Fine Dining Server Rakes in Over $300 in Tips from Just 3 Tables in 5.5 Hours

A fine dining server is going viral on social media for sharing the astonishing amount he collects as tips. Kyle Zajac (@kyleazajac), who is a server at an upscale steakhouse, shared bills of customers in a video on TikTok that has over 1.4 million views. The video showed how lucrative his job can be as he captioned the post, “GET INTO FINE DINING ASAP”. The caption also said that he works just 5.5 hours serving tables of some high-end customers who are pretty generous after their meals.

Here’s How Much Fine Dining Servers Make As Tips

Kyle started off his TikTok video by saying that this is why people needed to get into fine dining as he just served three tables for the night and made $300 plus. He showed the check of the three tables who had come in at six o'clock, seven o'clock, and six thirty. The bills showed they spent about $800, $350, and $620 respectively on some high-end steaks. This comes out to be a total of $1,800 in sales for only three tables.

After that Zajac comes to the juicy part, where he shows how much he made in tips received from those three tables. He shows the bills which tipped him about 20% each. Thus, in his TikTok video, Zajac reveals that he received a total of $363.59 in tips during his five-hour shift. That’s mind-blowing for most average American workers.

At the end, Zajac signs off by saying he is going home after his shift which was worth it. The video comes at a time where debates on America’s tipping culture are raging.

Viewers were fairly surprised to learn about Zajac's tips. One viewer broke down Zajac's earnings and calculated how much he would make over a period of time. If the user got it right, the number is quite astonishing. A comment from another viewer said that good servers make $10,000+ each month after taxes, to which Zajac agreed!

Reality Behind America’s Tipping Culture

While Zajac’s tips may seem like a lot, people should not forget that servers mostly depend on tips for almost all of their income. According to the US Department of Labor, employers of tipped workers are allowed to pay wages that are far below the minimum wage level.

For instance, some employers pay about $2.13 per hour in direct wages if that amount combined with the average tips received matches or goes over the federal minimum wage.

Thus, the workers need to get tipped to earn a liveable income. However, according to a Bankrate survey, about 66% of Americans have developed a negative view of tipping due to rising “tipflation”.

The term tipflation was coined as more and more services have started prompting tips since the start of the pandemic. Several stories and videos have gone viral where people explain why they won’t tip certain services or why some workers do not deserve to be tipped.

In the case of Zajac, BuzzFeed reached out to him to get an opinion on tips. Zajac expressed that if people didn't tip, he wouldn't have any incentive to perform well at his job or “go above and beyond for the customer”.

Zajac said that when tips are removed, the emotional connection between the servers and the people who go out to eat is also removed. He also expressed that if employers are made to pay a ‘flat dollar rate,’ there would be an obvious pay deduction, which would make it harder to find quality servers.