"The appearance of not making a lot is part of the tip economy, but the truth is that servers make a lot of money, and as an employer you have to offer competitive compensation to get the best," the source says. "The misconception is based off all service jobs being grouped together: a teenager who's waiting tables at an ice cream shop to someone in a diner to someone who's waiting tables at a restaurant that focuses on tasting menus. There's a huge scale of training that goes into the latter that doesn't go into the former. People think this is unskilled labor, a thing they could do, when it's really not."