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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 --
by bradleyjg 12y ago
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 12y agoThere 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.
- bradleyjg 12y agoAre 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.