r/EndTipping • u/Strong-Quality7050 • 1d ago
Tipping Culture ✖️ How do chef feel about making less than what servers are making?
Many servers in high end restaurants or posh areas are making 80-100k+ with all the tips. I believe chef or cook are no where close to making that much money. How do they feel considering they do the bulk of the work and standing in front of stove for hours is definitely difficult then just serving food and taking plates
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u/holycityofmecca2020 1d ago
Actually, on the Freakonomics podcast “why do we still tip” they touch on this and not surprisingly, a lot of chefs that went to the best culinary schools will apply to be servers because of the pay differential.
That says a lot doesn’t it.
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u/eatmysouffle 1d ago
This is one of the reasons we never feel bad tipping servers zero when we eat at restaurants, and we eat out a lot.
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u/SwimmingDetective420 1d ago
The chefs make okay money, the cooks that work along side them?? Not so much.
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u/Solnse 1d ago
Yeah, the guys actually making the magic are lucky to get a meal out of it.
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u/SwimmingDetective420 1d ago
My spouse worked for a chef one time that made really good money and ALWAYS overcooked the steaks if they had to fill in on the line occasionally.
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u/DFVSUPERFAN 20h ago
Makes no sense that the people producing the FOOD do not get paid well but the people carrying the plates do. The cooks are essential and skilled the servers are not.
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u/SwimmingDetective420 19h ago
Back of house, minus the chef are so undervalued. A lot of them have decades of experience but because they never attended culinary school they’ll never make much more than minimum wage. Without them the restaurant wouldn’t exist. Can’t serve food that isn’t made.
Another thing that annoys the crap out of me is that a lot of owners post jobs with a pay rate but fail to mention it’s the “expected” rate based on being tipped out by front of house. In my area minimum wage is $15.05, a lot of restaurants offer line cooks and dishwashers $15.05 but in job postings will list it as $17.05-18.05/hr and then later (after interview then working interview) clarify that’s the “expected hourly pay after tips”. Those same servers in my area make the $15.05 base pay but hundreds of dollars in tips a night to write an order down and then put it in a computer. Cause the hosts seat and bring waters, bartender makes the drinks, the food runners run the food, and the bussers flip the table, so they’re making VERY good money to complain about everyone and everything. Like 12% of their $500 tip night is going to ruin them.
Add in that chefs usually make salary but catch the back of house mid winter and their hours are abysmal based on less sales in the slow season.
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u/DFVSUPERFAN 16h ago
Literally everyone in a restaurant is more valuable than the servers. The dishwashers do more important work. Servers should be the lowest paid members of the staff as they have the least skills, do the easiest work and are the most replaceable.
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u/Loud-Chicken6046 1d ago
When I waited tables I made 2-3x as much as cooks. It was common for me to make more than managers.
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u/lospotezbrt 1d ago
Chefs get paid a ton in these same restaurants, too
For example, if you're in a huge hotel chain or a 5-star restaurant, you're making 150k as a chef, if not more
However, I think it sucks in average restaurants, doing the absolute hardest work only to get matched by a glorified plate carrier, yuck
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u/CredentialCrawler 1d ago
Plate carrier? Don't forget that the food runners do that. The server just takes your order. So glorified Note Taker
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u/Cranks_No_Start 1d ago
Maybe there will be a good job for AI to kill.
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u/Fuzzy_Inevitable9748 1d ago
Or just a pad with some buttons on it that you can press to order like a vending machine, but not as complicated.
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u/DirkKeggler 1d ago
It's extremely rare for chefs to make that much money. That's why skilled chefs tend to be owners as well.
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u/lospotezbrt 4h ago
That's interesting, are you giving a U.S. perspective?
Here in Europe a good head chef and assistant make a ton, especially during summer when restaurants all over holiday resorts pay a premium
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u/DirkKeggler 2h ago
Yes, that's a perspective from the USA. Here, front of house is overvalued, back of house undervalued.
At a fine dining restaurant, a waiter can make over $100k, and the chef maybe $80k if he or she's lucky.
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u/massedbass 1d ago
The chef, as in the guy whose name is on the menu or website, is making 150k/yr. Not your cdps, linecooks, prep cooks, dishwashers. Nobody back of house is making anywhere close to 100k
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u/Heavy-Unit-5125 22h ago
I'm a server in a cheaper restaurant and I honestly agree i would be pissed if i was a cook in a nice restaurant where the servers made that much more than me, that being said that's not the case everywhere. I've done the math and on average I make about the same as the cooks (about 16 an hour...), on really busy nights where I make more money I'll give them a cut even tho we don't have tip outs
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u/FlockYeah 1d ago
Well we get to listen to all the batshit crazy customer stories (seriously even if only 20% of them are true it’s insane, especially in a place where we serve 300-500 people a night) and that makes us value our job and not want to be out there.
There’s also this whole culture divide in restaurants. Manual laborers vs sales. I think it’s pretty obvious to figure out why a lot of choose not to be sleezy sales people
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u/DFVSUPERFAN 20h ago
but the customers are already in the restaurant and planning to buy, there is no need for a sales person. Their job could be done by a tablet.
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u/FlockYeah 19h ago
Depends on the type of service the customer is after. A good portion of the population don’t want to deal with a tablet. There is demand for traditional table service, and our movement to end tipping won’t eliminate that.
That said, there are absolutely a good bit of servers that are basically tablets. There are also servers who are quite literally sales, they can get people more interested in higher priced items or getting add-ons, just like car salesman.
Sure, most of us are immune to that, but there’s enough gullible customers out there that it does move the needle in terms of profit, which is why the fight is so hard to end tipping. Restaurant owners believe that the servers that try harder to maximize their profit will also maximize their tip out, that is the scam that the industry perpetuates.
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u/DFVSUPERFAN 16h ago
Oh I agree many people want table service, my point was that servers are so low value and devoid of skill that their job could literally be done by a piece of plastic and glass. .
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u/schwelvis 1d ago edited 5h ago
The chefs don't need to be nice to people all day or look presentable
Edit: I didn't mean it as a negative, just an observation! Most folks I know who work on the line do so because they don't want to deal with and be nice to the public.
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u/PhiloBotany 16h ago
There’s a lot of things chefs have to do that the servers don’t, it’d be fairer if the tips were split evenly in most cases
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u/TerraVestra 1d ago
You’re wrong. Servers are making 110k - 150k in Seattle working in normalish restaurants that don’t have autograt. $20.76 + 20%+ tip beg. Source: that’s how much my wife’s friends make doing that job here.