Yes, the menu advised people that the prices were 20% higher (or whatever the percentage was) because tipping wasn’t permitted and they were doing this to give their employees a fair wage.
Under this rule change, I would recommend to restaurants that have a fair tipping policy to have a highly visible sign announcing it to their customers. The lack of such a sign will indicate to their customers that there’s no viable benefit to leaving a tip.
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The restaurant Camino in Oakland is no-tip and I’m pretty sure they have a sign in the window… It’s spelled out on their website… I think it has a Michelin star so people going there are ready to pay a bit more than usual. Still, last I looked at their yelp page, people were really complaining about the prices, but that happens at any place that offers small portions… Not sure if the commenters were considering the no-tip aspect.
The local chain Lane Splitter (pizza/beer) was also tip-free for a bit but I’ve noticed they reverted back to the standard approach. It was nice while it lasted.
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The minimum wage for tipped employees is much lower than the “normal” minimum wage.
The kitchen staff aren’t tipped employees, and are subject to the usual market forces for hourly wages.
Oh, man! If only it was that easy!
Only very rarely are restaurant projects funded by independently wealthy investors that don’t care about return on investment. The “owner” typically owns the restaurant in the same way you might “own” your house–as long as you keep making the mortgage payments.
Obviously the owner doesn’t have the power to arbitrarily pay whatever they choose. It has to make economic sense, meaning it doesn’t put the business under and the bankers and investors are happy. Restaurants are volatile, risky investments, and they have to return a reasonable profit to whoever provided the investment capital or they never come into existence to begin with.
You can’t woo investors with a pitch like “We’re going to only return 3% of your investment annually because we need to be generous to our kitchen staff!”. They’ll just put their money in a Money Market account instead, and the project is never funded. The same dynamic exists with the big chains.
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I agree in principle. This is the reality of how the restaurant industry works. I can’t change it as an individual, but I do want it to be different.
I agree with the “living wage” argument if the business actually requires employing people that need a living wage (teens, for example, usually don’t need one and don’t offer enough skill to be worth paying highly).
In theory I’d love to pay everyone extravagantly. If you want to run a restaurant today, you have to work within the existing market reality. I’m all for change.
BTW, I didn’t say the servers are screwing the kitchen staff. I did suggest that restaurants that don’t care about this problem are screwing the kitchen staff.
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Yes, I know that. I think you’re saying that the employer should make up the difference with respect to the untipped employees so that their wages are equivalent to the wages of the tipped employees. I thought you were saying the employer should (as opposed to must) make up the difference between the tipped employee’s lower minimum wage and the higher standard minimum wage if the tips fall short of the higher standard minimum wage.
I agree that the competition for tips within a restaurant is a problem, and in the 21st century United States, tipping as a practice is anachronistic and employers should just pay everyone a minimum wage. This, of course, will require a revolution in thought among the tipped employee labor force, which has grown up on the tipping model.
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There really shouldn’t be categories of jobs exempt from minimum wage, there is a reason to have a minimum.
Ideally, minimum wage would be a livable base wage for the area one is working in.
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Higher wages (read: living wages) in Europe for waitstaff and kitchen staff is the norm rather than the exception. Thus, they enjoy much longer retention. And therefore every employee has a deeper knowledge of the menu, the quirks, the kitchen and everything about the place, and can pinch hit other roles more easily, as needed. It adds up to a healthier restaurant.
Staff retention has a direct, calculable economic value. Consider the time and money spent advertising for, interviewing, hiring, and training staff. Consider the time spent dealing with scheduling and subs for call-ins. Retention is a hugely underestimated contributor to the bottom line. Americans haven’t realized it yet.
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I’ve heard tipping isn’t a significant part of the restaurant culture in Europe. Instead, the full cost of the meal is built into the base price.
It would be great if we could achieve that here.
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Yes, service compris. I think the Swiss came up with that first, ages ago.
You only have to pay the exact sum on the bill.
Social convention1) is that in a restaurant you
- leave a small tip when everything was reasonable okay, usually by rounding up
- leave a tip somewhere in the 5% - 10% range if you’re really satisfied
- leave larger tips when you want to show off
In places like fast food diners it’s usually just the rounding up thing, if any.
1) Values/conventions for Krautistan. There are local variations all over the continent, but basically that’s it.
Always appreciated by the staff beside tips: not behaving like a dick.
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Australia is similar - possibly slightly more generous, but tipping is limited to restaraunts, taxis (not expected, but rounding up normal) and the pizza delivery guy (I’ve had shitty student jobs too).
And minimum wage is mandatory.
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I can already hear the bullshit flowing through the sluices now:
"Guys-- this rule modification is simply democracy in action! We're making government more efficient and freeing the business of red tape! If the business owner abuses his position, the free market will correct him: employees will leave, service quality will drop, profits will drop, and the business owner will rectify his behavior to achieve higher profits! The system works!"
Exclamation points, because I imagine Paul Ryan reciting this apologia with breathless enthusiasm.
Top floor people are like top kitchen people, except that they have to get paid.
I think Canada is pretty twisted one for tipping… all staff get at least minimum wage, but you’re supposed to tip. Convention is 15% minimum. For parties of 6 or more, you usually get charged an 15-18% gratuity (why not charge the gratuity all the time?). Tips are redistributed among the staff in most restaurants. You’re also supposed to tip your hairdresser, manicurist, etc. You’re supposed to tip taxi drivers, but I’ve never had an occasion where I felt even the remotest urge to tip a taxi driver (taxis in Vancouver suck. They get lost. A lot. That extra 5 bucks you cost me by fucking around is your tip).
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Yeah, screw that. You don’t get to decide who gets a living non-slave wage. You don’t get to tell people they don’t deserve to be treated as full human being.
I’m calling bullshit on that one.
Then start with yourself.
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As FGD135 said, service compris. Usual tip is 1 to 2 euro per person at the table. Which, in Europe is nice on another level because they have euro coins. So you can offload your pocket of change as a tip and it’s not frowned upon. Well, in a nice restaurant, it would be gauche to unload a pocket of 1, 2 and 5 euro cents. I mean more generally the 50 cent, 1 and 2 euro pieces.
And what’s more, even with service compris and that nominal tip, food in much of Europe is higher quality, more local, healthier and cheaper than eating in the USA. Local wines are only 10 Euro at most restaurants, or they give generous pours by the glass. Americans start bottled wine at about $20, occasionally $15. Never $10 unless it’s a dive.
In USA, dinner at, say, a nice local Italian non-chain is going to set a duo back easily $80 to 100. With more than 1 drink each, you are definitely going over $100. In Italy, mid-range to middle-higher-range dining for the same amount and quality of food and drink will be about $50 to $60 Euro. Of course there are exceptions, in both places. I mean, on average, and trying to match quality.
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The article you cite is almost 3 years old, and was actually the reason I got excited about service charges over tipping. That “revolution” is how the American restaurant industry learned:
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You can’t hold on to your best wait staff with a service charge,
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Americans aren’t comfortable with pricing that includes the full cost (yet)
Many of those restaurants have since reversed course and went back to tipping.
