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Working the Holidays as a Server: The Busiest Nights, Holiday Pay and Tips

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Quick answer: The money nights are Thanksgiving Eve, especially behind the bar, and New Year's Eve, when Toast's data shows sales up 20% and tips averaging almost 24%. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are slower than a normal December day, but fewer restaurants open, especially on Christmas Day, and checks run bigger. Card tips tend to rise in late December, though sit-down restaurants saw lower tips on Christmas Day itself. Federal law doesn't require holiday pay or extra pay for working a holiday, only overtime after 40 hours in a week, so any holiday bonus is up to your restaurant.

Tip’d, our free iPhone tip tracker, shows what each night paid, so next year you'll know which holidays are worth asking for.

The holiday season is when a lot of servers make their money, and also when they work the nights everyone else has off. Not every holiday pays the same, though. Some are among the busiest nights of the year, and some are quieter than a regular Tuesday. Here's what restaurant data says about each night from Thanksgiving to New Year's, how tips change, whether you're owed holiday pay, and how to get the most out of the season.

The nights, by the numbers

Five holiday nights from Toast’s restaurant data. Thanksgiving Eve 2024: 17% more checks and 79% more alcohol sales than an average Wednesday; busy. Christmas Eve: in 2019, 31% fewer guests than an average December day; in 2023, card tips peaked here, at 19.5%; slower. Christmas Day 2019: sales 84% below an average December day, and only 19% of Toast restaurants open; slower. New Year’s Eve 2019: 20% more sales than the rest of December, and an average tip of 23.9%; busy. New Year’s Day 2020: sales 24% lower than usual, and an average tip of 22.3%; slower. The money nights are Thanksgiving Eve, mostly at the bar, and New Year’s Eve; Christmas is slower, but fewer restaurants are open. The 2023 tips count card and digital payments only.
Five holiday nights in Toast's restaurant data. Each compares with its own baseline, so read each row on its own. Tap to zoom.

Toast, a point-of-sale system used by more than a hundred thousand restaurants, publishes what happened at its restaurants on the big days. Its tip numbers come from card and digital payments, not cash, and each night is compared with a different baseline and year, so the numbers show which way a night goes rather than ranking the nights against each other.

Thanksgiving Eve: the bar's big night

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the night people come home and go out with old friends. In 2024, Toast's restaurants ran 17% more checks than on an average Wednesday, the average check was 10% bigger, and alcohol sales were up 79%. Toast says that for many bars it's the busiest night of the year. If you bartend, or can pick up a bar shift, this is the one.

Thanksgiving Day itself is different. Most families eat at home, large parties dip, and Toast found that guests at sit-down restaurants tipped less on Thanksgiving and Christmas, which it says may be because of automatic gratuities added to holiday checks (more on that below).

Early December: party season

Office and family holiday parties fill the first weekends of December. In Toast's data for the last three months of 2023, parties of eight or more spiked in the first weeks of December, and the busiest day of the quarter for them was Saturday, December 9. If your restaurant books holiday parties, those Saturdays are worth asking for.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

In 2019, Toast's restaurants saw 31% fewer guests on Christmas Eve than on an average December day, and Christmas Day sales were 84% lower. But fewer places open, especially on Christmas Day: 76% of Toast's restaurants opened on Christmas Eve that year, and only 19% on Christmas Day. The ones that do open get the holiday crowd and bigger tables, and the average check was 19% bigger on Christmas Eve and 40% bigger on Christmas Day. Tips climb too: in 2023, card tips rose through the lead-up to Christmas and peaked on Christmas Eve, at 19.5%.

New Year's Eve: the other big night

New Year's Eve is the night nearly everyone stays open for: 89% of Toast's restaurants did at the end of 2019. Sales ran 20% above the rest of December, checks were about 17% bigger, tips were 21.8% higher than usual, and the average tip was 23.9%. New Year's Day is slower, with 67% of restaurants open and sales 24% below usual, but tips stayed high, averaging 22.3%.

Do people tip more at the holidays?

A little, at the end of the year. Toast has found that some guests tip more in the last two weeks of December; in Maine, where tips rose the most, its restaurants averaged 20.8% from December 17 to 31, 2022, against 19.9% for the first eleven months of the year. The exception is Thanksgiving and Christmas Day at sit-down restaurants, where tips came in lower, possibly because of automatic gratuities on big holiday tables.

That matters for your paycheck. An automatic 18% on a large party isn't a tip in the eyes of the IRS; it's a service charge, and whatever the restaurant pays you from it counts as wages, with taxes taken out, rather than tips. It can also change how a tip-out is figured. Our guide to service charges vs. tips explains who gets that money.

Do you get holiday pay?

Not by law. The Department of Labor says the federal wage law “does not require payment for time not worked, such as vacations or holidays,” and it doesn't require extra pay for working on one either. Under federal law, time and a half is owed only for hours past 40 in a workweek, holiday or not, so a week of doubles over Christmas can still earn you overtime. A few states, like California, also pay overtime after a long day.

A few states have rules about Sundays and holidays, but they don't help servers. Rhode Island requires time and a half on holidays for many employers, but its law leaves out people who work in restaurants. Massachusetts ended its Sunday and holiday premium pay for retail workers in 2023, and it never covered restaurants. So holiday pay, a bonus or a gift card for working Christmas is up to your restaurant. Some do pay extra; Toast mentions restaurants that pay double time and hand out end-of-shift gifts. If yours does, it's usually in the handbook or posted with the holiday schedule, and it never hurts to ask.

How to make the most of the season

And go in knowing that holiday crowds aren't always full of holiday spirit. A server who has worked every Christmas since 2014 put it this way:

Writing down what each night paid is what Tip’d is for. It's a free tip tracker for iPhone: log each shift's cash and card tips, tip-outs and hours, and it shows what each night really paid, by job and by day of the week, so you'll see exactly which holidays were worth it. Logging shifts is free, there's no account, and your shifts stay on your phone and in your own iCloud.

Questions people ask

What's the busiest night of the year for bars?

For many bars it's Thanksgiving Eve, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Toast's restaurants sold 79% more alcohol that night in 2024 than on an average Wednesday. New Year's Eve is the other big one.

Is working Christmas worth it as a server?

It depends on your restaurant. Most restaurants are much quieter on Christmas Day, but few are open, so the ones that are can be busy, with bigger checks. Card tips run higher in late December, though at sit-down restaurants they came in lower on Christmas Day itself, possibly because of automatic gratuities. Your own numbers from past years are the best answer.

Do restaurants have to pay holiday pay?

No. Federal law doesn't require holiday pay or extra pay for working a holiday, only overtime after 40 hours in a week. Any holiday pay is your restaurant's choice.

Is an automatic gratuity on a holiday party a tip?

No. To the IRS it's a service charge, so your share is paid as wages, not tips.

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