Service charges; resort fees; "surcharge" add-ons: A new state law requiring price transparency is set to take effect in July. Until now, no one knew how it would apply to restaurants.
Need this nationwide. I hate having fees added on to the price of what I’m ordering.
Only fees that are entirely optional — like leaving a tip for staff — can be left out of the posted price.
Wrong move. They should have outlawed tipping too. No more hiring for shit wages and leaving adequate compensation up to chance. Bump up the menu price and pay your staff an enticing salary.
Take your basic non super fancy restaurant, dinner for two with appetizers, entrees, desserts, a two rounds of drinks will probably be $100ish. And that table of two will be there for an hour.
Assuming server gets 20% tip average, that’s $20 for the table.
An average server will have four tables in their sections. That means if the restaurant is full, they are making $80 an hour in tips. They will get to keep 60% to 80% of that, the rest going in a tip pool that benefits kitchen staff, bussers, barbacks, etc. But they’ll still be making pretty good money.
Of course if the restaurant is empty or they only have one or two tables with people seated, they are making less.
The problem comes that if you get rid of this system, there’s a lot of financial risk for the restaurant owner. Currently they don’t have to pay the server or the staff very much, most of their compensation comes from tips, meaning there is less risk to them keeping the restaurant fully staffed if it’s not going to be busy.
If you pay all these people are constant hourly, now there is risk on the restaurant owner in terms of staffing. Bring on too many staff when it’s quiet and they will lose a bundle. Don’t bring on enough staff when it’s busy and those people don’t have a financial incentive to bust their ass.
It also becomes solely their job to ensure quality, because the server that spends half the time on their phone in the back room is making the same money as the server who is attentive to their tables. It also means less risk for hiring an inexperienced server, because if the server does a bad job they just won’t make good tips.
All that said, I agree something has to change.
I think perhaps one answer would be a law requiring that each restaurant put 15% of gross receipts into a virtual tip pool. That way they aren’t paying through the nose to staff and empty restaurant, there would be a line item on the check like ‘automatic gratuity paid the staff $whatever on this check, further tipping is optional’.
Just in case this isn’t a joke, then this is probably a country difference. In America, “entree” is synonymous with “main course”. I know, I know. That’s not what entree means. But the fact remains.
Where im from ive never heard of that, entree is usually a starter snack to hold you over till the food is done. But this could also be a regional thing still.
I am from Texas and have lived in several states in the eastern half of the US. “Entree” on a menu has always been the main dish in my experience. You also frequently see it used that way on recipe websites. This is the first I’ve heard that entree has a different meaning elsewhere. Merriam Webster has a bit of background info on how that came to be.
Hmm maybe this is a weird area where my part of SoCal reverted then, we do have a pretty big European immagrant population to this day. Lots of Germans and Nordics for some reason.
there’s a lot of financial risk for the restaurant owner
Risk for the business owner, what a concept. The workers aren’t there to defray risks for an owner, they’re doing a job. If the restaurant founder wants to push risk to their employees, make it a coop, then they can share in the profits as well as the risk.
Well if the risk is that they are paying $300 an hour in unnecessary labor, that’s a risk that would put almost any restaurant under.
Perhaps a better answer would be a commission-based system, just build a 20% commission into the price of the food rather than making it a mandatory tip or a line item on the receipt. Problem is that makes marketing harder because you have to explain why your food is 20% more expensive than the competition and try to get people to understand that their bill will actually be the same or less.
It also doesn’t necessarily incentivize the employee to provide better service. And while I conceptually agree that should be the responsibility of the manager, in practice it’s difficult.
I’m not sure what the solution is. I agree there needs to be one.
Wrong move. They should have outlawed tipping too. No more hiring for shit wages and leaving adequate compensation up to chance. Bump up the menu price and pay your staff an enticing salary.
Not disagreeing, just providing a counterpoint.
Take your basic non super fancy restaurant, dinner for two with appetizers, entrees, desserts, a two rounds of drinks will probably be $100ish. And that table of two will be there for an hour. Assuming server gets 20% tip average, that’s $20 for the table. An average server will have four tables in their sections. That means if the restaurant is full, they are making $80 an hour in tips. They will get to keep 60% to 80% of that, the rest going in a tip pool that benefits kitchen staff, bussers, barbacks, etc. But they’ll still be making pretty good money.
Of course if the restaurant is empty or they only have one or two tables with people seated, they are making less.
The problem comes that if you get rid of this system, there’s a lot of financial risk for the restaurant owner. Currently they don’t have to pay the server or the staff very much, most of their compensation comes from tips, meaning there is less risk to them keeping the restaurant fully staffed if it’s not going to be busy. If you pay all these people are constant hourly, now there is risk on the restaurant owner in terms of staffing. Bring on too many staff when it’s quiet and they will lose a bundle. Don’t bring on enough staff when it’s busy and those people don’t have a financial incentive to bust their ass. It also becomes solely their job to ensure quality, because the server that spends half the time on their phone in the back room is making the same money as the server who is attentive to their tables. It also means less risk for hiring an inexperienced server, because if the server does a bad job they just won’t make good tips.
All that said, I agree something has to change. I think perhaps one answer would be a law requiring that each restaurant put 15% of gross receipts into a virtual tip pool. That way they aren’t paying through the nose to staff and empty restaurant, there would be a line item on the check like ‘automatic gratuity paid the staff $whatever on this check, further tipping is optional’.
Why on earth would someone go out for dinner, have two starters, and then jump to dessert? 😂
Just in case this isn’t a joke, then this is probably a country difference. In America, “entree” is synonymous with “main course”. I know, I know. That’s not what entree means. But the fact remains.
Where im from ive never heard of that, entree is usually a starter snack to hold you over till the food is done. But this could also be a regional thing still.
It’s specifically the US that calls main courses entrees. No clue why.
Probably an imperial vs metric thing.
Ive never heard of that, and Im from SoCal. Shouldve made it clear im from the US but yeah never heard of folks calling an entree the full meal.
I am from Texas and have lived in several states in the eastern half of the US. “Entree” on a menu has always been the main dish in my experience. You also frequently see it used that way on recipe websites. This is the first I’ve heard that entree has a different meaning elsewhere. Merriam Webster has a bit of background info on how that came to be.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entrée
Hmm maybe this is a weird area where my part of SoCal reverted then, we do have a pretty big European immagrant population to this day. Lots of Germans and Nordics for some reason.
Risk for the business owner, what a concept. The workers aren’t there to defray risks for an owner, they’re doing a job. If the restaurant founder wants to push risk to their employees, make it a coop, then they can share in the profits as well as the risk.
Well if the risk is that they are paying $300 an hour in unnecessary labor, that’s a risk that would put almost any restaurant under. Perhaps a better answer would be a commission-based system, just build a 20% commission into the price of the food rather than making it a mandatory tip or a line item on the receipt. Problem is that makes marketing harder because you have to explain why your food is 20% more expensive than the competition and try to get people to understand that their bill will actually be the same or less. It also doesn’t necessarily incentivize the employee to provide better service. And while I conceptually agree that should be the responsibility of the manager, in practice it’s difficult. I’m not sure what the solution is. I agree there needs to be one.