Restaurant Certificate

If you are going to work a restaurant, you should receive compensation for your time.  It is difficult to get a restaurant to part with cash on a trial night.  However, a restaurant can compensate your restaurant entertainment with a certificate good for a meal.  Restaurants feed staff and families for a reduced rate, if not for free. So, it is easy for them to give you a free meal rather than pay cash. Clever managers can expense it under advertising, which the accountant will not question. Negotiate for a certificate, not a free meal at the end of the night.   By negotiating for a restaurant certificate, you will have one year before you need to use it. This way you can give it away or give it to a good customer.  Use it where it benefits you the most.

By taking the meal at the end of the night, management will try to convince you to take a reduced pay with the free meal.  The restaurant is negotiating a better deal for them, not you.  They will give you $25.00 in food, which their cost may only be $5.00.  Always take the cash and leave the food! Better yet, take the cash and get a meal free at the end of the night.

I work an Aurelio’s restaurant on Saturday nights and the original agreement was that I receive an hourly wage, tips and one free meal.  I negotiated this settlement because it was on Saturdays, I have been entertaining all day and, by the end of the night, I am looking for a good meal.  I negotiate meals only on restaurants that are too far from home and the meal would benefit me. All other restaurants I take the money and run!