Question

A restaurant hired 18 servers for one banquet. They pay a full time server $21.00 per hour and a part time server $15.50 per hour. If the labor cost of the restaurant was $312.00 per hour, how many full time and part time servers were there for the banquet?

Answer 1

Let's assume that x servers were full-time and y servers were part-time. Then we can write two equations based on the given information:

x + y = 18 (since there were 18 servers in total)

21x + 15.5y = 312 (since the labor cost was $312 per hour)

To solve for x and y, we can use elimination or substitution. Here's one way to use elimination:

Multiply the first equation by 15.5 to get 15.5x + 15.5y = 279.

Subtract the first equation from the second equation to get 5.5x = 33.

Divide both sides by 5.5 to get x = 6.

Now we know that there were 6 full-time servers. We can substitute this value into either of the two equations to solve for y:

6 + y = 18

y = 12

Therefore, there were 6 full-time servers and 12 part-time servers at the banquet.