Posted on 06/23/2021 5:25:01 AM PDT by Enlightened1
“Where should we eat tomorrow?” my wife asked me excitedly as we sat on our deck Friday evening.
She had locked down a babysitter for Saturday night, and we were both eager for our first dinner date alone together in months.
“Broders’,” I answered without hesitation.
Located in southwest Minneapolis, Broders Pasta Bar is a local gem. It has a great outdoor patio and the best Italian cuisine in the Twin Cities. We had not eaten there since the pandemic began.
My wife nodded and started to make a reservation on her phone. Then her jaw dropped.
“You’re not going to like this,” she said.
On its website, Broders’ has a notice to customers notifying them of a new 15 percent “benefits and equity” charge they’ve instituted. They justify the charge, first, by explaining that “many states have allowed reduced minimum wages for service staff in the form of a tip credit.” (More on this in a minute.)
The restaurant’s second justification is that many tippers are racist and sexist, according to uncited research.
“Studies have also shown that there is inequity and built-in bias in the way consumers give tips,” the statement reads. “In general, Black or Brown servers receive less tips than Caucasian servers. There is gender bias as well.”
The final part of the statement says the new policy stems from wider racial injustice and is not a substitute for gratuity.
“In the wake of racial injustice protests and the closures due to Covid, now is the time for Broders’ to reimagine its economics and provide fair pay across the company,” the statement reads. “Our Benefits & Equity Charge is applied entirely to employee compensation. This supplement helps us to set a $16 minimum hourly wage for customer facing employees, $18 minimum hourly wage for kitchen employees… Altogether this allows everyone in our company to earn a real living wage. The 15% Benefits & Equity Charge is not a gratuity.”
But this is Minnecraponus. Common sense is racist, white supremacist. It is much better to virtue signal.
Just watch, white woke businesses in places like Minnecraponus and Austin TX go out of business yet brag about how they never made a profit since they are so enlightened.
The Blackstone Steakhouse in Springfield Vermont charges 15 percent extra to cover the state minimum wage imposed by the state. We went there with a party of 6. Over $250 tab with a minimum 25 percent tip and a 15 percent charge. Needless to say, we’ll never go back.
That’s crazy, and I would say unheard of except that at a McDees drive through a few weeks back, I ordered two coffees and my buddy likes his black, so I ordered and told her a large double double and a large black coffee please. The girl on the speaker said they didn’t have black coffee. I said I’m sure you do otherwise that would make any other kind pretty weird. She said they say regular. I said make it a black, and when we get up there it’s a regular (which is one cream, one sugar) which of course is not black.
I looked at it, looked at her, dumped it on the ground outside my window (army anger kicking in) and said, let’s try again now shall we? Black, make a black coffee. Take it directly from the pot and put it in a cup and don’t add anything else, it’s the easiest coffee to make.
My buddy is even more abrasive than I sometimes, and I drove away and I think he didn’t let it go for a good 45 mins heh.
bump
>>>The 15% Benefits & Equity Charge is not a gratuity<<<
It is now, but only for the suckers who go there to eat.
I guess they should just charge more for their Product to cover their Employee Expenses, but instead they broadcast their “empathy” hoping their Customers feel the same way.
Well that’s just another way to drive away business. What fools.
I don’t like to eat at ANY restaurant that imposes a mandatory tip, for ANY reason. To me, a tip is for good service - and I have given many very good tips for just that, good service. A tip is a way to say “thank you” to a waiter or waitress for a good job - not a perfect job, but a good job. The more that they try, and are polite in the process, the higher my tip goes...and the other way around.
Screw mandatory tips. Yeah, restaurant workers get lousy base wages. That’s known when they apply for the jobs, so I am not feeling sorry for them. The tip is an incentive for them to be good servers. If they cannot do that, perhaps they can take their poor attitude and go to work for an enterprise that seems to require a poor attitude: government.
Let their stupid butts starve and go bankrupt
I am puzzled as to why I should tip for carry out. What service have I been rendered aside from their handing me a paper bag? Worse than that, I have learned through experience that I have to pull everything out of that bag on the spot to check it for completeness. If I don't, the chances are high that when I get home, I'll discover something missing.
Wow, they want $20 for some pickled veggies and they dare to charge an extra 50 cents for parm. Plus their equity charge.
Last night, I made a pickled salad of beets, onion, balsamic vinegar, sour cream and fresh basil for less than 25 cents per serving and no equity charge.
They’re only open 5 hours for dinner. That’s severely limiting their customers. Thought restaurants were going broke and begging for customers.
White / “White” Guilt UNFAIRLY Wins Again....
MORE FREEBIES, MORE FREE MONEY ( At WHITE Working Class taxpayers’ expense!!!! ) to help those poooooooo’,poooooooo’,fraaaaaaaagiiiiillllle, preeeeeeeeciiiioooooooouuuuuuuusssss Blaaaaaaaaaacks !!!!
Wow, just wow. She deserved to be fired, make a stink, demand the manager, say you felt discriminated against, cause as much trouble as possible.
If?
Anyone in their right mind would stop going there, period.
A 15% surcharge for "equity" means DON'T GO THERE!
No customers = no tips = no more business.
Get Woke Go Broke!
The automatic 15% surcharge has NO guarantee it is going to a table server. The business is pocketing the charge— most likely and not a thing can be done about it, even if the menu declares what it is for. They would really be in trouble if they stated it went into the FICO withhold of salaries fund.
This is feel good stuff for the owners masquerading as “equity”. To Insure Promptness.... TIP. Try requiring this TIP to be paid before service-— same thing happened. Tips are voluntary, and culturally determined.
BTW- demonrats typically do not tip with their own money— the owners are redistributing their customer’s funds, according to their own construct— just like the dem party does with all our money. Restaurant owners are clearly lib dem-— “eq
uity” re-distributors and the famous “capitalist” socialist.
Repubs— conservative ones mostly, are known for tipping well- as such are recognized by staff as true to their word— they tip for promptness and service— if given.
A sneakier approach would have been to just raise the prices on everything by 15%. But their approach allows everyone to know what they are doing which must be their intent - a form of virtue signaling.
What is sad is these people must have calculated that they think they will do better by advertising this nonsense instead of just raising prices.
We will see how people respond.
no we vote with our feet. I just won’t go back there.
9/10 the manager will say 1 thing to the customer, and then cuss them out with the server later.
No restaurant is that good for me..
I will not be manipulated by any SJW.
What a bunch of codswallop.
Especially during the lockdowns and their aftermath, as folks have been trying to get their feet back under them, when we do go out, we’ve been generous. A LOT more than 15% (even pre-lockdown, we seldom places where we felt the routine service didn’t justify a greater than 20% tip - why eat somewhere where the service isn’t usually excellent or better??).
When I go places where gratuity is already added, well, they added it, so I’m relieved of adding my own. Oh well.
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.