Originally, we had percentages of targeted sales (alcohol/beverage sales for the bar, etc.). This led to issues with cash tips (with staff arguing over what was supposed to be tipped out, etc.). Basically, we treat our bartenders as servers, and barbacks as bussers. Bussers are tipped out at 4.8% of total F&B sales, and Runners are tipped out at 2% of total F&B sales. That amount is split evenly between the runners, as we only have two of them (sometimes three), but the runners we divide by time. So we take the total tip, and divide by the total number of busser hours worked that shift. That amount is then multiplied by the number of hours each busser works (it used to be split evenly, but we ran into problems with bussers leaving early without completing side work, so this gives them an incentive to stick around. 🙂 )
