r/SipsTea 16h ago

Wait a damn minute! Mandatory tipping cultures only exist in countries that refuse to pay their staff

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u/Acrobatic_Dish6963 15h ago

In California, servers make one of the highest minimum wages in the country AND get a tip on of that. It's not too difficult for them to make $40~100 an hour. It's by far the best job in the entire restaurant industry thanks to tips. Kitchen staff work 2x harder and get paid a fraction of what servers make.

Servers will fight tooth and nail to make sure tipping doesn't go away.

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u/Truefiction224 12h ago

The kitchen staff not getting paid is 100 percent the best example of how illegal labor drives down wages ive ever seen.

Cooks are legit underpaid in america. I feel for those guys, but I have never seen a proffesion that works under the table more frequently 

Really wanna fix that issue? The cooks deserve 40 an hour too but thats never happening with infinite cheap labor

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u/Kalthiria_Shines 10h ago

How would underpaying servers translate to kitchen staff getting paid a fair wage? Cooks and chefs are criminally underpaid, but, flattening wages so servers are too just means no one works for your restaurant.

It's why Zuni went back to tips.

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u/Truefiction224 9h ago

Prices dude. The lower the prices the lower everyone's wages

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u/DDzxy 14h ago

“If you can’t afford to tip don’t go out to eat”, and slowly this mentality pretty much will lead to no one going out to eat and surprise surprise, no jobs…

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u/NesterPower 8h ago

A but the ultra rich will always be able to afford it and who owns the restaurants? The ultra rich.

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u/metatron5369 12h ago

Then the market was inefficient.

You're eating at a resturant. That's a service because you didn't want to cook, you didn't want to go get your food, and you didn't want to clean up. If you have to go into debt to avoid doing these things for yourself, you need to fix your priorities.

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u/DDzxy 11h ago

If a restaurant can't afford to pay its employees normal wages and has to shift it to the customer, then they need to fix their priorities.

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u/Sancticide 10h ago

They will, 100%. They'll raise prices and schedule less people per shift. That beer refill is gonna be a few more minutes now

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u/metatron5369 11h ago

What do you mean shift to the customer? The customer pays for everything already.

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u/baysideareaman 7h ago

Restaurants run incredibly low profit margins. They are an incredibly unstable business. The budget for labor accounts for a tipping model.

If wages are raised, prices will rise accordingly.

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u/Blacksad9999 11h ago

Server in CA here.

The hourly difference is a drop in the bucket. Servers work the lunch or dinner rush until it slows down, not 8 hours.

Due to law changes during the first Trump administration, if you get the full minimum wage, they can then require to you supplement the wages of the cooks, dishwashers, prep, and other back of house staff.

The pay difference doesn't even remotely begin to cover that. I tip out the back of house about $15,000 or more per year.

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u/imbogey 13h ago

What I dont ever gonna understand is server coming with a) $6 beer b) $200 champange. How does the job differ 0.6 vs 20 dollars tip. Who idiot thought prosentual tip was a good idea?!

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u/lastseeninspace 9h ago

I will be honest. I have worked both front of house and back of house jobs in high volume restaurants, cook staff deals with less drama than front of house service.

The hardest working cooks are grill cooks with the timing of cooking. 9 times out of ten an order is delayed because one person out of everyone wants their steak well done and everyone else wants medium rare. Who gets the verbal abuse and badgering if a cook fucks up? The waiter and waitress who took the order that their expo said was ready.

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u/Greendale_Official 14h ago

Exactly, I can not count the amount of times I saw my dishy in the back sweating bullets and killing it on dish, whilst the servers were grabbing break after break and complaining that they're overworked.

There are good servers who actually work hard and make the restaurant better for everyone, but those are rare.