Are Female Diners Second-Class Citizens At Fancy Restaurants?
The New York Times has an article today about gender and dining-out. They interviewed Steve Dublanica, author of “Waiter Rant,” and he had some unpleasant things to say about how groups of female diners are treated at restaurants.
Because men can generally put away more food and alcohol, “men spend more, women spend less,” said Steve Dublanica, author of the recent best seller “Waiter Rant.” In addition, he said: “Men eat and leave. Women eat and stick around.” So a server attending to women may have to wait longer “to turn the table over, get another group, get more tips.”
“On a Saturday night,” he continued, “you get these two ladies who walk in and say, ‘We haven’t seen each other in ages, we’re going to talk and talk and talk,’ and they’ll sit for four hours. Women are more verbal than men. That’s a scientific fact. And I’m like, ‘Ladies, I have reservations for these tables. You’ve got to go.’ ”
As a consequence, Mr. Dublanica explained, “Waiters are guilty of treating female diners as second-class citizens.”
The article also explored the reluctance of waiters to let women order wine -- and their habit of delivering the bottle to the man at the table, regardless of who ordered it.
Have you been treated this way at fancy restaurants? At not-so-fancy ones?
Old Gender Roles With Your Dinner? [NYT]
(Photo: Groovnick )
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Comments:
McDonald's treats me like this every time I order a bottle of wine...and I'm not even a woman!
I waited tables for a long time and what I hated most was a group of women coming in. They split everything, didn't tip, and stayed forever flapping their lips.
If you were sitting in my section and not tipping me, you are affectively taking money out of my wallet because of your cheapness and occupying money making real estate for me. If you can't afford to tip correctly for good service, stay at home.
I don't mean to sound sexist, but it seems like there's not much that can be done about this, unless waiters were to be paid more and be not allowed to take tips. It's only natural for them to want to serve more tables because each table will give them a tip. It is discrimination, and it is a shame, but I think people tend to go for their own economic gain over being tolerant, and if I made as little as a waiter, I'd probably do the same thing.
It's a bit like how taxi drivers discriminated against black people hailing a cab until it was illegal in New York. The taxi drivers' rationale was that black people would ask to be taken to poorer areas where less people would want a taxi ride. Just to set the record straight, I'm not trying to start a flame war, nor do I think the cab drivers or waiters are justified for discriminating.
I've heard that the people who put the biggest smiles on the faces of the wait staff are gay male couples. All the benefits of waiting on men, plus they often have more disposable income and tend to tip better too.
It is still a male dominated world in some places (restaurants, for example) and slowly becoming a female dominated world in others (academia, for example).
As much as I wish we can get equality everywhere without exception (racial, gender, etc.). You just can't get it all everywhere, sorry to say.
i am a woman. Most often times when we dine out, the waiter will let whoever ordered the wine sample it, which is pretty standard - and most often is me who orders and me who samples.
When it comes to the check, I expect the waiter to put the check in front of them man, and im ok with that, (despite the fact that both my partner and i share our checking and savings and all our debt so it doesnt matter anyway) although I'd say 75% of the time the check is put in the middle of us, which i feel is the appropriate way to do it. usually my father or my boyfriends father), or else looks back and forth between the two men to see who claims it.
@Ein2015:
It wouldn't be so bad if people were conscious of the fact that waitstaff make most of their money through tips (you'd be surprised how many people really don't know they make less than minimum wage) and had enough sense to tip more since they're keeping the person from seating more guests.
I'm guilty of sitting and talking to catch up with friends, but I tip well to make up for it.
When my boyfriend and I order a bottle of wine at a restaurant, the waiters ALWAYS present it to him regardless of who ordered it. I think next time I will demand to sample the wine first. :)
As a waiter for many years during and after college, I can concur that women often linger longer than men, and consume less alcohol.
But there are many table types that are annoying for one reason or another. Get a table consisting solely of octogenarians? Expect to serve a lot of annoying coffee, split the check, even if everybody gets the same thing*, and hope they tip more than $1 each.
And as a waiter, I don't think we should all be paid the same. Do that, and forget about good service. We'll bust our ass to refill that coke before you are done with the first if there's a chance you'll notice it and tip more. Take that motivation off the table, and you'll find most servers smoking in the back with the prep cooks.
* In one place I worked, there was a Sunday brunch. $12.95. Groups of old women would come in, get the brunch and coffee, and have the EXACT SAME TOTAL DUE, but would insist on separate checks. They couldn't be bothered to each throw in $20 and be done with it.
@Ftp1423: I never waited tables but I did work in a breakfast kitchen at a hotel and it was the same. The men were in and out and tipped well. The women stayed longer and tipped less. All of us in the kitchen including my female coworkers preferred the men for those reasons. None of us even thought about it as discrimination though looking back it was.
@TVarmy: Agreed.
BTW for NYC taxi drivers, it is illegal in law. However, in practice, it still happens. I witnessed it happening just last week unfortunately.
@Ein2015:
Each restaurant has an average turnover time. Should you take 2 1/2 hours and the average turnover time is 45 minutes, without ordering tons of extra sh*t, you're also putting the wait staff at jeopardy. This is especially true if it's busy and one poor fool ends up with all the winners. I've seen the host staff do this intentionally to some wait staff they don't like.
Some managers only care about numbers.
Whenever a tipping debate comes up online, people bring up European restaurants as an example. They get paid a decent wage instead of $3/hour + tips, and they still give great service. Tips are only giving for outstanding service, and they seem happy with the arrangement.
I know that a lot of people take waiting jobs for the chance to make great tips and the flexible hours, but it's not like if they were paid a better wage, everyone would stop working because of lack of tips and risk their jobs.
@Murph1908: I'm hoping the coffee was at least a buck 95 otherwise a 20 would be a pretty hefty tip for a mid morning meal....
This is why the practice of tipping needs to go. Instead of being treated as an optional reward for a job well done, it's turned into a trivialized expectation that does nothing to improve service.
Dont know that I buy the logic of "second class citizens" - if one group is likely to be a quick turn and the other isnt - isnt that simply good buisness? In retail if a guy walks into your store dressed like a bum and tells you he has 5 bucks, do you assist him or the guy who pulled up in the mercedes?
That's it!! I'm boycotting all restaurants until this behavior stops!
At a fancy restaurant female diners are typically more eye candy than paying customers. You want them around for the guys to look at, but you know they won't contribute as much. It's kind of a loss leader if you think about it, unless they are with a guy, then you know that he will be paying and tipping well.
It appears that wait staff are not unfairly biased against female diners. It appears the wait staff are operating under a very rational premise, that they should do their job in such a way as to maximize their profits.
I know that if I ran a business and had two customers willing to give me money, I'd certainly give the customer wanting to give me the most money the most attention. Everything else being equal of course.
Female diners certainly have a remedy. If you're going to tie-up a wait staff's table for long time, be sure to give him or her an extra large tip. How hard is that? Problem solved.
@Corydon: Absolutely. And even better than couples are a group of friends who dine out regularly together and drink a lot. My friends are treated like gold at this particular restaurant they meet at every Wednesday.
Women do tend to stay longer and tip less but I always bring them the bottle of wine and let them sample it if they ordered it, though I had one women decline and have her male companion do it.
Women also have a tendency to not notice they are the ONLY table left in the restaurant and should wrap up there conversion and leave, I mean come on I have to get up at 6am the next morning... :)
@wdnobile:
Chill people. This was 15 years ago. I don't remember the numbers exactly.
Jeez.
The point wasn't the exact numbers. It was there was a simple way to do it that was always ignored.
@ShortBus: because it takes more time & effort to produce 8 checks that is does one. And their *other* tables are not gettinge served while the multiple checks are being prepared, so lesser service *there* can result in stiill more low tips.
When I lived in Germany and Italy, I loved the fact that if made a reservation for a table, it was yours for the night, for however long you want. If you want to eat dinner then sit and talk for 4 more hours after eating, then you could do that and no one would pressure you to leave. Their wait staff generally don't rely on tips for salary, and so you don't have the rush to turn tables over rapidly.
@Murph1908: "but would insist on separate checks"
I've never worked as a waiter, but I've been to enough restaurants to know that it's simply easier to give separate checks. I don't carry a calculator with me, and it's extremely annoying going through the bill and dividing everything up.
However, you guys have access to a cash register, which acts as a calculator. And going to through the bill and making sure everything is correct is your job.
If wait staff makes me work by figuring out how much I and everyone should pay, I reduce my tip substantially. If you won't bother to do your job, why should I bother to tip you more than a nominal amount?
@ShortBus:
Because it takes time to enter the checks into the system separately.
Even if you have a great computer system that will split them automatically based on seat number, you still have to make change multiple times, or run multiple credit cards through.
All this takes time, and 5 minutes is an eternity when another table is looking for you.
Waiter Rant also talks about women consistently tipping less on a percentage basis as well as racial differences in tipping. There have been studies done to confirm what most waiters will openly acknowledge.
I both despise this system and also tip generously as the fault of keeping servers dependent on gratuities is completely not the server's fault.
If you think about it, the concept of paying someone below minimum wage and expecting them to make their living based on the optional charity of strangers is barbaric and reminds me of indentured servitude.
It is also yet another example of trickle down economics where someone's success in life is dependent on the crumbs of those above trickling into their outstretched hands.
Congress and the Prez's signature could change the law to eliminate all exemptions to existing minimum wage laws.
Shouldn't the waiter who serves you a $50.00 entree be entitled to a guarantee of the same minimum wage as a McDonald's worker.
So what -- other than restaurant wage reform -- do people suggest for customers to do to combat the problem?
I'm not a woman, but I am a college student, and I feel my fair share of discrimination in restaurant settings as well. It's all a vicious cycle: server sees college student and assumes low tip, server provides less service, student having received poor service leaves smaller tip, server receives smaller tip and assumptions about college students are reinforced, and so on and so on.
How do we get around this cycle? Is it appropriate to tell the server in advance, "I intend to tip well," or is that, as I'd assume, snobbish and awkward? Should women who intend to stay only a short while let the server know so that he/she doesn't ignore them? What are good, subtle ways to get these messages across?
Servers don't want to get short-changed and customers don't want to get ignored. How can we both work together here, people?
@squinko:
Wait, you get great service in european restaurants?!?
All I ever get is sneers and three hour meals, where my water is refilled once if I'm lucky.
First and foremost THANK YOU MEG! for having the courage to bring this up in this forum. Kudos.
Second, to all of you who are saying "Well, women do tend to stay longer and tip less....." Uhh where the fuck are your statistics on this? (yes I cussed, get over it) Or are we just running on anecdotal evidence here? Because that sounds an awful lot like a stereotype or generalization. Until you can give me hard data on the spending practices of upper middle class women in expensive restaurants I'm not convinced.
I have been a waitress off and one for ten years, and there is no WAY I would say women are more talky and less tippy than men. I think some waiters just notice it more because it fits a stereotype.
And finally it doesn't matter if men or women spend more time, tip more etc. I am getting PAID by a place of business to take care of the customers no matter HOW LONG THEY STAY! That's what I was getting paid minimum wage for. Yes! Minimum wage + tips, not all waiters are paid under minimum wage. In fact the waiters this article are referring to probably pull in close to six figures. These are not waiters and TGIF.
We go out to fancy restaurants pretty often, and I'm the one who orders the wine because I know more about it than my boyfriend does. I've never had a server place the bottle in front of him, though. They always place it in front of me and pour me a sample first. The only mildly sexist thing I see with any frequency is when I pay the bill and they put the receipt to sign down in front of him. Hey, jerk, you took it from me, please bring it back to me. I will admit, however, that I have a unisex name, so if they picked the check up from the middle of the table they have no way of knowing who paid.
I've definitely encountered sexist servers, before, though. We went to Rosebud Steakhouse in Chicago a few years ago to try their burger, voted "best in the city" by the Tribune's food critic. The waiter passed our table while I was about half done with my food and noted that I'd gotten "about as far as a typical female" with my burger. I corrected him that I wasn't done with it and he said that I "wasn't going to win any eating contests." This is not a cheap restaurant, those burgers cost $15 apiece. We haven't returned.
@azntg:
Who would have thought it more likely for a cabbie to pick up a nazi than a black man?
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@jodark: Good point..a night club would go under without women to attract the male spenders,for example..
@jodark: Do you look at all the good looking men in restaurants and assume they are eye candy? Why should you assume it of the women? Honestly, why, other then basic bigotry.
Good article,never given much thought to it...good comments..nobody got ugly..yet...
@SkokieGuy: Not all states do this. I, for one, was paid minimum wage when I worked as a waiter here in Nevada. I would definitely like to get a look at the studies you mentioned.
@vivelafat:That's good Synchro!: Do you have studies that prove they don't tip less? SkokieGuy mentions studies that show they do tip less though a reference would be good.
In reality though it doesn't matter, as soon as one study comes out "proving" something another comes out to disprove it. Most of what we "know" or believe is from anecdotal evidence, that is the basis for our knowledge. Clearly it can be augmented with scientific studies but those studies can also be skewed to make whoever funded the study happy.
Stats lie, numbers lie but experience is just that, it helps us "guess" at what is going to happen, we have survived as a species because we are quite good at that.
Not saying its right to treat women like that, but as a man, I do usually order the steak, and the 5 glasses of the expensive beer. I'm a gold mine ready to be tapped.
@jodark: I'm sorry. I think you meant to type Hooters and not "fancy restaurant."
I will admit that a group of women may consume less while taking more time, but in no way are female diners in NYC(myself included) going into high end restaurants without understanding how to tip.
And believe it or not, some women have very lucrative careers now and can afford their own meals regardless of male company.
Two things.
No. 1: If the woman orders the wine, there's a fair chance she'll have a say in the final bill and therefore the tip. If you present it to the other person at the table -- male or female -- you're now likely in a bad place with her. So that could have something to do with a lower tip in that case.
No. 2: If women *do* spend so much more time talking than men, then you might consider that in the long run they're more likely to talk up your restaurant, or even your own personal skills, to their friends, and bring more business directly to the establishment -- and possibly even to your tables, if they request you -- when they're treated well. Women also often choose locations for their S.O.s; if they've felt badly treated, expect them not to choose yours.
Flapping lips, indeed.
@Raekwon: I waited and bartended for years, and can mirror the sentiment. Not a stereotype if it can be proven.
I have never been to a fancy-shmancy restaurant but I find that when my husband and I go out to eat together, I am the one they pay attention to. My husband orders for me, pays, etc etc yet they still pay more attention to me.
I would serve the bottle and pour for whomever ordered the wine. So if the man ordered, he got the wine service, and likewise if the woman ordered. Proper wine service calls for that, not to serving the man's date first unless he asks me to do so...That's an easy one anyways. The other issues were not as true. I found when I was friendly to the women and didn't treat them like a tip transaction (which some male customers preferred) they would leave me great tips.
Until restaurants pay waiters the same no matter who they serve and no matter how long each table takes... expect this to stay the same.
Would you be all happy-go-lucky if you KNOW that the table you're serving is keeping you from making more money? Probably not.