid I may tip a little extra. I have never stayed at a bar for 12 hours. The longest was probably 6 to 8 hours back in the days when I was totally addicted to BT Trivia. Now that I am an old man I only play on Tuesday night from 6 to 10 PM.

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Frank

Hey now! I only play on Tuesday nights for about 4 hours.

Oh.... shit.

We tip 20 percent at least at our regular places regardless of service (generally any occasional bad service comes from new servers, who either get better or get replaced). Either we're there for an extended session in the evening, in which case we'll be drinking beer, or for lunch, in which case we're ordering food and tea and not staying much longer than nonplayers would except perhaps to finish up a current game. If I don't think the tip is enough compared to the time we've spent there (a circumstance likely coming up this Sunday as we need to get to the location a couple of hours before the Big Game to get a good seat, and we tend to spend that time eating and drinking tea rather than beer), I'll throw in a couple more dollars. And of course if we're comped anything, I base the percentage on what the bill would have been without the freebie. If we go to a new location and get good service, the 20 percent rule applies; if the service isn't good and I attribute the problem to the server, I drop down to 15 percent (or 10 percent if it's really lousy)--and we don't go back.

In thinking about what our bills turn out to be on the nights we stay the same amount of time as usual, I've worked it out to be about $2 per hour for two people. That would seem to be $1 per person, but there are economies of scale when two persons are sharing a pitcher of beer or even just ordering at the same time, so I would say for a solo person playing, it might be more reasonable at $1.25 or $1.50. So I'm thinking for a 12-hour session for a solo person receiving good service, the tip should be $15 to $18.

Brooke/AARDVK

I'd probably agree with $15-$20 tip for that long of a session.

I'll say that I've noticed that some Buzztime players can be quite a bit more "needy" than the average guest. "Can I get a Playmaker?", "Can you turn that TV to trivia?", "My box is dead, can I get another?", "How about a wet wipe to clean the chicken wing grease off of this?", "This box is dead too, how about another?", "Don't talk to me during a question!", "Fuck! This box is dead too, don't you idiots know how to recharge these?", "Give me half the bar so I can play five boxes at once!", "Hurry up with that box! A game is about to begin!", "I don't care if you're serving someone else, they are asking a question about booze and I need your help!"

OK, this brings up another point I was considering. If you're playing 5 boxes do you tip more or the same? I suppose in theory, if all 5 boxes stay charged that long (ha) then it really doesn't matter to the server. Or perhaps the boxes are self-serve.

If I am playing five or six boxes--or if I'm taking up, in essence, two bar seats--I tip accordingly. Yes, that's a 30-40% base instead of a 15-20% base. A "Mayday" call for a low battery is a dollar tip, especially where a server knows the game well enough to act fast enough to make a "hot switch" without loss of score possible.



If I'm hypothetically at a bar for 12 hours I've been through the equivalent of four sports games. A bar would expect a seat at a bar to generate, at minimum, a food order and three beverages in that time. Ideally there would be faster turn, but there's nothing wrong with a customer ordering at that pace.

That means, for tipping purposes, a minimum base of four food items and twelve beverages. At a modest $10 per food item and $5 per beverage, that's a base of $40 + $60 = $100. That's a minimum tip of $20 for one Playmaker per day, doubling to a minimum of $40 ($20 per shift, minimum) for multiboxing across two bar positions.

At a site with better food and drink, these minimums shift accordingly. Normally my tips exceed these minimums.

Edit: spelling error changing meaning

Well, I can't imagine a 12 hour run, though I have proabably had a few 12 hour days with breaks at a few of the gatherings.

I don't think I have ever tipped under $30-40 on those days, and certainly have dropped a lot more than that,

They get to bask in the aura of ME.

I should be getting paid!

Actually, I ply them with donuts, cupcakes, candy, lottery tickets, etc & tip at 25-30%. I'm a beer swiller & usually eat something, so their getting $10 bucks or more per one of my shifts. My large beer is $3.25 this month. If I want a shot, I just go to the car, hillbilly style. On a plan sipping day, the tip may be larger than my tab.

As I type this while playing, I'm the only person at the bar, other than idle servers chattering about inanities. My bartender is a skinny 23 yr. old blond piece of eye candy from the hollers of WV that shares a hankering for the peachy goodness after her shift. Oh...her replacement just walked in...

Unless we're playing with other people, we always have 5 boxes. We usually play at a table rather than at the bar, so the number of boxes has no relation to the space we're taking up. Of our two regular locations, Mike's/JBs is self-service, so the servers don't have to do anything for us beyond the occasional time when trivia isn't already on the screen. Coaches Pub isn't self-service, but they have the second-generation blue boxes that hold their charges, so the servers only have to deal with them when we come and when we leave--and again trivia is almost always on anyway. Accordingly I don't take into consideration specifically the number of boxes being played, but the fact that both locations do have trivia-friendly servers reflects in my being more likely to round up a tip to over 20% than be exact.

Brooke/AARDVK

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Aw, c'mon and tells what you really think.

As I recall I take up more bar space than you do but can still manage to play two boxes in one seat space. Really don't think an extra box warrants diddly.

And to the initial Q, given my typical beer tastes and pace it's not really relevant to me.

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Please forgive any strange typos or grammar errors. I am typically using voice recognition software to enter text, and sometimes editing works differently from how I expect.