Posted on 10/28/2016 5:39:33 AM PDT by wbill
Cara Stadler says she just wants to do the right thing.
On Tuesday, the owner of Portland’s Bao Bao Dumpling House and Tao Yuan in Brunswick announced her plan to jettison tips, pay all servers $15 an hour and tack on an 18 percent surcharge on checks. “Tips is such an arcane system. It just doesn’t make sense,” she said.
Her motive, she says, is to “create stability in the workplace, because there is a disparity in pay.”
Though servers make a paltry $3.75 an hour, with gratuity a waiter/waitress at Tao Yuan can easily pull down “$30 to 40 an hour,” she said. “In some cases a server is making more than the cooks, the bartenders and even me.”
The hate mail came in fast, and a few servers have left, she said. “Many people write in saying ‘we will never come to your establishment again.’ I’ve been slandered online, saying we will take this money and put into our pockets,” she said. “It’s frustrating and hurtful.”
But Stadler is committed to the overhaul, which kicks in Dec. 1. She is looking at successful models by NYC restaurateur Danny Meyer and joins the soon-to-open Old Port takeout spot Baristas and Bites.
Why now? With a federal law on overtime pay kicking in soon she wants to create a fair and equal workplace. And with more revenue to train staff, she hopes to stem the serious chef drought plaguing the nation.
“This gives me the ability to invest in full-time employees and grow the company,” said Stadler, who wants to offer paid vacation, training and health insurance to all servers and full-time employees and eliminate anxiety on slow nights.
The move comes amid a statewide vote next month to raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020. Stadler is getting a head start.
As one of the first full-service restaurant owners in Portland to nix tips, she is crossing her fingers her dream of a better workplace sticks. When her third establishment, wine restaurant Lio opens in Portland next summer, she will have a total of 70 employees to look after.
“There is a lot to figure out. This is not the be all end all. I’m trying to put in better systems,” she said. “This is the first step into that foray.”
It’s her business, she can do what she wants.
I don’t understand the 18% surcharge though.
I worked waiting tables in college and made at least $40 an hour, often more on the weekend and never worked an 8 hour shift. I could (if I wanted) earn $500 -$600 a week and still have time to study (worked on average 15-20 hours per week). If I needed more time to study, I could almost always get someone else to take a shift. If I needed more money that month, I could almost always pick up extra shifts. Very flexible.
Plus waiters/waitresses often get a free meal on the day they work and reduced price meals on days they don’t work. For a student it can’t be beat for money:time ratio.
And that was years ago, so very good money back then. It’s hard work but it pays if you are in a decent restaurant. An added benefit (though it doesn’t seem so at the time) is you learn to work with all kinds of people including some real jerks, deal with conflicts, work out solutions to problems, think fast on your feet, etc. which comes in very handy later on.
When I took my first professional job out of college I took a cut pay over waitressing if you figured it out hourly. Of course I made more overall because I was working full time plus benefits.
So, if I worked at that noodle restaurant I would quit and go work where I could make more money while expending less time. Others might enjoy a more relaxed pace or it might just be a fun place to work.
“it isn’t my job to evaluate the server”
Perhaps it’s not your “job”, but I would imagine that you’re able to evaluate if you have been well served - or not.
It is one of the great benefits of capitalism that hard work - pleasing the customer - brings reward.
As other here have noted, a no-tip system means less incentive to serve you well - or quickly (other than the heckling of management).
I found the same thing. Blacks tip OK, not great, very little if it is a group of black women. Perhaps they tip a black server better, I don’t know.
Any group of women don’t tip well, but they tip better if the server is male and especially if he is attractive and flatters them. Ditto the other way around with males customers and female servers. That’s what I observed.
Often when a group of women came in and were to be put in a female server’s section, she would “trade” that table to a male server. The male server knew he could make more and possible do very well with an all female table. Sometimes he would ‘tip’ the intended server a portion of his tip for giving him the table.
That’s just the way it works.
Relatives who have been servers tell me that immigrants are also lousy tippers.
And a rapidly growing part of the customer base.
Yesterday Rush spent a good bit of time talking about Sam’s Club’s parent company (i.e. Walmart) and how they have chucked their conservative principles to suck-up to Democrats and get a seat at the Crony Capitalist table.
They’re not “ditching” tips. They made a mandatory 18% tip.
TIPS = To Insure Prompt Service
I’ve been in countries with no tipping. (Australia, NZ) and what happens is ANY server will respond to your request for refills, extra setups etc. You technically have “your server” but you can flag down any server if you need something like extra condiments, or the check.
You no longer have to sit and stew and wait while watching servers take care of “their” tables while you wait for “your” server to come back to get you extra napkins or something.
Kind of liked it. Just sayin’
in the New York suburb I live in I have worked with folks rich and poor and went to lunch with them and sometimes after work for dinner and cocktails....
Black Folks don’t tip and are pissed at the suggestion.
Hispanic folks, to my recollection, do.
I have no idea what people who ‘play for the other team’ do.
Indeed it reeks of jealousy and she is coveting her own servers success.
Her business model is one of true greed and that greed will eventually permeate her entire staff.
It is the real life example of the professor giving everyone a D, so everyone can pass the class
Keep the tips. I knew a waiter at a moderate to higher end establishment that pulled down a high 5 figure/low 6 figure income as a waiter working 3 days a week (Fri,Sat,Sun). Key here is that he was GOOD. Take the example for what it is worth.
This is silly. If she is raising their wages to $15, and raising the price of food accordingly, then there should be no 18% surcharge.
In Europe there is no tip, you just pay more for your meal.
Sounds like Americans are trying to be more stupid than Europeans. In Europe they may give you free education, but you have to pass your A-Levels and O-Levels or the equivalent to prove you're worth the investment. In America there are idiots planning on giving free college to anyone who barely scrapes through high school.
Idiocracy here we come!
progressive thinking: i take away your incentives and pay you less than you would have made, then i charge the customers the same as with the tip, and pocket the difference. i get richer, tell YOU that you are getting richer, even when you aren’t. i feel good, and the worker gets buffaloed...progressive thinking...
Tipping is counter-revolutionary.
Been there, done that. I used to part-time bartend at a golf/country club, earning a couple of bucks more than minimum wage hourly and relying on tips. I kept a tip ledger. At the start of a new season the Japanese management held a meeting, telling us what great news they had for us. We would all be getting a huge raise in pay, but no tipping would be policy. The members would pay a 17% service charge, and notices were placed in plastic holders on the bar and tables to inform them. But the wording was such that that they would conclude that the 17% went to us. I explained to my bar customers that it was not the case, and some started paying cash for drinks, and tipping cash instead of house charging them.
I went back through my tip ledgers for a couple of years and my W-2s for pay and calculated an average of $22-23 an hour. I compared that with the new pay scale plus the tips I was receiving and it came out to less than $16 an hour.
I subsequently printed up and added the explanation of the new policy’s effect on the employees’ incomes to the policy notices, and shortly thereafter was terminated. BTW, the club is now a 40 lot luxury subdivision...
Pay is taxed, cash tips... well.. you can fudge that on your taxes now can’t you?
I will always pick a job that puts cash in my hand daily over one where I am waiting 2 weeks for a taxed check to show up, at least for these types of jobs.
I never worked in a restaurant, but I did work other jobs in my youth that were tip based.. Car Wash, Pizza Delivery, etc.. I loved them... if I worked that day I knew I would have some cash in my pocket that night. The amount might vary from day to day... but I never ever found myself in the old... have to wait til payday to have $$ to do something if I wanted.
The problem with this sort of system, is you remove the motivation from the server, and you are socializing the income... a great server who’s worked hard and has earned the better higher paying busier shift is now making no more money than someone who’s half arsed and phoning it in working tuesday afternoon because they aren’t good enough to work the busier times.. but both are making the same amount per hour.
Houseguests took us out for dinner on Tuesday.....I could see the waiter got a very nice tip, then because he said he had worked there for 28 years, the lady pulled out an extra $20.00 for him!!!
An 18 percent surcharge? Cara you have no right to force people to pay tips in any way.
I will not eat at an establishment where the tip is added on to my bill.
It is my business if i pay a tip and how much and who to.
Also if a waitress is working for tips she will do her best, which is to your advantage.
Good luck but i think you have let the socialists influence you.
Her motive, she says, is to “create stability in the workplace, because there is a disparity in pay.”
So she is going to force a 18 percent tip and take a portion of it.
And now we come to the real reason.
“In some cases a server is making more than the cooks, the bartenders and even me.”
Envy. Not attractive.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.