Posted on 06/09/2014 1:28:05 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
A restaurant in Newport, Kentucky is making national headlines putting a ‘no tipping’ policy in effect. Packhouse Meats‘ tipping ban may seem strange, but it’s way more awesome than you think.
The restaurant has ‘No Tipping’ signs posted throughout its facility, and when customers pay by credit card, there is no option to leave a tip on the order receipt. Bob Conway, the owner of Packhouse Meats, revealed in an interview that he’s been inundated with negative reviews on Yelp for what appears to be mistreatment of his servers. A closer look at the new policy reveals that it’s not awful–it’s awesome.
Here’s how it works: severs are paid $10 an hour OR 20% of their individual food sales during their shifts–whichever amount is higher. Anyone who has ever waited tables before knows how rad this policy is. It’s basically a guarantee that you’re going to make good money.
Let’s break it down: if you worked a 5 hour shift and brought in $500 in food sales (which is suuuuuuper easy to do at any busy restaurant; TRUST); if you earn 20% of that, you take home $100–that’s twice the amount you’d make at the rate of $10/hour.
I think Packhouse Meat’s ‘No Tipping’ policy is awesome because it works for the restaurant AND its servers; the servers are motivated to push food sales (which means more $$$ for the restaurant), and the restaurant takes care of its employees with a guarantee that they’ll make a decent wage (which means happy servers).
I also think the ‘No Tipping’ policy is awesome because it eliminates what I call the Jerk Factor. There are few things in life more infuriating than busting it to take care of a table who leaves a chump change tip. You hustle like crazy to make sure these people’s drinks stay refilled, their orders are delivered promptly and accurately, their every need is attended to–all with warmth and courtesy– and they repay you with a $5 tip on a $125 check. Thanks, party of six, you guys must all be greaaaaaat people.
Packhouse Meats has taken the Jerk Factor out of the equation and ensured that their servers get the pay the deserve. Their owner gets an A++ in my book, but what do you think? Is their policy a good idea? Tell me how you feel in the comments below!
If the service stays good, I would be more than satisfied (as long as the value remains good for the customer).
no the good ones will get your food to you quickly to make sure they can rotate the table for the next order - if the food is late you sit and they have to wait for you to move to get to the next check and bigger sales.
Contract-wise, tipping is bad because it is not part of the contract. At least one side of the contract cannot tell how high the tip will be; this creates uncertainty. Often nobody knows how much money will be paid after the service is performed.
Many people think that tipping ensures quality of service. But there are examples of "bad tippers," even in this thread, who ignore their end of the unwritten tipping contract - because it is unwritten, and as such unenforceable. Is it worth it to punish good workers (servers) just because the customer is unfair? Similarly, would it be fair if the server prejudges a customer and, based on his previous experience, reduces the level of service to them, anticipating poor tipping no matter what? Why should we pay for the food and for the service separately? Why should we become judges and discipline servers - isn't it the manager's job? Tipping is even unable to ensure QoS because the money for the service is paid after the service is performed, and there is no contract to pay that money - neither for a good service nor for a bad one, and there are too many restaurants, patrons, and servers, to remember individual visits.
I don't even know if tipping has any educational effect on bad servers. If the customer is unhappy and the server is wrong, the customer has two options. First, he can reduce the tip. This hides the problem because it remains unknown to the management. A bad server will continue to work, sometimes paying a few dollars out of his own pocket for his mistakes but continuing to make them - for example, it may be easier to work this way. As result, the customers stop coming for no apparent reason. Second, in a no-tipping facility, the customer may complain to the management. This makes the problem known, and the manager can educate, reassign, or dismiss a bad worker. Feedback can be easily implemented by printing the URL of a web page on each receipt. It will be used only by those customers who truly want to make the problem known; a lazy and cheap customer, who does not tip today, won't bother with a fake bad review. There is an obvious financial advantage in not tipping, and no responsibility; but it's nothing but loss of time to file a false complaint, and you can be held responsible. Most services in the modern world work without creating a side channel of poorly accountable payments.
I don’t care if my plumber is friendly. He doesn’t have to smile. He just needs to get the job done at the price we agreed on. If I’m paying him by the hour, he’d best be WORKING while I watch. Neither of us are doing something for ‘fun’.
A restaurant is ALL about fun. As my boss told me in my first job - Baskin-Robbins - “We don’t sell ice cream. They can buy ice cream in a grocery store. We sell happiness.”
The waitress or waiter is part of the dining experience. The job is to deliver “happy”. It is not in any way like a contractor.
Going way back, waiters were independent agents who were basically middlemen between the house and the customer. They paid for the food themselves and tips were the only money they made. There was one place in Chicago I can remember in the 1970s that still ran like that, and had been since the 1880s.I remember the waiters lining up to pay for the meals as they came out of the kitchen before they'd bring them to your table.
I’d offer that, under a system without tips, poor waiters would be far more likely to be fired than is currently the case.
I don’t run a restaurant, but if I did, I would probably be willing to pay a couple dollars an hour to a waiter who did the bare minimum. The lack of tips would (hopefully) send the message that the waiter needs to shape up or move on. I’d probably also be less likely to hear about it, as customers who feel they can take their frustrations out directly on the waiter will probably be less likely to register a complaint. Most people like to avoid confrontations when such is possible. They’re probably less likely to blame the restaurant quite as strongly as would otherwise be the case — it was the waiter at fault, after all, and the waiter had already been punished.
Without tips in place, however, I’m put in a position where I have to treat my employees exactly the same as any other business with untipped workers. If a waiter is of a particularly poor quality, I’m more likely to hear about it as customers have no alternate recourse. It’s probably only going to take a few complaints until I’m less than thrilled about paying that person $10 an hour. I’m thus put into a place where I’d be more inclined to let them go ASAP. It also potentially will cost me more business, as if customers can’t take their grievances out on the waiter, they’re probably more likely to take it out on the restaurant directly by not coming back.
Hey, I could be (and probably am) wrong but it’s food for thought.
As I pointed out already, tipping is actually the innovention here in the US and was avoided for a long time precisely because it carried connotations of old world aristocracy. It only began being practiced in America around the time of Prohibition, where a reduction in booze sales made it necessary to suppliment waitstaff earnings.
When I’m paying part of their salary they are most certainly working for me. Which is how I like it.
and they repay you with a $5 tip on a $125 check. Thanks, party of six
$125.00 for 6 people to eat? Too funny..
At the rate the dollar is being devalued, I guess lunch will run about $275.00 for 6 in a few years.
Remember with most customers paying for cards tips have a paper trail which the owner has to process. If that paper trail Bob regularly gets crappy tips while Frank working right next to him get great tips might be time for a chat with Bob.
We tip our Politicians don’t we? Now that’s service!
Tip your go-go girl too now.
If my waitress was killing the mood in my place by not being pleasant and helpful, she would be fired, I would not watch with apprehension and helplessness, and hoping that my customers would tip enough to overcome her dourness.
As my boss told me in my first job - Baskin-Robbins - “We don’t sell ice cream. They can buy ice cream in a grocery store. We sell happiness.”
Tipping required/counted on, at Baskin Robbins when you worked there?
You think they work for you. The ugly reality is most would rather stuff a roach in your sandwich than wait on you or anyone else.
It’s what happens to many after working with the public.
Yes, free market principles still apply, but I’d argue that the proposed scenario allows for a more limited set of free market choices. As you say, I would still have the right to refuse to be a patron of this restaurant and indeed that is a free market choice. However, that would be my only choice. With the current tipping system, I can choose to frequent the restaurant and ask for a specific waiter, I can choose to tip, I can choose to walk out if the service is horrible, etc. I have more free market choices now...so I again ask you why a conservative minded individual would willingly agree to limit their choices?
You need to eat at better places. Or maybe tip better.
You need to crawl back to reality.
And punitively rewarded for bad. Include me out.
Read the thread and you will see that the tip crowd likes that aspect.
Reality is where I live, and I’ve done food service. Yeah some days you hate customers, but usually because some customers need to be hated. But people who really just always hate the customer get weeded out. Waiters and waitresses I deal with like their customers. I’m in a lunch group that goes out once a week, we had a standard waitress we dealt with, eventually someplace else made her an offer she couldn’t refuse, but she came back on our regular day the week before Christmas gave us all homemade baklava. That’s reality, at least reality when you’re not a bitter person.
It was a small company with 4 employees. 1 hour service is not something he advertises as he typically has more business than he can handle. Also it’s hard to find 1 hour service here in NM, believe me!
We gave each of the employees what we could afford at the time, a generous gift card to a newly opened, locally owned/operated, high end brew house that we’d overheard them saying they wanted to try. They said everyone that went had great things to say, but it was higher priced than what they wanted to pay. They were thrilled when they saw what we gave them.
For the hot water heater replacement we gave the owner of the business (he’s the one that did the work) a gift card for a night flight zipline trip in a part of CO that he & his wife visit often. They enjoy doing that type of thing and he was excited.
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