Sommelier vs bartender, cook, and waitress

The differences between sommeliers and bartender, cook, and waitresses can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. Additionally, a sommelier has an average salary of $40,584, which is higher than the $27,827 average annual salary of a bartender, cook, and waitress.

The top three skills for a sommelier include wine, fine dining and POS. The most important skills for a bartender, cook, and waitress are food orders, customer orders, and bartending.

Sommelier vs bartender, cook, and waitress overview

	Sommelier	Bartender, Cook, And Waitress
Yearly salary	$40,584	$27,827
Hourly rate	$19.51	$13.38
Growth rate	10%	10%
Number of jobs	1,802	162,319
Job satisfaction	-	-
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	High School Diploma, 42%
Average age	28	28
Years of experience	-	-

Sommelier vs bartender, cook, and waitress salary

Sommeliers and bartender, cook, and waitresses have different pay scales, as shown below.

	Sommelier	Bartender, Cook, And Waitress
Average salary	$40,584	$27,827
Salary range	Between $24,000 And $68,000	Between $21,000 And $35,000
Highest paying City	New York, NY	-
Highest paying state	New York	-
Best paying company	Del Frisco's Restaurant Group	-
Best paying industry	Hospitality	-

Differences between sommelier and bartender, cook, and waitress education

There are a few differences between a sommelier and a bartender, cook, and waitress in terms of educational background:

	Sommelier	Bartender, Cook, And Waitress
Most common degree	Bachelor's Degree, 64%	High School Diploma, 42%
Most common major	Business	Business
Most common college	-	-

Sommelier vs bartender, cook, and waitress demographics

Here are the differences between sommeliers' and bartender, cook, and waitresses' demographics:

	Sommelier	Bartender, Cook, And Waitress
Average age	28	28
Gender ratio	Male, 68.3% Female, 31.7%	Male, 5.4% Female, 94.6%
Race ratio	Black or African American, 11.3% Unknown, 6.0% Hispanic or Latino, 21.5% Asian, 9.0% White, 51.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.9%	Black or African American, 10.4% Unknown, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino, 13.8% Asian, 7.8% White, 62.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.7%
LGBT Percentage	6%	6%

Differences between sommelier and bartender, cook, and waitress duties and responsibilities

Sommelier example responsibilities.

Manage sales and inventory for premier wine destination restaurant.
Wine, spirits and fine products sale.
Direct guest interaction and up-sell of wine and spirits.
Inventory, purchasing and cost control monitoring, transaction reconciliation, POS programming, payroll, sommelier work.
Purchase wines for one of the largest menu varieties in NYC.
Market wine selections with sales team through upselling or pouring wine product samples for testing.

Bartender, cook, and waitress example responsibilities.

General cleaning, and knowledge of POS systems.
Start off here as a cook, learned to bartend.
Operate a POS system to itemize and complete a customer purchases.
Develop relationships with regular patrons; develop an understanding of their personal needs and expectations, including preferences and food allergies.
Cook waitresses cashier hostess prep cook dishwasher
Generate detail checks utilizing micros systems.

Sommelier vs bartender, cook, and waitress skills

Common sommelier skills

Wine, 44%
Fine Dining, 13%
POS, 5%
Culinary, 5%
Spirits, 4%
Sommeliers, 3%

Common bartender, cook, and waitress skills

Food Orders, 16%
Customer Orders, 13%
Bartending, 8%
Food Preparation, 7%
Customer Service, 6%
Drink Orders, 5%

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Sommelier vs Bartender, Cook, And Waitress

Updated January 8, 2025

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