There are roughly 2.5 million waiters and waitresses in the U.S., making it the seventh most common job in the country. Compared to other common occupations, being a waiter is also one of the lowest-paying. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that waiters made $23,020 on average in 2015.
However, the amount waiters make largely depends on where they work. A local diner is not going to pay its waiting staff as much as a five-star restaurant in New York, and the tips would certainly be different. Using data from the BLS, the following is a ranking of the metro areas where waiters had the highest average salary in 2015.
Geography is a crucial factor in determining pay. Waiters in some of the metro areas earned more than 40 percent above the national average. Some of the usual suspects like San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles make the list, but none of these cities crack the top 10. Instead, the highest-paying places tend to be resort-filled vacation spots or smaller cities along the West Coast.
Keep in mind, one of the main reasons why salaries vary from place to place is due to differences in the cost of living. It's significantly more expensive to live in San Jose, California — one of the top-paying cities for waiters — than Tulsa, Oklahoma, one of the lowest. The BLS salary figures are not adjusted for cost of living.
Note: Some metro areas like New York-Newark-Jersey City are located in multiple states, but CareerTrends listed each metro as part of the state where it is primarily based. Ties are broken by the total number of waiters in each metro area.