Not Being Expected To Tip At A Restaurant: More Americans Need to Experience It

Onwe

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Split scene at Panorama Restaurant at the Fortress HohenSalzburg in Austria

One of the terrific aspects of travel in Germany and Austria was a firm 'Nein!' on any expectation of having to tip. Wherever we went, whether in Munich, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Zugspitze, Innsbruck or the HohenSalzburg Panorama Restaurant in Salzburg - see image- there was zero expectation of customer gratuity.

Our last night with long time German friends Elli and Reinhart we spent at the  Bräustüberl  Restaurant (actually located in old Garmisch, http://www.braeustueberl-garmisch.de/ ) I asked Reinhart the reasons for the absence of gratuities for servers in Germany. He laughed over a tall brew of Krönig Ludwig and replied: "It's because we believe in paying them real wages here that they can live off!"

He explained that the wage scales were such that health insurance was provided for as well as vacation time and pension benefits. There was simply no need to task a customer to come up with extra dough which, as he knew (from several visits to the States) was merely customer subsidy - letting the employer off the hook. He insisted: "If your restuarants in the States even raised their prices barely a dollar across the board they could afford to pay more decent wage instead of expecting the customer to do what the employer ought to."

He had a point. The system in the U.S. then is really a very poor one, where wait staff basically sign on as indentured servants whose miserly scale pay, at $2.13 /hr. is usually quickly snatched up by the employer to pay whatever "expenses" he can think of, with the employee then scrambling to make enough in tips to pay the rent, or just groceries.  Worse and worse, I wager none of the wait staff in the U.S. get anywhere near the two full weeks vacation that wait staff get in Germany, Austria. I told Reinhart that they were more or less stuck with the "Herman Cain" model of restaurant compensation, reflected in their experiencing triple the poverty rate  of the general U.S. workforce.

Fortunately, a new light seems to have emerged at the proverbial end of the U.S. Miserly Tunnel. Well, at least at one New York City venue: Sushi Yasuda, an upscale place in midtown Manhattan, has opted to provide its staff with a decent salary and benefits package that includes vacation days, sick leave and health insurance. Instead of a tip line, the restaurant notifies their patrons at the bottom of the check:

“Following the custom in Japan, Sushi Yasuda’s service staff are fully compensated by their salary. Therefore gratuities are not accepted.”

Hey! Sounds an awful lot like the custom in most of Germany and Austria!

Of course, inevitably, some customers will always be so conditioned that they give tips whatever the new policy. But at Sushi Yasuda,  any tips the staff does receive goes straight to the house, rather than staff. Meanwhile, food prices have been raised an extra 15 percent to compensate wages, but there’s been no apparent change in customer volume.

Sushi Yasuda’s Co-owner, Scott Rosenberg, told The Price Hike

“The risk is that your prices appear to be high on the menu. But if you have faith in what you’re serving, and how you’re serving it, you know that when your customers have a good meal and look at their final tally it’s going to be around the same.”

Hey, now there's a novel thought! Have faith in what you're serving, then set ther prices accordingly - to meet the goal of providing a living wage for your staff! If your grub is in any good, people will come! They sure do in Germany, and over there the prices are marked in euros with one euro equivalent to about $1.30 U.S.  The meal I had at  Bräustüberl  featured roast duck and potatoes, salad with a dark German beer and ditto for Janice. It came to some 54 euros (27 euro each) or $70.20 U.S. And worth every cent by the way. Besides the server so enjoyed our table we each received a free round of Schnapps.

I would wager a similar model could be employed here in the U.S. say at place like Applebees or Olive Garden and with lower prices relative to what we paid in Europe. For example, Olive Gardens in Denver currently have a special 3-course special Italian dinner for $12.95. I am willing to bet that this might be offered instead at $15.95 and customers will still come and buy it if it's that good. The extra money can then be used to pay real server wages.

Alas, this is perhaps more a pipe dream than realistic. The chains - chain restaurants are more likely committed to the 'Herman Cain' model of meager wage and scrambling for tips - especially if the competition doesn't change but sticks to low dinner costs. This means a large portion of the U.S. work force will never really be able to improve its lot and Americans - perpetually anticipating low food prices - will come to expect restaurants deliver them as is their wont.

It’s Time To Get Rid of Tipping! (And Indentured Servitude)

“In the American democracy to be servile is incompatible with citizenship. Every tip given in the United States is a blow at our experiment in democracy. The custom announces to the world….that we do not believe practically that ‘all men are created equal’…….Those Americans who dislike self-respect in servants are undesirable citizens; they belong in an aristocracy.” – William R. Scott, 1916

(Shown by Chris Hayes in a freeze frame this morning)


Former waitress Victoria Bruton, this morning on Chris Hayes’ ‘UP’ (in his topic to do with the food industry) made one of the most compelling arguments ever for getting rid of the institution of tipping in restaurants. As she put it to Chris, when asked if she’d have preferred a straight weekly wage to tips:


“Oh, no question! By the end of the week I know how many hours I’ve worked so I know how much I will actually get to pay my bills. I no longer have to say ‘Oh, I need to make 300 dollars! Come on, 300 dollars!’ "


Her point is that with even a minimum wage she'd have been better off because she no longer would have to gamble on whether she could pay her bills, or make a difficult choice between paying the gas bill and the electric bill. This is germane because the ‘tipping minimum wage’ of $2.13 an HOUR, hasn’t changed in 22 years!


Most Americans who tip, including me (on the odd occasion of going to eat out), think they are rewarding service well done, not actually paying most of a worker’s wage. But with the tipping wage as low as 2.13 an hour this is often the case. As Ms. Bruton observed, her tipping minimum usually boiled down to zero at the end of her work week, thanks to taxes, withholding etc. and so all her actual “wage” needed to be from tips.


Of course, this is an abomination. The tip, if it exists at all, should be on TOP of a basic decent wage (at least $8 an hour) not substitute for it! This has always been the problem I have had with tipping culture in the U.S. By contrast, in Europe, the restaurants incorporate a gratuity in the final tab and this is always in addition to the workers’ regular wage which is a livable wage. No customer has to remotely decide how much to add to the tab because the bill is already completed. No wonder then that staff in Europe enjoy a higher standard of living. They can actually afford to pay off any college loans!


Chris’ guest Saru Jayaraman also observed that 7 states in the U.S. provide tips on top of a decent minimum wage, including California, Nevada and Oregon. She also pointed out that having a real minimum wage applied to the workers in the restaurant industry would not increase expenses more than 10 cents or so per worker per day and so the claim that restaurateurs would have to raise prices by twenty percent or more is nonsense.


Waiters and waitresses in the U.S. also need to be aware of how the debased ‘grub for tips’ culture in the U.S. came about. As noted by Chris in his brief historical retrospective, the agreement was made in the 1990s, when the likes of Herman Cain agreed to raise the federal minimum wage if the tipping minimum wage was to he “kept at $2.13 an hour forever”.


Forever! Are you effing kidding me? With inflation ever going on and eating up real wages, you will keep restaurant workers at the level of slaves or indentured servants?


Alas, with our predominantly Confederate slave-labor favoring congress, it appears any changes will have to come from the bottom up as opposed to top down. Unless restaurant workers themselves agitate for a real federal minimum wage they can live on, they will be hoist on the petard of gambling whether their tips will close their budget gaps at the end of the week.


Given that the restaurant biz inevitably declines during recessions (and we may be in for another with the sequester) tips becomes a dicey way to earn a living.


The good news? As Ms. Jayaraman  noted, there will be a bill introduced Tuesday in Congress, co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Harkin and George Miller in the House to “finally raise the tipping minimum wage for the first time in two decades”.


The bad news? Since the House is ruled by pro-Confederate, Tea Party austerity zealots-  with boners for major deficit reduction-   it is as likely that bill will pass as that extraterrestrials will land and abduct all the Tea- Peas  for servitude in the Zeta Reticuli system!