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How to become Waiters and Waitresse in 2024

Waiters and Waitresse Take orders and serve food and beverages to patrons at tables in dining establishment.

Waiters and Waitresse is Also Know as

In different settings, Waiters and Waitresse is titled as

  • Banquet Server
  • Buffet Server
  • Cocktail Server
  • Food Runner
  • Food Server
  • Restaurant Server
  • Server
  • Waiter
  • Waitress
  • Waitstaff

Education and Training of Waiters and Waitresse

Waiters and Waitresse is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Waiters and Waitresse

Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.

Education Required for Waiters and Waitresse

These occupations usually require a high school diploma.

Degrees Related to Waiters and Waitresse

Training Required for Waiters and Waitresse

Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Waiters and Waitresse in different industries are

What Do Waiters and Waitresse do?

  • Check patrons' identification to ensure that they meet minimum age requirements for consumption of alcoholic beverages.
  • Collect payments from customers.
  • Write patrons' food orders on order slips, memorize orders, or enter orders into computers for transmittal to kitchen staff.
  • Take orders from patrons for food or beverages.
  • Check with customers to ensure that they are enjoying their meals, and take action to correct any problems.
  • Serve food or beverages to patrons, and prepare or serve specialty dishes at tables as required.
  • Prepare checks that itemize and total meal costs and sales taxes.
  • Present menus to patrons and answer questions about menu items, making recommendations upon request.
  • Inform customers of daily specials.
  • Clean tables or counters after patrons have finished dining.
  • Prepare hot, cold, and mixed drinks for patrons, and chill bottles of wine.
  • Explain how various menu items are prepared, describing ingredients and cooking methods.
  • Prepare tables for meals, including setting up items such as linens, silverware, and glassware.
  • Perform food preparation duties, such as preparing salads, appetizers, and cold dishes, portioning desserts, and brewing coffee.
  • Stock service areas with supplies such as coffee, food, tableware, and linens.
  • Garnish and decorate dishes in preparation for serving.
  • Fill salt, pepper, sugar, cream, condiment, and napkin containers.
  • Escort customers to their tables.
  • Describe and recommend wines to customers.
  • Bring wine selections to tables with appropriate glasses, and pour the wines for customers.
  • Roll silverware, set up food stations, or set up dining areas to prepare for the next shift or for large parties.
  • Remove dishes and glasses from tables or counters, and take them to kitchen for cleaning.
  • Assist host or hostess by answering phones to take reservations or to-go orders, and by greeting, seating, and thanking guests.
  • Perform cleaning duties, such as sweeping and mopping floors, vacuuming carpet, tidying up server station, taking out trash, or checking and cleaning bathroom.
  • Provide guests with information about local areas, including directions.

Qualities of Good Waiters and Waitresse

  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.

Tools Used by Waiters and Waitresse

  • Alphanumeric paging equipment
  • Carving knives
  • Cash registers
  • Credit card processing machines
  • Personal digital assistants PDA
  • Point of sale POS printers
  • Point of sale POS terminals
  • Point of service workstations
  • Portable bar code scanners
  • Touch screen monitors

Technology Skills required for Waiters and Waitresse

  • Blink
  • Compris Advanced Manager's Workstation
  • Compris software
  • Facebook
  • Hospitality Control Solutions Aloha Point-of-Sale
  • Intuit QuickBooks Point of Sale
  • MICROS Systems HSI Profits Series
  • NCR Advanced Checkout Solution
  • NCR NeighborhoodPOS
  • Point of sale POS software
  • The General Store