Have a job part time waitressing? Looking for waitress or waiter employment? Want to increase the money you make as a waiter or waitress?  I hope that my waitress advice below helps you as I have outlined a great way to increase your tips ( I have been a restaurant server for almost five years now!). If you have any more waitress/waiter advice, please leave comments below. The more advice, the merrier!

An often over-looked customer who often will leave an awful tip or an excellent one depending on the following:

They sit down at your table. Maybe it's a whole bunch of them. Maybe it's one person by themselves. Maybe it's one person out with their family. For the sake of conversation, let's call your new customer Al. Al's had a rough day. He's tired. He's actually kinda grumpy. And he's expecting you to fail him. Why? Because usually restaurants do fail him in one way that's very important to him but which might not be all that important to you.

Make Your Customer Happy and Start Increasing Your Tips:

See, Al is about to order a coffee from you. When he does, and you say Okay, if Al is brave he might ask you if the coffee is fresh. Or he might just assume it's the usual five-hour old coffee that he is used to. Before he has to ask, or assume anything, you need to do one of the following:

1. tell him you'll put on a fresh pot for him and that it will be just a few minutes,

   
   

1. or tell him the coffee is fresh (if it is!).

If you don't do one of these two things, you just missed quite an opportunity. The reason why this is an opportunity for a great tip is that the coffee drinker is just so undervalued at a restaurant. The coffee drinker is not used to getting great coffee service, which is what they want from you. Give them great coffee service, and they'll give you the tip they've been refraining from giving to countless other waiters and waitresses who have failed them in this regard. Sounds too simple, but it's true. I learned this from my family, die-hard coffee addicts. They truly judge a server, often times, on the freshness of the coffee provided to them and the attentiveness of the server to the level of coffee in the mug.

Which brings me to my next point:

You should check on your coffee drinking customer, coffee pot in hand, as often as you can. With a smile. Make a joke even, such as, "I take coffee seriously." They will love it.

Have fun with your coffee drinkers! They can be the best tippers and the nicest customers (once they've had enough coffee).

For More Reading on Waiting Tables, check out

How To Survive Waitressing