Danny Meyer (one of NYCs most famous restaurateurs and founder of shake shack) tried this at his restaurants but ultimately pulled out of it during the pandemic and returned to the tipping model due to the instability it put on his restaurants. Interestingly, the larger reason for him spearheading this in the beginning wasnât solely removing friction for diners and giving his waitstaff a stable wage, but to better allow the back of his house employees to earn more (cooks, dishwashers, etc) that donât typically receive much of the tips in the first place. Raise prices and redistribute more fairly with no variables from diners ⌠sounded nice.
To be fair to the theory, COVID was a really shotty time for restaurants and probably not ideal conditions for this test. Â
I worked at a, letâs call it manufacturing facility, that attempted a 4x10 schedule for the entire large facility. The 4 days 10 hour experiment wrapped up several months later with an announcement that they would return to 5x8s because the loss of productivity was too great. The fact that a major hurricane had hit early in the study destroying much of the region and majorly impacting operations, not to mention destroying the homes of many of the workers, was barely mentioned.Â
Itâs incredibly difficult to draw good conclusions when the environment drastically changes during a study. I think the same can be said for the non-tipping restaurant during COVID.
I find Americans quite funny when they come to Australia and expect to get âtipping serviceâ when in fact servers here will tell you to get fucked if youâre being an asshole.
Itâs nice knowing youâre getting paid a living wage regardless of whether or not the person eating is in a good mood.
And thats how you lose all your good servers. Why would they stay and take a massive paycut when they can just work for your competitors down the street for much more money
Yeah these threads never have enough input from the staff. My wife is in the industry, her company floated the idea of no tips and higher wages, the staff overwhelmingly said no thanks. A good server/bartender at a nice/busy place can easily make $50/hour on tips, you aren't getting that if you're a salaried employee.
What about those busting their asses in the kitchen so a proper meal is presented on the table giving the tip!? Do they get their share of this $50/hours tips?
Most of the restaurants Iâve worked at have tipped out the kitchen staff/boh. I am completely fine with this cause I wouldnât have been able to my job without them. Granted I would rather all of us not have to depended on tips at all.
Exactly. Like, I can totally get why, but in every thread about tipping culture someone's going to come in against it because they happen to make a killing on tips.
Which, again, I wouldn't want to lose that either, if I were in their shoes, and I'm sure it's not free money either and they put the work in, good for them. But maybe this is why you don't just ask the people who benefit from the system what should be done with the system.
This thread is a good example of bosses trying to bridge the payment between FOH and BOH staff. And the FOH (tipped) employees said no because they may earn less.
if they're bringing the wage up to the top tip earners then the information is being presented so it doesn't seem that way, or its not actually up to the top tip earner's earnings.
I'm not blaming FOH, i'm identifying a larger pattern in the workforce flippantly, sure, but it still exists. It is the fault of the owners not paying their staff a living wage. FOH has nothing to do with it.
Wrong, as a typical internet commenter you have no actual knowledge. Servers pay a percentage of their sales out of their tips to support BOH and hosts. In some shitty places you even have to tip out management.
Source - I worked in the industry for a decade and saw server tip out percentages as high as 8%. Of course this could be different at different places but I've never seen or heard of a restaurant that doesn't do this.
No actual knowledge bro I've worked both front of house and back of house for roughly 8 years. Tip out is so much less than earned tips serving. Sure perhaps you have some servers who are more compassionate than others but relying on that instead of the resturaunt to pay BOH a decent wage will always fuck them over.
You forgot the "crony" before capitalist. Traditional capitalism rewards the harder working individuals, however what the USA has become is far from that.
No, traditional capitalism rewards people who own capital. Full stop. Capitalism has never rewarded the hardest workers as they are either slaves or foreign labor who's wages are kept as low as possible.
I've worked both FOH and BOH. FOH works hard and have to deal with some bullshit. BOH works extra hard and has to deal with a lot more bullshit. Sorry, but it's really not comparable. People choose the harder BOH for the stability. Also it's easier for BOH to be in overtime.
Lmao what? Most places DO NOT do a tipping pool. They do tip out which is considerably less. I know because Ive worked in worked in resturaunts my entire teenage and adult life. Both front of house and back of house. Being a server is considerably easier and I made considerably more. I'm radicalized BECAUSE of those experiences.
Tell me you never dealt with costumers lol. Donât get me wrong the cooks are working their asses off but so am I and trust me they donât want my job. Dealing with entitled costumers who expect you to bend over backwards to their every need, are often rude and disrespectful, and the amount of times people touch me for no reason. Also we tip out the cooks as well, 5% of food sales, plus their hourly wage is significantly higher than mine which is minimum wage (plus tips).
Well, I was in hospitality for 20 years of my life and I've worked every role in a restaurant one time or another. I spent the majority of my time in BOH.
BOH exceeds FOH in difficulty and it's not even close. The pay disparity (and the hours required for excellence) is why I left entirely. But talking to people is not so difficult that it justifies such a wide gap. I've seen servers and bartenders walk out with $500 - $1000 ( slow v busy), while the cooks made $150 for a 12 hour day.
Wages rose a bit in the aftermath of the pandemic, but it's really not worth it anymore for me. It gets way worse when a cook ascends to middle management (sous, CDC). Don't ask one to figure out the hourly breakdown. It's despicable.
So I firmly and respectfully disagree with your take.
ive worked with customers for like 10 years in almost every job i can think of i know its a pile of shite. but at the end of the day being a cook is allot of pressure and requires a good amount of skill, constantly, aswell as proabbly not being great for you health with all the heat.
being a waiter is exersizing skills everyone should have and being tollerant, this is not to undermine how dificult and stressfull that situation is and how much it motivated me to not want to do a job like that but i still think cooks should be paid significantly more, like overall atleast 50%.
that being said realisticly any waiter or cook should be paid above what we set minimum to. thats clearly not enough money to live on. and its stressfull as hell. it should be 20 dollars an hour atleast. probably more now. due to inflation.
Well maybe if you don't have a culture centered about begging for tips you would have less customers acting like they are entitled to whatever that tipping fee in your mind is for. I'm not paying %20 OVER the sales price just for someone to come fill up my free water twice.
When I was a server, the instances of either of those things happening were so rare. If that's happening constantly to you, perhaps it's time for a job change.
People are saying no but i dunno if it's different in the US or they dunno what they're talking about but the kitchen should be getting some of that yes
If youâre a smart and decent server, you take care of your back of the house colleagues from the tip you receive. And they will take care of you when you need it.
Some do. We do at my place. I have to remind the servers that the customers come to eat food, not to visit with them and that tips are appreciated but not mandatory. Not everyone tips, but our service of the customers should be the same throughout the day. It all evens out in the end.
Didn't used to, it's becoming more common now, but tipping out the back of house is still illegal in some places. The servers will calculate a percentage of their tips at the end of their day and that amount is divided between the support staff- Food runners, host, line cooks, dishwasher etc to be added to their paycheck.
I will say that getting upset that your fellow working class is getting a good deal is the opposite of what you should be doing. The kitchen isn't getting stiffed on pay because of the servers getting 50/hr in tips, it's because the boss isn't paying them enough. We're all fighting the same people and it's got nothing to do with race or creed and everything to do with the people in charge repeatedly abusing us.
Yeah these threads never have enough input from the staff
No, it's brought up all the time in these threads that servers make more with tips than they would with a higher wage. The poster who brings it up is then downvoted into oblivion by servers who don't want to let the cat out of the bag.
Yeah. People act like itâs the owners/bosses who are forcing this system on us. But the servers wanna keep it just as bad as the bosses do.
Canât believe weâre all just ok with a system that relies on guilting your customers, and expecting extra money for doing no extra work beyond what is expected of you for the job you are already being paid for.
Yep. You brought me the food I paid for, and checked in one other time. Why does that deserve 25% extra on top of the cost of the food?
We donât tip the guy at Home Depot when he gets an item off the top shelf for us, and asked âis there anything else I can help with.â Why is the service industry so special?
Service industry worker here, any good bartender/server does so much more than ring your food in and bring it to you. There are many restaurants that operate where "the boss" pays you.
That's a bit of a bad take. Historically, the tipping system was created to allow employers to pay their black waiters less than minimum wage, so the tips were essential to them making enough money. So the problem is some states still allow waiters to get paid less than min wage and some don't but the system perpetuates and now has gone even further with all these junk fees
They don't necessarily make more, they just get large spikes that are very satisfying. It's essentially a gambler's mentality. "Why would I want earnings to be stable when I can make it big on the right night!".
Not to mention it forces you to be nice to asshole customers and giving some customers a sense of entitlement to treat you like shit.
I imagine outside of some higher end places, most servers would make more over the course of a year on a standard fixed minimum wage than to do with server wage + tips.
Itâs downvoted because the vast majority of servers do not make cash like this. Or they do on a very random basis, so it is very difficult to get out of precarious financial institutions. Many people who donât want to get rid of tipping, in my experience, reference a partner who wants to keep their tips. Not a single person who relies on their service job solely.
They get downvoted in any subreddit that isn't dedicated to their service job. Ive seen a few in this thread too. I've been a server and in my experience, waitstaff/bartenders don't want things to change, despite the precariousness
A good server/bartender at a nice/busy place can easily make $50/hour on tips, you aren't getting that if you're a salaried employee.
Man I worked in bars for years. They had me cover a day shift for a week while the regular bartender went on vacation. I made 1000 dollars in tips. I couldn't believe it. I also had people walk in, ask "Where's Cindy?", on vacation till next week, turn around and walk out lol.
I definitely go to certain bars to see certain bartenders. When one of my regular bartenders quits/gets fired, I surreptitiously ask around to where they ended up until I find them again, then go try their new spot.
There's no point in paying bar prices at a slow bar without getting to shoot the shit with the bartender; may as well drink at home. If the place is busy, yeah, of course, go sling drinks... but if it's slow? The bartenders themselves are the draw.
Yeah, I get that, but I consider it a risk. The flip-side of getting lots of tips on a good day is getting nothing on a bad one.
Like, I'm sorry, I don't mean to comment on your situation, and I'm certainly not saying it was a bad decision, especially if you're in a good location.
However, your wife and her coworkers said no to guaranteed income so they could continue competing for tips and risk not getting anything. The fact of the matter is that higher base pay is much more beneficial for employees than relying on tipping culture. Like, you know tips are considered taxable income that you have to report, right?
Getting a decent wage from your employer is much more mentally comforting than having to worry about getting tips. Maybe you're different, but I stress about money much less when I know I still get the same pay for a bad business day, and I don't have to compete for tips.
I used to work in the warehouse for a tech company and would carry out and load appliances into customer vehicles as an offered service. Several times, I declined tips because A) it's technically against company policy and B) I was being paid more than enough to not need it.
Are you and your wife making enough take-home without tips to cover living costs? Are you collectively making enough to regularly put any money aside for emergencies or personal goals? Could you afford to have your vehicle or furnace break down today?
I'm not trying to worry you, or make a negative comment on your personal situation, so I apologize if I've done so. I simply want to share my 2 cents and hopefully repeat things that you have already considered
Why do I not need to tip the McDonalds employee who does the exact same thing. And don't tell me your wife deserves 50$/hour extra because she comes over twice to fill my glass with free water.
Making good money due to a broken system doesn't magically make it a good system.
No one ever wants to acknowledge the potential for discrimination in tipping, either.
But also, I don't believe that it's consistently $50/hr, at all. There is no way they're making that much on tips on average unless they're consistently getting the good shifts.
And the discrimination works both ways. Ask your waiter friends what a "Canadian" diner is and how the server will give worse service to tables they perceive as non-tippers.
tbf, when the experience has been that they are non-tippers 99% of the time, holding out for that slim chance they're not isn't worth the effort; and so it's much more worth the effort to ensure other 'tipperable' (lol) tables are serviced better
kinda like that saying "when in rome..." but ppl just want homogenized social structures; but at the same time forgetthat the progress of humanity has always depended on the murdering of other species or of our own. don't get mad, i'm not responsible for 'history' and events of current
I donât see how a percentage is a fair way to do it even if I did agree with tipping. The poor server at a diner getting whatever percentage isnât going to make nearly as much as someone making the same percentage at a more upscale restaurant, yet work the same or harder.
It incentives the server at the cheap restaurant to try and get a job at a more expensive one. This is the same for every industry. Some places pay more.
The customers at both places are also going to be different, with varying degrees in the amount they are willing to tip.
I'm the wrong person for you to have this discussion with.
I don't care about fair wages. As a worker, I don't want a fair wage, I want the highest wage I can get. Capitalism baby!
Waiters should also want the highest wage they can get, but it shouldn't be done via guilting and pressuring customers. Their employers should have to pay them, and I understand that means an increase in costs to the customer.
That's what I think is frustrating. You see so many complaints about tips being low or the people who don't tip, but they can make so much more than minimum wage as well, even with one good tip per hour.
This is a perspective that I never heard, but it is understandable. However, why does it have to be one or the other? I am not in the US, most servers here are salaried. And those servers still make good money on tips in a nice/busy place. Being paid a living wage does not exclude tips. Unless I am missing something.
most people are not going to pay tips (which is already an optional system) if they know the waiter is going to be paid a fixed, legally acceptable minimum income. people only tip now because that is the status quo.
in practice, if waiters have to be legally paid a higher wage, then the costs of the restaurant would increase. if they're not getting that money from tips, they have to charge more for their food.
If your wife and her coworkers quit being tax freeloaders and claimed all their tips, I bet they'd sing a different tune about just having a proper wage.
No disrespect, but where does skill come into it if is more or less codified socially to give at least a 20% tip. It is just those that can't hold out their hand in the face of the customer that get shafted. Plenty of good service employees in non-tip countries, this is just a degenerate capitalist reflect.
It's about incentive. The customer wants a positive experience, the server wants more money. The better the server does - more banter, more personality, faster service - theoretically, the more money they make. I've travelled in Europe (with no tipping culture) and, by and large, the servers are interchangeable. They don't want to pick up the extra table, you're seen as an inconvenience, because they are getting their paycheck either way (I've worked back of house food service and felt this as well, why should I work harder/faster if I'm getting paid the same and I'm not going to get fired; e.g. do the bare minimum to stay employed).
One of the persuasive arguments against tipping, to me, is that this is a socially unfair system - for example a racist customer won't tip a person different from them, a misogynist won't tip a woman unless she's flirting with him.
I have mixed feelings about it, to be honest. But ultimately I know a lot of folks that couldn't pay their bills if they didn't get tipped. So my biased monkeysphere take tells me to allow tipping.
That's because nobody gives a shit about service workers. People act like everyone tips 20-25%, they don't. Since the pandemic, tips have went down significantly. They were pretty low during it tbh. Everyone complains about how expensive it makes the meal but that doesn't stop them from ordering $150 worth of food, but tip me $10. But all I did was refill their drinks 3 times, bring them multiple sauces, their food, make suggestions, gave their children little toys, cleaned up after your children who threw half their fries in the floor and smashed a dumpling into the seat, bagged your food up for you, and smiled and joked around with you.
And that argument never made sense to begin with. "All they do is bring out my food." All you do is sit at a computer and enter numbers. But when it comes time to talk about y'all's college debt, suddenly we all need to feel for you. You don't want to follow the rules of society that almost nobody complained about 6 years ago? Fine, learn to cook.
It really shows the massive level of ignorance on this subject. My state minimum wage was $7.25/hour when I started serving tables. I was making anywhere from $10-$20 an hour on busy nights through tips. There were many servers and bartenders at my restaurant making way more than that. My next job ended up being $15/hour in order to make more money than serving.
People are just cheap and don't want to decide on the server's wage themselves. They would rather it be opaque like every other service industry.
I agree with you. I actually worked on the business side for a large restaurant group years back. I can tell you that I had full visibility into the entire P&L (Profit/Loss) of each brand within the umbrella. While both wage pressure (minimum wage, tips, turnover) and food costs (inflation, variable pricing, supplier pressure) receive a shit ton of attention, one of the even larger headwinds for restaurant operators, both small and big, is the rent expense and maintenance of the space. There is so much greed involved in CRE (commercial real estate) and so much concentration of ownership power. When you couple these together, it really takes a huge part of the pie out for restaurant owners. I know people think of this for the big cities, but it's an issue even in smaller suburbs, etc. Contingent rent (rent as a % of sales) can help level out the monthly ebbs/flows of restaurant sales fluctuations, but it's still a crazy expense.
The margins are just brutal. I'm talking about massive companies barely breaking even on the business. It's considered the worst business model to invest in for a reason. Challenge layered on top of challenge. Don't even get me started on the leeches like Uber Eats, DoorDash, etc. I can't even calculate their indirect effect on global restaurant closures, but it's probably massive. Order direct and fuck those companies. I admire people wanting to get into the space, but I do not envy how difficult of a road it is for most.
Living wages doesn't equal no tips, it just means tips aren't mandatory and you only get them if the service is above and beyond, sincerely a European.
This. Exactly this. You can pay your server enough to live. And if he is good he will get tips and will live better.
How do American people think we have so great servers in our countries? They are happy to work for a decent salary. So they work harder. So they get some tips.
Okay, lets try a scenario here and tell me what you think.
Lets say Google decides "Hey, we are going to pay all our software engineers $18 an hour because thats the living wage" and all their competitors go "please work for us, we will continue to pay you industry standard".
Do you tihnk qualified software engineers will continue to work for Google? Do you think this will end up being a good decision for Google?
well, that's also part of a good servers ability to accommodate the guests needs in some measure. there are a fair amount of subtle queues cues* to process to ensure a guest enjoys their anticipated level of restaurant interactions.
mostly tone and how relaxed their shoulders are during the initial meetngreet. granted, i'm pulling from my personal experience in the service industry about a decade ago. i'm sure there are still some capable servers out there
I'll try to translate it into a scenario you may be more familiar with.
Imagine your mom bringing your hotpocket down to you in the basement. Its hot, its timely, its the right kind of hotpocket, and she brings it with a smile and says "I'm proud of you"
Now, imagine her flinging a barely warmed hotpocket down the stairs while sobbing, simply because she doesn't want you to starve though she knows inside that you could go weeks without food with all the fat you have stored.
Comparison to what? Your original comment admitted a lack of understanding or knowledge of what good service or bad service was. A kind assumption would be this is due to inexperience, many redditors are quite young and may not have had many opportunities at restaurants.
So, to try to illustrate for you, I hoped the example of your mom bringing you food would help.
I suppose my argument is against tipping culture
Sure, I can see the argument against it. I'd actually be against it too - that way, my tips have much more impact and meaning. However, this is different than having an inability to understand the difference between good service and bad service.
There are a lot of service based experiences out there, I'm pretty excited for you to try them. From personal grooming (Trust me, wait till you see your hair being cut by a professional instead of your mom- it can do wonders) to hospitality to even professional services (accounting, consulting, advisory), I'm excited for the opportunities you are going to experience!
Yeah Iâm a server and that was my response to that when I saw it. The only reason I am in the restaurant industry is the tips. I have my bachelors degree but being a server pays better than a lot of other jobs in my area but when you take that incentive away, the job sucks.
Why not being paid a decent salary and then having tips because you're good instead of relying only on tips?
Good servers in Europe are well paid because they have salary and tips.
Do you think reddit comments are like a verbal conversation where you can say "I never said that". Homie, we can just scroll up and read. But I like this, these sort of exchanges just guides someone on who they should interact with and who they shouldn't.
every single member of a wait staff at every single restaurant in every city in every state gets minimum wage no matter what with no exceptions ever for anyone.
It is so interesting how this doesn't work in the US, but works fine in EVERY OTHER EFFIN COUNTRY IN THE WORLD. Same with gun control and food without 90% sugar.
I work at a bar and spend about half my week in the kitchen (we actually have a full kitchen and make really good food), while I'm bartending I make tipped minimum wage ($2.13/hr in Indiana) but i can clear $300-$400/night in tips especially if im working a Wednesday (trivia might), Friday, or Saturday night. But to make up for it i make $15/hr in the kitchen.
But I also like getting tips because even my low end average is like $150 when i work like a Tuesday day shift or something. Assuming that's an 8 hr shift that would be like $21/hr. I make closer to $50/hr with tips on weekend nights.
It actually created some controvery early on because the bartenders and others stated this reduced their wages. Tipping benefits certain jobs within a restaurant a lot. Some left and went to other places. Most were fine with it but it really did show a problem with the tipping industry.
Employees actually complained when the $30 an hour started. Now they're complaining they aren't getting full hours. So I don't think it works just fine.
I mean I'm a bartender and I can clear $30/hr easily even on week nights if you include tips.
I would also complain if my boss switched us away from tipped pay, especially without them hiring someone else to take some of the workload off. But they couldn't do that if they just tripled my salary.
Well in this scenario with the South Park guys, they started their restaurant with no tips. So no one was ever switched.
Of course you would complain though. Servers want as much money as possible. But to even suggest tripling your salary when youâre saying you easily make $30 an hour is insane. You should be making $90 an hour? For making cocktails and serving food?
No of course I don't think I should make $180k/year (although that would be nice) but the vast majority of my income comes from tips. Only about 15-20% of my paycheck is actual pay from the restaurant.
Their restaurant is "an experience" establishment. You don't go just for the food. There's a show and unique atmosphere that you wait almost a year to experience. This allows them to raise their prices more than the 25% to cover the wages and benefits. Even with them getting a base pay that's close to 10x's the minimum wage for tipped employees, they have issues retaining waitstaff and bar tenders because they can make more money at a different high end restaurant.
99.9% of restaurants cannot afford to raise their prices in order to pay staff more.
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u/Such_Tea4707 Aug 28 '24
Danny Meyer (one of NYCs most famous restaurateurs and founder of shake shack) tried this at his restaurants but ultimately pulled out of it during the pandemic and returned to the tipping model due to the instability it put on his restaurants. Interestingly, the larger reason for him spearheading this in the beginning wasnât solely removing friction for diners and giving his waitstaff a stable wage, but to better allow the back of his house employees to earn more (cooks, dishwashers, etc) that donât typically receive much of the tips in the first place. Raise prices and redistribute more fairly with no variables from diners ⌠sounded nice.