When I was a teen I worked at a grocery store called Market Basket that required us to wear dress pants/dress shirts/tie. I kind of hated it to start but then was ok with it. I feel it is pretty uncommon, but are there other sort of retail/service industry type jobs that require employees to dress up/wear a tie?
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Higher end restaurants, hotels and other functions where your guests are in high income brackets.
This isn’t “job type” so much as the business itself. Some restaurants the waitstaff wear t-shirts or polos, others require button ups and ties. Same with hotels, etc. Generally the nicer/more expensive a place is, the better dressed the employees are.
Suit shops;)
Wait. THE Market Basket? Best grocery store there is? Artie T’s Market basket?
Suit shops, some high end restaurants and hotels. i have never seen a grocery store that required it, and I personally would not trust a grocery store that required it. That is not the appropriate kind of clothing for that kind of work, so if you are wearing it at that place you cannot do the job properly.
Market Basket is well known for being stuck in the 1980s
Suit/menswear shops. . .if you’re selling ties, you’re probably expected to wear them.
Waitstaff at fancy, high-end restaurants. If you expect your clientele to be wearing ties, you better be wearing one.
Staff at high-end hotels.
Mainly employees at high end restaurants and hotels. Wearing a suit as a grocery store cashier sounds uncomfortable and overly formal to me.
The salesmen at a Lexus dealership I visited last week wore ties. The salespeople at the Toyota, Ford, and Subaru dealerships did not. I can’t say it’s universal, but “luxury” brands of things tend to require a more formal level of dress from employees than non-luxury ones.
Place I work at is still pretty strict with management dress code, but they allow polos or button ups/downs, essentially has to be a collard shirt. Dress shoes, and dress pants. Alas I get to be more laxxed with the dress code due to the duties of my job. For example I’m encouraged to wear polos and I can wear tennis shoes/sneakers due to the some of the things I handle within the store.
Security at most hotels.
Banquet servers
Waiter, hotel receptionist, and doorman
Last time I went to Micro Center all the staff were in dress pants/shirts and ties, it’s been a few years since I went so I’m not sure if that’s still the case.
Pseudo-fancy to fancy Italian restaurants. People who work at Men’s Wearhouse.
Security
Valet services
I immediately knew this post was about Market Basket.
They’re *very* old school.
Client facing hospitality roles often require it
It just depends from business to business. I had to wear a tie as a server (I’m a woman) and it wasn’t even that fancy of a restaurant. They we’re going for a vintage-y vibe and we had to wear white lab coat style jackets, collared shirts and ties.
Lawyers when they go to court. Bankers when they’re presenting to a client
The Hy-Vee grocery store required us to wear ties and dress pants when I worked there in the ’00s.
I thought it was stupid, but the older crowd seemed to like it and would complement us on looking more professional.
It was a bit odd since it led to some customer interactions where people treated me with more respect than you’d expect as a dairy department stockboy. I had people asking questions like, “Will this Activia probiotic yogurt help me with my gastroenteritis?” And I’m like, “You should ask your doctor about that. I’m just here to put it on the shelf.”
I also had to wear a tie when I worked at a different grocery store (as a girl).
One time, I got severely overheated getting carts from the parking lot and I took my tie off and accidentally untied it. Had to find a manager to re-tie it bc I didn’t know how. I had used a YouTube video to tie it the first time and just slipped it on/off after that.
Bonus: Never had to retrieve carts again.
I did when I worked at a movie theater. Tie and vest.
My cousin is a chauffeur, he’s required to wear a black tie , or a black bow tie . Tbh , he picks up a lot of extremely high end clientele.
Although the dress codes for retail and service industry jobs have become more casual in recent years, there are still some positions that require employees to wear ties. Here are a few examples:
Luxury Retail: High-end retail stores, such as designer clothing or jewelry stores, often require their employees to dress in formal business attire, including a tie.
Fine Dining: Servers and hosts at upscale restaurants are usually required to wear formal attire, including a dress shirt and tie.
Hotels: Front desk clerks and concierges at luxury hotels are often required to wear suits and ties as part of their uniform.
Banking: Employees in banking and finance, such as bank tellers and loan officers, are often required to wear business attire, which includes a tie.
Law Firms: Legal professionals, including lawyers, paralegals, and administrative staff, typically wear business attire, which includes a tie.
Airline Industry: Airline pilots, flight attendants, and other employees who interact with customers may be required to wear a tie as part of their uniform.
I had to wear a tie when I worked for Mariano’s, a Chicago-based Kroger store. This was 2018 so not that long ago.
Aviation for the most part.
Enterprise Rent-a-Car did for a long time but I think they stopped in the last 3-4 years.
Market Basket keeps it old school. Thank God Artie T won out in the end and we still get more for our dollar.
Suit shops. Some furniture stores do. I know Nebraska Furniture Mart has their male employees wear ties, or at least dress shirts. I used to work for the Fareway Grocery chain and until a few years ago they required white shirts and black ties, and the meat department guys had paper hats. Now they’ve gone to red polos shirts and the meat department wears black baseball caps. The women had a kind of tie too but it was shorter and a bit different. Not sure what it was called.
People that work at funeral parlors
Chippendale’s
sometimes jewelers wear a suit and tie to look like money. i don’t know if it’s required tho, prolly a per-shop rule
i can’t think of anything else. Ties are an OSHA nightmare and most retail jobs have a physical aspect to them, even if it’s just taking trash to the compactor or stacking boxes.