Waitress Job Description, Skills and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a waitress. Feel free to use our waitress job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a waitress.
Who is a Waitress?
Waitresses take orders and serve food and drinks to guests. They are responsible for ensuring guest satisfaction by checking on guests to make sure they are happy with their meals and taking corrective action if necessary.
The waitress is an important staff member in a restaurant, hotel, or another establishment that provides service and hospitality to customers.
This front-line staff member sets the tone by greeting customers with a smile and warm welcome.
Waitresses who are exceptional are not just there to make a living, but also for tips. They enjoy working with people and are passionate about providing excellent service. A bar or restaurant’s reputation and success are enhanced by dedicated servers. If the waitress at the restaurant treats customers rudely or ignores them, great food won’t be enough to win their loyalty.
It can be exciting and stressful to wait at tables in a restaurant or bar. While most customers are friendly and pleasant, some may be demanding, difficult, and insensitive. Low pay and long hours are common. It is common to work late in the night, early mornings, weekends, and holidays shifts. This job has limited opportunities for advancement.
Waitress Job Description
Below are the waitress job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a waitress job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
- Presenting customers with menus and a wine list.
- Being aware of all allergen information.
- Answering all questions about the food and beverages provided by the establishment.
- Offering wine and food suggestions.
- Delivering and serving food and drinks to the table.
- Placing orders on pre-set tables.
- Handling spillages, cleaning glasses, changing utensils, and keeping customers informed to make sure everything is working to their satisfaction.
- Handling customers complaint
- Ensuring compliance with safety, health, and hygiene standards
- Making that customers are legal to buy alcohol
- Greeting and escorting customers toward their tables
- Presenting the menu and providing details when requested by customers
- Setting up plates, glasses, and linens to prepare tables
- Serving food and drinks
- Reporting any issues with dishes and kitchenware to ensure cleanliness and presentation
- Placing food and drink orders using POS ordering software, and order slips
- Bringing dirty silverware, plates, and glasses to the kitchen for cleaning
- Meeting with the restaurant staff to discuss daily specials, menu changes, and specific service requirements
- Respecting all regulations of the health department
- Providing excellent customer service for guest
- Sending order details to the kitchen staff
- Arranging the table settings and keeping the dining area tidy
- Collecting bills and delivering checks
- Providing the best service experience to restaurant patrons
- Making sure that the guest feels valued and welcome in the restaurant
- Finding ways to consolidate their service and increase the number of table turns
- Ensuring that customers are treated in a friendly and accommodating way
- You must be familiar with all aspects of food liquor, beer, wine, as well as retail offerings
- Using a positive and suggestive sales approach to guide your guests
- Reporting property owners promptly and in a uniform manner to the authorities
- Processing payments using cash register for food and drink orders
- Providing excellent customer services
- Striving always for customer satisfaction
- Meeting customers and presenting menus
- Offering suggestions based upon their preferences
Qualifications
While a waitress job doesn’t require any formal qualifications, these key requirements are essential. These include:
Education
While there are no requirements for becoming a waitress you will need to have a high school diploma. Some employers may require that you have a GED. After completing their education, high school graduates could apply for waitress jobs.
Training
Restaurants offer training that allows new employees to shadow waitresses who are already experienced. These are the basic components of a waitress’s training.
- Taking customer orders
They need to explain the menu, give suggestions, and take orders accurately.
Serving techniques
In training, a waitress will learn how to bring food to tables, manage the spacing, and carry plates or glasses.
Side work
Most restaurants have a set of side tasks that waitresses must do during their shift. This includes folding napkins, sorting silverware, and cleaning communal stations.
Gaining knowledge about the restaurant and menu
To offer exceptional service, all waitresses need to be well-informed. To increase sales and tips, waitresses are often encouraged to offer customers additional drinks or desserts.
Closing Out
When a waitress has completed their shift, they must report their earnings and close all tabs on the POS login.
Certifications
Waitresses can take certification exams to get certified to handle food safely. Although not all restaurants require certifications, restaurants will prefer those who have them.
Examples include:
ServSafe Food Handler certification
This course teaches waitresses how to prepare and store food, offer alternative options for people with food allergies, clean up all surfaces and prevent contamination. The certification requires that applicants complete a course, pass an exam, and then take a test. The certification must be renewed every five years.
ServSafe Alcohol Serving certification
The course covers how to handle and serve alcohol. Part of the course teaches participants how they handle alcohol and how to verify a customer’s identity before they serve them.
To be eligible for ServSafe certification, applicants must be 18 years of age or older and have passed a training program
Essential Skills
- Point-of-sale systems
The technical skills required to serve customers in a restaurant’s point-of-sale system are demonstrated by your experience. Point-of-sale systems can be used to assign occupants to tables and submit orders to the kitchen. While a point-of-sale system may differ between establishments, the general knowledge can be transferred between systems.
- Food safety
As a waitress, food safety is an essential part of your job. This skill shows your knowledge and commitment to the health and well-being of your customers. This involves good hygiene, safe handling of food and utensils, and understanding company policies regarding safe food handling. This can be listed in your skills section, but should also be included in your work experience.
- Regulation of alcoholic beverages
It is essential to be familiar with the federal, state, and local regulations regarding alcohol when applying for a position as a waiter/waitress. This includes how to properly verify customer identity and age to comply with regulatory requirements. Additional regulations may be imposed by local governments and states.
- Communication is key to success
Communication skill is the ability to communicate clearly in a way that others can easily understand. This includes verifying that others have understood what you intend. This skill is essential to ensure that customers can understand the menu, available beverage pairing options, and possible food substitutions.
You must also ensure that you accurately record customer orders. This may include asking clarifications, summarizing, and paraphrasing orders to verify they are correct. Effective communication skills are essential to communicate customer orders to the kitchen staff and answer any questions they might have.
- Active listening
Active listening refers to the ability to listen with an intent to understand others without being distracted by external and internal factors. Asking questions, summarizing and paraphrasing are ways to fully understand your customer’s needs. This skill is essential for a successful waitress. It requires you to be able to concentrate on your customers and not get distracted by any other noises or distractions.
Servers are also often multitasking. You can use active listening skills to help you focus on the customer and not be distracted by other tasks. Active listening shows respect for customers and shows that you care about their needs.
- Positive language
Positive language is used to communicate to customers about what you can do for them. This includes being able to communicate and positively frame information. If a customer requests a substitution, you should offer alternatives to the restaurant rather than simply saying that you don’t have it.
It is crucial to communicate a service orientation to customers and that you are working to improve their lives. Positive language can help customers feel more satisfied and improve their experience.
- Problem-solving skills
Problem-solving is the ability of both the customer and the establishment to come up with solutions that work for them. This involves recognizing the problem, identifying possible solutions, and offering options for the customer to solve the issue.
As a waitress, problem-solving may include providing options for food substitutions and customizing orders to suit the customer’s dietary requirements. This may include working with a manager to offer discount coupons or gift cards for returning customers if a customer is unhappy. To solve problems effectively, you must work with others to find the best solution for everyone.
- Patience
This skill requires constant support and engagement with customers, providing the same level of service and attention to each customer. As a waitress, this skill is essential to ensure that customers can understand the menu and make orders. You must also be patient, even when you’re busy or have other tasks.
While waitresses must be able to multitask quickly and work efficiently, patience will help you remain calm and give your customers your full attention. Being patient with others shows that you are as concerned about their time and needs as your own. This can help you build trust with customers and encourage them to return to your establishment.
- Resilience
Resilience refers to the ability not only to be resilient but also to avoid being affected by negative situations or internalizing other people’s problems. This skill is essential to provide quality service, especially when dealing with high volumes of customers. Waitresses have to interact with people in different situations. It is your job as a waitress to make sure that your customers have a pleasant experience.
To ensure that a customer’s positive experience is not adversely affected by a difficult situation, resilience is an essential skill. It is essential to be able to multitask in a fast-paced restaurant environment. This allows you to manage multiple tasks and not feel overwhelmed or burned out. Strong resilience is essential for maintaining a positive outlook and knowing that you can turn a negative situation around to your advantage.
- Social Perceptiveness
Social perceptiveness is the ability to recognize the reactions of others and understand why they react in a certain way. This skill is essential to anticipate customer needs and gauge their satisfaction. Social perceptiveness is a skill that waitresses use to detect when customers need their attention and gauge their reactions. This includes their satisfaction with their meal, their beverage order, and their overall experience. You can adjust your service style to meet the needs of the customer by being able to see and understand other people’s reactions.
How to Become a Waitress
Here are some steps to help you become a waitress.
- Complete your education
Employers require applicants to have completed at least high school. A high school diploma or GED is an asset to your job search.
- Earn certifications
While not all restaurants require food certifications, earning at least one could demonstrate your commitment to the position. Employers will most readily accept ServSafe certifications.
- Prepare your resume
Your resume should include any experience that shows your ability as a waitress. Adding your extracurricular activities is vital when applying for an entry-level role. If you are applying for waitress positions, make sure you review the job description carefully to find keywords that can be added to your resume to make it stand out.
- Gain experience
Experience is a must for waitresses at fine restaurants. To make a career out of waitressing, you should have some experience as a hostess or server. You’ll be more likely to get a higher tip if you work in an upscale restaurant.
Where to Work
Waitresses work at bars, restaurants, hotels, and other food-service and drinking establishments. Schedules can include weekends, holidays, early mornings, evenings, weekends, and even some nights. Many people work part-time. They may feel pressured to respond quickly and efficiently to customers during busy hours.
Waitress Salary Scale
Part-time and full-time work is possible for waitresses. The restaurant they work at and their experience will determine the salaries. Tips are a significant part of waitresses’ salaries. This means that the number of tables served, the length of the shift, and the size of the group can all impact their wages.
The median salary for a waitress is $23,740 per annum.
