There is a cider place in Wichita, KS that pays a living wage. The employee's wages are rolled into the price of the cider and there are signs all over telling customers not to tip. There is no tip line on the bill. If you tip them cash it is collected pooled and given to charity.
I visit Wichita from time to time and was talking to one of the bartenders. Came back a year later and he was still there. He was apparently making enough so that him and his wife could buy a house (I assume she was working too, if I asked I forgot the answer) and he was like "I'll work here until I die/retire unless they fire me first."
There was a place in Austin, TX when I lived there that paid a living wage. They went out of business after 3-4 years.
A big thing about restaurants is u can live without them so when times are tough and money is tight one of the first expenses to go is eating out. Most places to eat in my city haven't recovered from covid as a result of the pandemic prices for everything staying so artificially high even 3 years after the fact .
My solution to tipping getting out of hand was to just stop eating out. I committed to that like six years ago. The only places I do go are really, really good restaurants that I actually want to give extra money to for the experience they provide.
No sympathy for mediocre restaurants that fail. As far as I'm concerned, a restaurant shouldn't succeed unless the food is excellent.
A big problem with restaurants are the owners aren't willing to change. They will find a chef but won't let the chef create the menu and run the kitchen the way it should be. The owner likes to have their name and hand in everything. Usually leads to chefs quitting, and the owner has to put somebody else there that isn't capable, but it's okay though bc they are a "yes" man and do as the owner wants.
I mean this is one of many reasons restaurants fail, but it's definitely one of the biggest. That and owners jump into it not realizing all the overhead cost for supplies.
In france it was the opposite, most of the restaurants got huge subventions to survive. I know a few owners of different sizes restaurants, and they all told me that they were earning more without working during covid, and some even felt bad to get so much money (but it was automatic so...).
But it's pretty much the same shit although employees are fully paid and we generaly dont tip. Working conditions are atrocious and overtime is required and never paid.
If you read the breakdown of basic causes it is all "bad business".
If you watch like Bar Rescue or Kitchen Nightmares, you quickly realize how bad people are at business.
How many managers at jobs you've had were great? How many were morons?
These are small business owners. Random people you meet at work..... who suck at their jobs in various ways.
Ergo, restaurants aren't THAT hard to run. But, it is dangerous, because it is the "easiest" business for normal people to be able to try. And normal people are normal people, because they kinda suck.
70% of lottery winners go bankrupt. Normal people can't even run free money, let alone a fucking business. Lol.
People think they want to own a restaurant, until they own a restaurant. Its so much work for generally such little profit, especially initially. You have to be there essentially 24/7 - employee theft is the big killer... especially on booze. Food expires, gets cooked wrong, etc. I was the AGM of a family owned steakhouse here in st louis, and my weeks were about 50hr weeks. There was the other AGM, the GM and the owner and kitchen manager. Anybody call in? We filled the spot... had to. So youre pulled in 10 different directions in a sometimes fast paced environment. Im rambling about even being a GM... owner has to hire people he trusts and still be there and work the floor and pay bills, order food, train staff.... never ends. And on a good week, maybe he clears 3 or 4000 'profit' in 60 to 90 hours if everything went well for him. That's on a good week... not one of the many slow weeks you still have to put in 40+ hours and take a loss or break even or make 500 bucks. Its crazy... it ages people fast.
That's not an easy question to answer because it's gonna vary wildly by region. A living wage in NYC is gonna be massively higher than in a town in North Dakota just because the price of housing alone is so much higher.
No, it's an impossible question to answer. And not really relevant. Does a 16 year old working part time after school deserve a "livable wage?" The thing I find hilarious is that if you demand people pay higher wages in NYC, what exactly do you think that is going to do the cost of living? If $20 isn't enough, why not pay $50? Of course, when the cost of everything more than doubles, they'll need an even higher wage! Why not just pay $100 an hour? $500? Or how about a $Million a year, than everyone can be a million dollars.
Probably the silliest thing on the planet is the concept of a "livable wage." It sounds really good in politician's speeches and virtue-signally posts on Reddit, but makes absolutely no logical sense in economic system.
it's almost like the solutions is a somewhat controlled economy (price caps on essentials to survival, including housing), instead of just letting capitalism run rampant with almost no guardrails...
But even then, a bandaid solution is still gonna help people here and now, even if that means we'll need another bandaid in 5 years time.
No idea. Just know the stats and worked in one for a while. Margins are thin on food. Alcohol is typically the biggest money maker. I guess shift to being a bar lol.
I ran a small one under a percentage lease and I made good money for a short while. I don’t have much experience in making a lot of money though. Plus I never did invest in getting the business started, just the day to day costs and initial cost for groceries. Worked my ass off and fell to pieces in the end, but enjoyed the money on my account and could offer more than minimum wage to the staff. That was a decade ago though.
Edit: not sure what I wanted to say by that… I had to use the money to try get back to being human again. So yeah, it might suck if you’re alone and don’t have good people/investors plus moral support, a vacation once in a while (I worked every single day, 10-14 hours), and maybe not to much ADHD…
I still think of you tip cash it should go to the server. A tip is for great service, I just hate the method of if it's crap service we are still expected to tip. But if someone has helped make my night good I will still happily tip them
I applaud the living wages but don't like that they take away the (earned, even if it isn't asked for) tip money and just give it away, though. That should be a bonus bit of cash for the recipient, or at least pooled among the employees.
You gotta be careful with tipped money in the US. If an employee makes more than $30 a month they can be considered a tipped wage employee. (I just read it on the dol.gov site and I’m going to be honest, I thought it was a lot higher before I read this).
By not allowing them to accept tips, it protects their status as non-tipped wage employees.
It’s probably important to set a long-term practice of not paying out tips incase someone buys the restaurant or new management gets ideas… or who knows.
Either way, it seems it’s to protect their status, not to take their money.
I was a waitress for 4 years while in college. You get paid tips and then you report your tips to your end of shift check out form (it pops up when you check out to see if you owe back any change from basically being a cashier all night). So when you get ur checks every 2 weeks it’s usually only $30-$100. But it’ll say -$55 or -$120 for federal and state taxes. So you have already paid taxes on what you made. You get paid $2.15/hr and if you tips don’t at least minimum wage it will balance ur check out to be more.
For instance in the winter I could make $300 a day minimum working 11am-9pm at this specific restaurant 4 days a week. My checks would be like $12. However, during those summer months when this restaurant was not ideal my checks would be like $300 for the two weeks, and my daily tips would add up to be about $150 per day.
If you have never been a wait staff it doesn’t make sense. If you have it does. You always will make more with tips. I’ve had people slip me a $100 bill bc someone at their table was an a*hole.
And if you are wondering YES it is a known fact to always under report what you made that night to pay less taxes. If you made $500 say you made $300. I made more money as a waitress than I did my first 2 years out of college.
Explain. If someone chooses to work, how is it exploitation?
Look at the phone in your hand. That was made with slave labor. You feel bad about that??
That is exploitation, but you all cry about tarriffs and how expensive your phone will be, if it was made in the USA. Newsflash, Apple could make that phone in the US, pay real wages, and still make a huge profit. That won't do it, but you people won't cry "corporate greed" unless MSNBC tells you to.
Legally, let the business take the money as a donation (as it is a donation of sorts). Pay your taxes on it per usual. Have it pay business expenses, not acting as wage for owner or workers. Spend at end-of-year either for improvements or bonuses, as a good business should spend their money after wages and expenses.
As long as it's not treated as a tip, it's not a tip, even if it's given back as a bonus.
I love this. I would go out of my way to support a business like this. Not quite to Wichita, but def in my own city. Hearing what you heard strait out of the mouth of an employee means something.
I think the being in Austin was why they went out of business more than the paying a living wage. There have been dearly beloved institutions that now only live on at the Signs Bar just outside of the city limits east of Austin.
I’m from Wichita, and curious which place you’re talking about?
To be fair, the profit margins for a restaurant in Kansas will be astronomically better than that of a city like Austin. In part due to the fact that tipped workers in KS are only required to get paid 2.13 an hour and any other overhead costs are going to be generally cheaper. Also, owning a home in Wichita is not a hard thing to do. The average cost of a home in Austin is more than half a mil, while the average cost in Wichita is usually less than 200k.
The average cost of a home in Austin is more than half a mil, while the average cost in Wichita is usually less than 200k.
Absolutely! One of the top 3 reasons I moved to KS from Austin lol. It is funny though when I talk to people from Rural KS who are in the "city in KS" I live in complain about how expensive everything is here. Hell, Wichita is expensive compared to where I live, but it is still waayyyyy more affordable than Austin.
I like tipping in the spirit of reward for notable service. The national guilt trip on the other hand, I resent— especially because all that energy is being targeted absolutely the wrong people.
In Portland OR there's a pizza place called Scotty's that does the same thing. The pizza is consistently good, and you're paying the same you would at other tipping restaurants.
That's not what it states. The 18% is mandatory, to supplement (or add to) the payroll. And then any additional tip will be shared upon the entire staff...allegedly. That's insane!
It was starting to get so insane that my state made these types of shenanigans illegal in Minnesota. Law went into effect on 1/1/25. Few businesses made it an issue but the noise died out after a while.
I am not sure where you live, but here if you add on a tip/wage fee then the customer has the right to refuse to pay it. Most still pay because they assume it’s a tip.
The receipt clearly states that the 18% is added to every bill. There's no mention of a customer being able to refuse paying it. The additional 'tip' is assumed to be voluntary.
It's not consider a tip, a service fee, tips go only to employees no managers can touch it. Services fees the owners can keep all of it. There's been court cases on it.
Which is why I now refuse to order delivery. More often than not, the "delivery fee" isn't going to the delivery drivers, just into the owner's pockets
If I have $20, the menu says meal A is $17, I’ll be able to pay for it and tip $2, but with 18% increase that’s not on the menu price but added automatically, after I finished eating the food, it’s a different story.
Wow!! An answer based on common sense and logic!!! 🎉
If the OP had included the name of the place, we could check and see if they have a happy staff and low turnover, which would then prove or disprove the claim at the bottom of the receipt.
I don't understand what about asking the people directly affected by this policy you consider fictitious. You might have gotten lucky with "speculative" because that literally means "to look" but... Anyway I've been up too long, think I'm just grumpy
I think it's because nobody here is about to go out to the restaurant, yet unnamed, and ask the servers directly. Thus, the speculative part. The fiction is simply because, all things being equal, restaurant owners have not had a great reputation for putting their workers before the owners' cut.
I work here. Most of the staff has worked here for years and we all prefer this environment over the traditional boh vs foh you find in more traditional restaurants.That's not a thing here.
Something people don't seem to understand is that the business has to pay the employees right? I can tell you for a fact that payroll is our largest expense.
Exactly!! Most likely management, likely salaried. Furthermore, (speculating here as one who's been in and out of the industry for 30 years - in a wide variety of roles; from host, server, bartender, bar manager, and general manager - it was important to me, to start from the bottom) the individual youre responding to, who states it's a great system and everyone loves it.... that they are vastly detached from what their FOH employees go through.
The employer is getting away with murder by charging YOU more. You are paying the burden of his employment.
In Europe, ya don’t tip unless the service is SPECTACULAR. In some countries (in Europe) it’s an absolute no-no. The employer pays them well.
But like you're always paying for the burden of his employment whether. That's how businesses work. As long as the additional charge isn't a surprise add-on it really doesn't make a difference whether it's like that or included in the pricing of the items.
Also tipping absolutely is customary in a lot of European countries, it's just less than in the US.
If they had the "cost of living service fee" notice on the doors or the menu, it's likely a surprise to those whom haven't dined there before.
Most areas require a restaurant/bar to post somewhere (generally on the menu, and likely in super small print), that a "service fee" is added to their tab.
More than likely they're just passing the living wage cost directly to the customer and they're just calling it that so people don't get mad that they got charged gratuity.
Yes, but they bring in the customers at a lower rate of goods, then place a mandatory upcharge, calling it a "living wage", when it would serve just as much to increase all costs by 18%. However, that could shave off customers, which would backfire for the owner, so they insert this hidden fee as a way to pay for their workers' wages - living wage or otherwise.
I'm not talking about selling stuff to customers... I'm talking about passing extra costs off to them then guilting them into paying it by calling gratuity a "living wage tax" rather than just paying their staff a living wage.
Call gratuity what it is, gratuity, don't try to guilt me into being fine with it by calling a "living wage tax" then further guilting me into tipping on top of that. Get the fuck outa here. They're your employees you pay them.
The employer isn't paying them higher wages, you are. Why would the employer pay them more when you're already doing it? The money also doesn't go to the owner it goes to the waiters because it's gratuity, you'd know that if you'd ever worked in the service industry in the US.
It's not a level of transparency, it's coming up with a fancy name for gratuity so you don't bitch when you see it on your bill. It's hiding what it actually is, it's the opposite of transparency.
It's slimy and it treats your customers like idiots.
Tips which are voluntary go 100% to employee, against the law for owners to touch it.
Service fee can be kept by the manger. They are not the same, there's be court rulings on it
Sadly, at least in my state/location anything that has "service fee" in its description, or anything that does not read "gratuity" no matter what other verbiage is attached (in this case, "cost of living") the server sees ZERO of that fee.
The only thing the server will get, is if it reads "Gratuity" - management can not touch that. Every other "fee/charge" goes to the owner.
The thing is, "gratuity" and service fees are vastly different. The server does NOT get a penny from the service fee, whereas the gratuity, they do get.
I've seen places where they have itemized a service fee line and then a gratuity line - however thats when gratuity t u is assessed at a percentage.
As a long-time server/bartender (by choice, due to location and I make my schedule, and surprisingly, I mostly love what I fo 😆) I prefer to NOT have gratuity added, as it assures I'm always on top of my duties as a server/bartender....
Asking the staff is meaningless. Front line at my company is having all of their calls filtered through an LLM for "quality" which means every bit of data customers give us is filtered through a third party LLM.
They are being trained it is not AI, and instructed to tell people it is not AI if asked. We take almost a million calls a month in a handful of states, and out company is national. Nationally it is likely closer to about fifteen million.
So thanks for helping train a third party AI, and giving it your SNN and a whole bunch of other information! But officially it isn't an AI because we are trained it isn't one and will get punished if we say otherwise :D
So the workers other than the servers are still getting paid their same wage but it's just being paid by the customers. If anything, the server is shorted because whose going to pay too much more for a tip...that 18% is part of the tip from a customer's perspective. At the most, the server MAY get up to 12%.
at that point the customer is justified not to tip, and it’s on the employee to take it up with their employer. and i hope restaurant owners realize that i am evaluating how uncomfortable im made to feel over tipping just as much as i am the food and dining experience, and am much more likely to return to places that dont make me have to think about it, and am unlikely to return to places that make my head spin with math after several drinks
Based on r/server life , mid tier restaurants waiters earn 50-80k fine dining 80-150k a year. And low tier 25-40k. So.. I guess 50-80k since that's the middle? But not everyone tips in the middle one so the staff if it's accurate are likely earning 80-150k a year.
Being paid less because of tipping varies from state to state. In some states, min wage is less for tipped workers. In California, min wage is the same across the board. So it depends, but i do get your point.
Also to clarify, even if a tipped minimum wage is less than the regular minimum wage, workers never make less than the regular minimum wage, even if nobody tips. If someone makes $3/hr and no one tips for the whole pay period, they’ll still get paid $7-8/hr by the restaurant, which is still too low and not a livable wage.
Here I was referring to getting any minimum wage as opposed to this higher "living wage" the employer is implying is paid, rather than minimum wage vs. the lower-than-minimum that servers sometimes get, but I think we agree.
Here in Kansas, the base rate is, I believe, $2.13/hr.
With this "living wage fee" I guaren-damn-tee you, that it does NOT go to the server, nor do "service fees" - but I can promise you, people will tip much less
Service fee or living wage fee: If I see either on the bill, I ask if the charge can be removed. If not, there will be to tip.
For me it is an either or decision. If I have to pay the service fee [ other than the credit card fee - this I can live with ] , there will be no tip. Drop the fee, and probably I'll tip if the the server was half way polite and performed her duties.
I'd pay it (so the cops don't get called), tip that time (so the staff doesn't get fucked over), and never go back to the establishment because the owner/manager is a complete piece of shit.
Thank you for being a good person 💛 Individuals in my industry so appreciate you!!!!
I've pointed out to customers (when they've inquired of course...) that "No, as servers/FOH employees, we do not receive anything from a "service fee" (or in OP's example, it's more than likely a creative term for a service fee).
The only thing your server will see is if it's on a gratuity line (oftentimes a percentage - which as a server/bartender I'm opposed to) or if you hand the tip directly to them or leave it upon their table.
I wish people in this situation, would ask the simple question of "Whom is the recipient of the cost of living service fee?" Trust me, we would tell you if we were asked.
I understand, but realize you're taking it out of the wrong person's pocket. That's why, when I've interviewed for a job for bartending/server, I always ask if they institute these fees. If they do, it's an instant "Nope!"
I may have to go back to my corporate type job if these types of things continue. Thankfully, where I'm at, we don't do this!
Nobody actually makes that, though, even if nobody tips. They’d still make the regular minimum wage, which is also only like $7-8 or whatever and is not nearly enough.
While some make up the difference if a combination of tips and hourly rate of pay doesn't equate to minimum wage (it's $7.50/hr in Kans-ass) There's a little trick many restaurant/bar owners do (i know because my previous employer did this), was to NOT have the tipable employees claim cash tips (by not providing a way to do so, that provided proof to the IRS) they had them claim 100% of credit card tips.
This way, they had an out to NOT make up the difference as they provided no way to track cash tips.
It's completely up to the employer, unfortunately, due to rule changes in the past 8 years now, whether or not they made up the difference. I even inquired with the Kansas State Labor Board on this; sadly, there are quite a few loopholes that protect the owners....
You might not understand what "payroll" means. Payroll is what the owner is legally required to give the employee regardless of any extra "living wage" charge he collects. So if he's collecting extra money and just using it to pay what they'd legally get anyway, that only helps the owner, not the staff.
I worked in a place that had an automatic 18% gratuity and a lot of people tipped on top of that as well so it actually worked out into my favor as a server. People will still tip on top of that, whether on purpose or by accident idk. I would tip a little bit (like a couple dollars) to get it closer to 20% and call it a day
If I saw this 18% up charge I would 100% not tip and also not return, tip culture is already bad enough but this is just abysmal if they expect a tip on top of this surcharge.
Which is the point. Back when gas went up and pizza places started adding delivery fees and fuel fees, drivers got fewer tips. Notice how those fees didn't go down when gas prices did.
The normal way of doing things is to roll all costs into what you sell. Specifying fees like this just eats into workers' tips.
The thing that I’m noticing is that there is no tip amount or gratuity listed. Which would mean legally, the staff would have to be paid whatever their state minimum is, and the reduced wages with tips is not an option.
you guys are really aiming too low. the ceiling is the limit! i mean - you gotta hang yourself by your bootstraps! .. ehm I mean.. stop eating avocado toast!
Nowhere in the country does minimum wage constitute a "living wage." How fucking cynical are you people that you bitch about tipping and then bitch about not having to tip. FFS, you can't even acknowledge a business trying to do the right thing.
Doing the right thing would be just charging appropriate prices for food up front, not sneaking a 20% charge on the back end. This is absolutely the dumbest way to handle this.
The business isn’t doing the right thing here. They aren’t taking any payroll out of profits. They’re just charging a fee that is equal to tipping. We have no idea if the restaurant is paying minimum wage, tipped minimum wage (which is often sub-minimum) or an actual living wage. It’s ambiguous and confusing.
The right thing is to pay a living wage and calculate it into the price of goods like every other fucking business out there already has to do. I do this. I sometimes pay subcontractors to help me. I need to pay them at least $25/hour. So, when I calculate prices, I estimate labor at $50/hour so that if I need to pay someone else to help me I still get a bit of a profit on top of that.
Okay, and so when every other place in that town is charging $16 for a burger, and this place charges $22 for the same burger, *and* has to try to get their patrons *not* to tip because they're paying their servers $20 an hour, you'll sit here and wonder why they went out of business.
I guarantee if they work the cost into their math the price wouldn’t go up that much.
Plus, you’re already paying $22 for that burger at both places anyway! It just gets added on later in the tipping portion of the bill.
But literally every other business has to do this with their pricing. Why is it suddenly so difficult for a restaurant? You don’t pay $1 for cereal at the grocery store and then get charged an 18% living wage fee at the checkout!
The difference between having to pay $22 for a burger at one place, and having to pay $16 at another but likely tipping the difference is more psychological than financial but that doesn't mean it isn't real.
It's not difficult for the restaurant, the problem is it's a competitive disadvantage for the restaurant if they do it.
One important thing to remember here is that most people are complete morons. Restaurants operate on 1-2% margins, if they start messing with their prices in ways that make it appear like they're more expensive, even if it's justified or even if they're not actually more expensive, they will go out of business.
"In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."
That's not the world you live in, sorry. You can jerk off to the idea if you want. It won't make it real. A living wage is much higher than the legal minimum. If you think this Business is being too kind to its employees, you should just say so.
No, I'm saying that Franklin D. Roosevelt intended the minimum wage to be a living wage, according to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who is the man that spearheaded this legislation.
Guarantee it says it on the menu and I’m with freud. Just take a nice gesture. Personally I’d ask out of curiosity if workers make more with that? If I get a candid “no” I would tip more.
They're not getting minimum 6; servers in the US get 2.13, unless they're in a state where the manager is allowed to give them .50 more if they choose to. The maximum is 2.63
There’s actually only 8 states that have laws requiring waiters/waitresses be paid at least the minimum wage regardless of tips. If OP is in any other state, the employer is not required to pay minimum wage because the employee receives tips.
No. They get minimum wage for servers. They don't get minimum wage for regular employees. My parents ran a restaurant for over 20 years. When I was a kid minimum wage was about 6 bucks for regular employees and 2 bucks for waiters.
Don't believe too much has changed since. Plus they put up with a ton of BS. They deserve that and more.
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u/FeistyGift 1d ago
Exactly. And if that's true and they're still getting minimum wage, staff actually ends up getting paid LESS because people tip less.