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Do sports bar servers in college towns make more money on game days? A Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based Twin Peaks server is aiming to answer that question with one of her most recent videos.
In the TikTok, the Twin Peaks server shared how much she earned in tips while working a Saturday shift during a Louisiana State University (LSU) football game.
“I’m gonna do what I make on a Saturday morning, first game, LSU. It’s an away game,” she says as she stands inside the establishment. She’s adorned in a purple and yellow “Geaux Tigers” shirt, blue shorts, and two LSU stickers—one for each cheek. In the text overlay, she explains she is working a seven-hour shift, from 10am to 5pm. Some Twin Peaks locations open early on game days to meet demand.
The server informs viewers, “So far, I’ve had one table.” While she doesn’t share how much their tab was, she does say that the customers at her first table tipped her $14.
“I have three tables right now,” she then says before checking back in later to say that one of them tipped her $20 and the other tipped her $20.50.
The last table, she complains, took forever to leave.
“They’re just sitting there, so I’m hoping it’s not forever,” she says. “You need to get the f— out of here, OK?” That table eventually left her a $14 tip.
She had the opposite problem with her next table. They didn’t stay long—nor did they tip like they did.
“Another table left. They only gave me $5. But it’s OK because they just sat down, ate, and got the f— up,” she says.
What’s The Goal?
“We’re gonna shoot for $250,” the content creator says. “The next table gave me $13. I have two tables, and I think one of them is about to close out.” And her prediction is correct. That table split the bill four ways, so she received a combined $34.
At first she assumes her last table isn’t going to tip well, but then she reminds herself to never “judge a book by its cover.” She later reveals that the table tipped her $10.
The restaurant is not as busy as she hoped at this point. Then three tables come in—the first of which tipped her $15 on a nearly $50 bill (that’s a 30% tip). The next tipped her $7, which she wasn’t too happy with. “Something better than nothing, I guess,” she says.
And talk about foreshadowing. The last table didn’t tip her; they told her they couldn’t afford to after receiving a $100 bill.
“I gave him $7 back. What do you mean you can’t afford a tip?” the content creator asks, annoyed.
Her Tip Total For The Shift. Is It Good?
After tipping her colleagues out, she says she thinks she might bring home roughly $120. A “tip out” is when servers, who get their tips directly from customers, divvy up their tips to help pay other staff, like bartenders, bussers, and hosts.
“I would’ve had more. But I paid for my meal. It was $15,” she says. For a seven-hour shift, that comes out to around $19 an hour. “Today was decent,” she concludes.
Louisiana has to follow the $7.25 federal minimum wage. That means that if servers don’t make that hourly wage through tips, the onus falls on the restaurants to meet that.
Considering the server works in a college town (she serves at a Twin Peaks in Baton Rouge, where LSU is located), her final tip amount really could be worse. Assuming college-aged students are the location’s main demographic, she is being tipped by mostly Gen Z customers. And Gen Z, according to a 2023 survey, are the worst tippers out of the four adult-aged generations. According to that same survey, Gen Z takes most into account their budget when deciding whether and how much to tip. That tracks with what her final table told her—they simply could not afford to tip.
BroBible reached out to the TikToker via Instagram direct message and TikTok comment.