I'm a Cook and I Want You to Keep Your Tips

http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/05/13/22202360/im-a-cook-and-i-want-you-to-keep-your-tips

by deegles • 11 years ago

42 53 11 years ago

zyxley• 11 years ago

Serious question: why add a "service charge" instead of just adjusting the price of dishes accordingly?

th0br0• 11 years ago

Psychology. If you adjust the prices, people will maybe perceive the dishes as being too expensive. However, if you keep the prices low and add a "hidden" (as in people need to calculate themselves before ordering) service charge, as soon as the service charge is accepted in general, you'll be profiting more off it than otherwise.

jackreichert• 11 years ago

Amen. In Italy and France (probably elsewhere as well), you maybe tip a percent or two if you really think it's deserved; albeit, tourists are ruining that to some extent. But fair salaries are baked (or cooked) into the prices on the menu and it's considered a respectable long-term career to be in the food industry.

I'm not for worshiping everything Europe does, but this is the way it should work.

geon• 11 years ago

Here in Sweden tipping is virtually nonexistent. I have never tipped in my life.

Frozenlock• 11 years ago

Somewhat serious answer: Because in the US they don't like to give you real prices.

They give you an artificially low price and then expect you, under social pressure, to give a little more through tip or service charge.

deathandtaxes• 11 years ago

Ditto for sales tax. In some countries, sales tax is expected or required to be included in the listed price. This makes cash transactions significantly simpler.

maxxxxx• 11 years ago

Ditto for phone plans. Base price + unknowable amount of fees

david-given• 11 years ago

I was, frankly, shocked when I went to Dallas and discovered I had to pay 30% more than the price on the menu due to a combination of tax and tip.

sp332• 11 years ago

I think that is the argument the article makes, although you don't get to it until the last paragraph: It's the responsibility of business owners to keep their kitchen talent out of the cold. In other words, just pay workers what they are worth and don't pretend it's a tip or anything extra. It might indirectly make dishes more expensive.

rlease2• 11 years ago

Service charges can be adequately split between all employees, whereas an increase to the price of a dish will typically just result in a larger tip to the server that is not split to other parts of the restaurant. Tipping in general relies on a lot of "good actors," between customers determining what they really want to pay for a meal to servers correctly reporting what they receive and tipping out accordingly. A better model is to tell you directly what you're going to pay, and you shouldn't feel compelled to pay any more than that amount.

titanomachy3• 11 years ago

Uber makes a big deal of this, drivers have always protested when I offer a tip. Taxi drivers, on the other hand, occasionally make noise if I just pay the amount on the meter.

rjett• 11 years ago

I suspect the reason business owners don't opt for a service charge in lieu of gratuity for front of house employees is due to payroll taxes. "Adjusting prices accordingly" vs adding a service charge would, in most cases, screw the employee and reward the business owner, who might give a slightly higher wage to his employees, but would be tempted to pocket the difference as profit.

Under the current system, so much gratuity is left unreported/underreported due to cash tipping. Business owners have no incentive to keep track of employee tips paid in cash; otherwise, they would be required to pay payroll taxes on the tips going into their employees' pockets. This is changing, as more and more transactions are conducted via credit instead of cash, so tracking is easier.

Under a service charge model, everything would have to be tracked and reported, resulting in a higher tax burden to the business owner. In the food service industry where profit margins are thin and reputations can be shattered overnight, it's tough to find a comfortable space between tax law, ethical employment practices, and keeping your business afloat.

analyst74• 11 years ago

Going into a fixed service charge model will force staff to pay more taxes, lowering their take home pay, which in turn forces businesses to either up their pay, or up the % of service charge.

Ultimately, it means more taxes for the government, primarily from people who dine out a lot.

spinlock• 11 years ago

It makes you uncompetitive with restaurants who hide the true cost of the meal and service.

mml• 11 years ago

I used to be a cook in a former life. I think I was making something near that in the 90s (maybe $13.50, definitely > $11). I suspect he's being dicked.

The waitrons we're bringing home upwards of $200 cash nightly, which inspired my career change.

cmdrfred3• 11 years ago

Me too, I cooked for a little under 10 years never broke $14 an hour (east coast near philly this was 3 years ago) while a 19 year old waitress would complain that they only made $100 for 3 hours of work.

michaelmcdonald• 11 years ago

Because they knew that the night they made $100 in 3 hours was the night they would receive the largest tips. The other nights of the week would be even less if not a fraction of it.

zeroecco3• 11 years ago

I cooked for a little over a decade all said and told. Eight of those ten years I made less then $10 bucks/hour. Food is a difficult thing to make money on in the USA. Without margin, wages cannot increase. Last time I checked margin in the food business was less then 3% of total revenue. let me say that again, 3%. It MAY be worse now. Mass production is the ONLY way to stay afloat for a food business. Thus employees that are not a part of the service portion of the business, feel the squeeze.

To fix the problem, look no further then COGS.

1. Smaller menus (less margin in the trash)

2. Aggressively seasonal selections (cheaper then any other food)

3. Be a part of the community you are serving (intangible but sticky customer base)

4. Pair down customer capacity (smaller team = more hours per employee)

5. Salaries instead of hourly (cheaper, longer term employees)

6. Add the frickin 5% to that $30 plate of food

7. Consider limited hours (staying open 16 hours is stupid and wasteful)

meesterdude• 11 years ago

This is great advice!

I assume you mean this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_goods_sold

titanomachy3• 11 years ago

I think that to open a restaurant you either have to be naive or incredibly passionate. Most restaurants fail, and many of those that "succeed" are just getting by. That seems a pretty clear signal that the market does not want me to open a restaurant, and I'm happy to oblige.

To think that I could succeed without doing something fundamentally different than those who have failed before me would certainly be naive, unless I am truly a culinary prodigy.

cpncrunch• 11 years ago

I suspect he's just working in the wrong restaurants. According to indeed.com, the average salary of an executive chef in Seattle is $54k, with a high of $83k. Time to look for a new job, and either negotiate a huge payrise or tell them to stick their $15/hr job.

superuser2• 11 years ago

I read "I'm Tim Cook" and I thought this was going to be about Apple Pay at restaurants... ok.

bradleyjg3• 11 years ago

The tipping customs in the US mean that table service restaurants are a strangely inflexible business where you need to pay one class of employees -- waiters -- 13-17% of gross revenue no matter what. And in some senses they aren't even your employees because you don't fully control their compensation.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with that model, but it'd be nice if restaurants could experiment with other choices.

tptacek• 11 years ago

There are a bunch of US restaurants that do service charges instead of tips. Alinea and Next, two of the best restaurants in the country, do this.

bradleyjg3• 11 years ago

Are you at all familiar with the compensation model for employees at those restaurants? In particular, for front of house is it flat or percent of sales based?

I seem to remember an article when the Next website was launched, but can't seem to find it now ...

I do take your point though that things are getting somewhat more flexible at the very top of the industry. Hopefully that will filter down.

habitue• 11 years ago

Is it just me or does this guy never give anything close to a coherent explanation of his point? Why does he want us to keep our tips?

oldmanjay• 11 years ago

The existence of people with more (money, cars, sex, name it) is a great consternation to some people.

blakeja• 11 years ago

"And Affordable Care Act or not, the annual tax penalty is far more affordable than buying health insurance."

Doesn't anyone else find this to be a concern? I wonder how prevalent this is?

anotherevan• 11 years ago

Living in a country where tipping is not a big part of the culture, I must admit I've always found it one of the stranger customs in the USA.

I found the series of articles, "Observations From A Tipless Restaurant" was a really interesting analysis.

http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-...

andor436• 11 years ago

As a software engineer with the same career length as the author, it really hurts to read things like this and realize our respective pay is so different for what feels like arbitrary reasons.

I'm a part owner (one of hundreds!) of a brewpub in Austin called Black Star. It's cooperatively run, both the restaurant side and the organization itself. One of our core principles is to pay each member of the staff a livable wage, and to not allow tipping in the brewpub. It's been very successful, and I hope something that will spread.

A bit about it here: http://www.blackstar.coop/blog/2015/5/4/black-star-co-op-ups...

You can get involved with Restaurants Advancing Industry Standards in Employment (RAISE) here: http://rocunited.org/our-work/high-road/raise/

I'm a Cook and I Want You to Keep Your Tips

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