
I'm a Cook and I Want You to Keep Your Tips - deegles
http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/05/13/22202360/im-a-cook-and-i-want-you-to-keep-your-tips
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zyxley
Serious question: why add a "service charge" instead of just adjusting the
price of dishes accordingly?

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Frozenlock
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.

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deathandtaxes
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.

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krick
Wow, isn't it in USA? Do I understand you correctly: I see a "price" on a
product, and have to manually multiply it by 1.2 (or whatever taxes are in
USA) to know, what it actually will cost me?

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staz
Oh it's worse than that, in the USA it vary by state (even by city I think)
and by type of products so you have to apply a different multiplier each time

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mark-r
In Minnesota for example, there's a state tax, and starting in 2000 additional
optional taxes for the county and city. People don't bother calculating it,
they just wait for the bill and look to see what percentage was applied if
they're curious.

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mml
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.

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zeroecco
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)

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titanomachy
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.

~~~
zeroecco
That is simply not true. People eat out more today then ever before in the
past 100 years in the USA based on income.

[http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/19/spending-income-
level_cx_lh...](http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/19/spending-income-
level_cx_lh_de_0719spending.html)

Food carts are a perfect example of COGS in action. Coffee places are also an
example (SBUX, stumptown, etc). Highly specialized businesses selling items at
the best balance of COGS and quality.

Food carts and small specialized brick and mortar businnesses are succeeding
because their COGS are far lower then your average place.

Most resturants fail because of their initial COGS at startup and because
their food/service/merketing research generally sucks for where they are.
Remove the service aspect, specialize, reduce cogs, make a living wage.

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bradleyjg
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
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.

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bradleyjg
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.

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anotherevan
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-...](http://jayporter.com/dispatches/observations-from-a-tipless-
restaurant-part-1-overview/)

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andor436
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...](http://www.blackstar.coop/blog/2015/5/4/black-star-co-op-
upskilling)

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

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

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blakeja
"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?

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superuser2
I read "I'm Tim Cook" and I thought this was going to be about Apple Pay at
restaurants... ok.

