Lindsey Jakubowski has learned that there is a huge difference between serving hungry families and serving hungry college students.

After a three-year stint at Pizza Hut, which she dubbed the “worst job ever,” Jakubowski, convinced she could handle anything, accepted a job at Adele’s, the “fancy” restaurant in Stamp Student Union. She had the restaurant experience. She had been a waitress before. What could be different?

Two years later, Jakubowski knows better. Between food fights and lousy tips, working at Adele’s at times can make the Pizza Hut job look easy.

Mike Coe, a senior English major, and Michael Ewing, a sophomore history major, also learned what it’s like to have a restaurant filled entirely with 18- to 21-year-olds on empty stomachs.

One day last week, the three shared their newfound wisdom as they relaxed in the Baltimore Room after a lunch shift at Adele’s.

“Lunch is easy,” Coe said. “That crowd is mostly made up of professors. But in a couple hours, when people come in for dinner? That’s when the fun starts.”

Jakubowski started out at Adele’s as a hostess, and was shocked at how rude students were when she told them they had to wait for a table. Because the wait can be up to two hours on the Thursdays before focus dates, students often become irritable when they’re told they can’t be seated immediately.

But the servers say they only wish that impatience was the worst thing about serving a crowd made up of 90 percent college students.

Unanimously, the worst thing is small tips; or even worse, no tip at all.

“People assume that since they pay with their meal points, the tip is factored in as well,” said Jakubowski. “Many students don’t realize you have to tip in cash.”

And the ones that do aren’t much better. Coe said he’s seen bills as high as $300 with tips of $2 and change.

Since most people go to Adele’s to use their money before the focus date, it feels like they have unlimited funds, Jakubowski said. A group of eight will order six appetizers, eight dinners and four desserts and feel like they’re not spending anything at all.

“The problem is that students don’t think of us as a real restaurant,” Coe said, recalling the loud volume and outbreaks of food fights. “To them, we’re just like the dining hall.”

This feeling is reinforced by the amount of theft that takes place, Jakubowski said. While it’s become almost commonplace for students to swipe silverware and trays from the dining halls without a second thought, she said she was surprised to hear how much is taken from Adele’s. Servers describe having to replace 12 salt and pepper shakers and more than 50 pieces of silverware in just five days.

Sometimes, the theft goes beyond utensils. Coe remembers the mysterious disappearance of a four-foot plastic dog that stood in the front of the restaurant a few years ago and Jakubowski said she once discovered a group of people trying to smuggle the couches out without anyone noticing.

However, despite the tiring shifts, obnoxious students, impatient customers and lousy tips, Coe has been a server at the restaurant for four years and calls it “the best student job on campus.”

Ewing agreed, saying the job is, overall, very student-friendly. The managers are generous with schedules and take into account that the servers have schoolwork and other commitments, he said.

Jakubowski, Coe and Ewing have all worked at other restaurants before. While they admit that the customers at their other jobs were easier, the hours and pay at Adele’s are impossible to beat. Servers make a flat rate of $6 an hour plus tips. Managers could not reveal average tips the servers make, and Dining Services does not track them.

And despite the problems, there are some advantages to having college students as customers.

“If you run out of something, teenagers tend to be much more understanding than adults or young children,” Jakubowski said.