I recently heard about a restaurant in Philadelphia that is known for withholding tips from the wait staff. Apparently, a review on citypaper.net about Philly’s Arbol Café prompted this comment:
February 24th 2008 1:55 AM | Posted by: John Smith
The owners of the Arbol cafe do not allow their workers to keep their tips. While getting paid 7 dollars an hour to bus, clean, set, take orders, run food, do dishes, and bleach bathroom/floors, the tips from customers are kept by the owners. Tipping the owner is considered rude and telling servers that they can’t is poor practice.
After a four hour shift (28 bucks) with no tips, which one time a server made 30 dollars in tips I was unable to keep it. The place has all the potential, but has bad policies. NEVER TIP! Your server doesn’t see it.
The Café soon responded with the following comment:
March 8th 2008 9:18 PM | Posted by: Arbol Cafe
“response to “John Smith” aka: Diva” by thearbolcafe (1 review)
February 26, 2008 - We regret and apologize at having to respond to such a base, unfair and inaccurate comment made by the waitress, “John Smith”. The cafe has been open all of three months and is undergoing drastic rennovations. Prior to our hiring any person, we make it quite clear that they will be paid above minimum wage to start. It is also our clear intent to not have waiters or waitresses but rather, persons who are interested in working and growing as a team and excelling in the project’s full potential. Many of our customers have offered their time and skills, free of charge, because they too share in the same spirit of what we have to offer to the community.
Note: Above comment was trimmed to only add what was necessary here.
As you can see from the statement, it’s true that they do not allow their wait staff to see their tips. However, this is justified by paying them above the standard wait staff minimum wage and by not calling the employees wait staff. However, it doesn’t change the fact that people, who appear to be wait staff and are doing the same job, are not receiving the tips that customers are leaving for them.
As a former waitress I cannot imagine working somewhere that wouldn’t allow me to keep my tips. As a consumer, I leave tips based on the service that I receive. The waitress being the middle person is the one in charge of seeing that my food is right and that the service I receive is enough to keep me happy. In turn, I tip them for all of the hard work that they do. As the wait staff is making the least of every employee in any restaurant, tips have a way of evening things out.
Cooks make a fair base pay and restaurant owners should be able to perform their own renovations, otherwise that means that their restaurant is not doing good enough in the first place. Keeping the money that waitresses earn to better their restaurant just doesn’t sound right to me. At the very least, if my tips aren’t going to the wait staff I would want to know. I have no intention of tipping any owner because my tip comes in the form of my often over-inflated cost of the meal I choose.
I am pretty sure that I would not tip knowing that it was going to the owners and not the specific staff member that took care of my needs. Not only that, but I wouldn’t eat at the restaurant either if I knew beforehand.
What is your opinion? Is it fair for restaurants to keep the tips that their staff makes?
Technorati Tags: Food, Restaurants, Tipping, Wait Staff, Arbol Café, Renovations, Waitress
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[...] Is Withholding Tips Fair? [...]
All tips should be based upon the server’s performance. After all, a tip is a reward. If the service is lousy then the tip should be lousy — if a tip is left at all. Servers are already paid to bring your food to your table. How attentive they are is where the tip comes in. If all I got was my food and not even a water refill or a check-back to see how everything is, then I feel they were already paid for that. I don’t see a tip as any different than a bonus an employee receives for going “above and beyond”. If they don’t do it — they don’t get it. Same thing here.