Experience Socialism While You Eat

[Old Noob]

LOL, no more place in Portlandia I would never go into. Especially now.

 

[Longwalkhome]

Owner obviously is turning into an idiot. Supply chain issues, labor issue and he wants to raise prices and tells his customers they must pay 22% no matter how bad the service. With inflation and the high cost of fuel just to get to his restaurant he seems to have lost contact with real world finance.

 

[arakboss]

After re-reading that story....

There is one thing I disagree with.
They shouldn't have a "22% service fee"
They should just increase their prices all around 22%
It's beginning to feel like a cable or phone bill when they break everything down like that. I don't appreciate all of the lines on the bill. I just want to see the total of what it costs to eat there, no games.

My guess is they don't want to pay the taxes on the 22%, they aren't that generous. Forcing the 22% tips also allows the restaurant to let customers subsidize their labor cost.

 

[arakboss]

Owner obviously is turning into an idiot. Supply chain issues, labor issue and he wants to raise prices and tells his customers they must pay 22% no matter how bad the service. With inflation and the high cost of fuel just to get to his restaurant he seems to have lost contact with real world finance.

I imagine many of their customers are proponents of socialism and or equal pay policies and will continue to patronize the business. I doubt they would have made the move without feeling it out among their regular customers first. The media attention might attract a bunch of new socialist to their business, we have no shortage of them in the area.

 

[made in china]

In Seattle, the restaurants implemented "living wage" pay a while ago. But they left the tip option on the slip. Same for Starbucks. I don't go there anymore.

These last few years, the wife and I have become much better at cooking food that rivals the restaurants. The only advantage for restaurants now is convenience and any specialty foods we can't do or find. For the most part our food is at least as good, very diverse...but doing dishes still sucks!

 

[made in china]

Why accuse it of socialism? I can look at it as capitalism.

Because it's in the title....

 

[Cavedweller]

It's not socialism. It's just a compensation scheme that's a little out of the ordinary. Not much different than tip sharing, which is practiced in many restaurants. They're also not the first restaurant to use a service charge instead of voluntary tipping. It's not a policy forced on the entire industry by the government, so it's not socialism, any more than having a bunch of hippies living on a commune means the entire economy is communist.

In a free economy business owners should be able to operate their businesses in the manner they choose. The market will determine whether this model is successful or not. That's they way it should be. There's nothing new about this except the virtue signaling equity hype. If that's enough to appeal to a certain segment of the restaurant-going public, so be it.

Frankly, I don't see how this is economically viable. Restaurants typically operate on very thin margins, and health insurance premiums are very high these days. I don't see how they can pay $25 hr and pick up 100% of heath insurance premiums too. I doubt if they'll be around long if they keep this up.

$25/hr may not be that great a deal anyway. My daughter worked in a restaurant where tip sharing was practiced and calculated that she was making $40/hr with tips. But she had no benefits.

 

[Old Noob]

In Seattle, the restaurants implemented "living wage" pay a while ago. But they left the tip option on the slip. Same for Starbucks. I don't go there anymore.

These last few years, the wife and I have become much better at cooking food that rivals the restaurants. The only advantage for restaurants now is convenience and any specialty foods we can't do or find. For the most part our food is at least as good, very diverse...but doing dishes still sucks!

Same here. We refuse to put on a mask in a restaurant just to go take it off once you sit down with a glass of water. We will not comply with plain stupidity.
So, we just don't go anymore. Sure we still get take out once in awhile but mostly we cook for ourselves now.
Better for us also less processed foods.

 

[arakboss]

It's not socialism. It's just a compensation scheme that's a little out of the ordinary. Not much different than tip sharing, which is practiced in many restaurants. They're also not the first restaurant to use a service charge instead of voluntary tipping. It's not a policy forced on the entire industry by the government, so it's not socialism, any more than having a bunch of hippies living on a commune means the entire economy is communist.

In a free economy business owners should be able to operate their businesses in the manner they choose. The market will determine whether this model is successful or not. That's they way it should be. There's nothing new about this except the virtue signaling equity hype.

Frankly, I don't see how this is economically viable. Restaurants typically operate on very thin margins, and health insurance premiums are very high these days. I don't see how they can pay $25 hr and pick up 100% of heath insurance premiums too. I doubt if they'll be around long if they keep this up.

$25/hr may not be that great a deal anyway. My daughter worked in a restaurant where tip sharing was practiced and calculated that she was making $40/hr with tips. But she had no benefits.

I am assuming the $25 is including the 22% service fee that gets passed down to employees from customers. That would make their wage scheme more attractive to the kitchen help but the server that use to make $40hr an hour due to tips, may be less enthused.

 

[arakboss]

The firearm industry is getting much of the money I use to spend on eating out all the time. Being on a diet now even the grocery stores are going to lose out on money from me.

 

[Longwalkhome]

If I want restaurant food I order it delivered. No sense driving with the high cost of fuel.

 

[made in china]

Sure we still get take out once in awhile but mostly we cook for ourselves now.
Better for us also less processed foods.

Restaurants aren't concerned with the long-term health of their food, so they'll be very generous with the fats, salt, sugar. That's one significant reason why their food seems so good.
We figured this out when we were trying to emulate restaurant food.... Our food was never quite as good until we began increasing the amount of "bad stuff" in it, then it started tasting the same.
We've found other ways around it.

 

[made in china]

If I want restaurant food I order it delivered. No sense driving with the high cost of fuel.

That used to be a reasonable option where I live, not really for gas, but delivery fees seemed reasonable, in 2019. We'd order enough for leftovers, and that spread the cost of delivery.

But many of the delivery options changed their pricing (increased) strategies and even began asking for driver tip based on my food purchase!
Why the heck should the driver be tipped based on my food bill? I used to tip based on how far the restaurant was from our home.

 

[Cavedweller]

I am assuming the $25 is including the 22% service fee that gets passed down to employees from customers. That would make their wage scheme more attractive to the kitchen help but the server that use to make $40hr an hour due to tips, may be less enthused.

I think your assumption is probably correct. Just as an intellectual exercise, it would be interesting to know how much their average daily receipts are and how much 22% of that is, how many employees they have, and the average hours worked. They must have already done the math and figured it's going to work out.

It's not that unusual for tip-sharing establishments to share with kitchen staff. The place where my daughter worked did, and her $40/hr was after the kitchen help got their cut. So whether this is a good deal or not for employees depends on the value of the health ins. premium paid and how many hours they work to get it. It definitely does put a ceiling on how much they are able to make tho. But, hey, equity.

As long as it's the business owner's choice and nobody is forced to work there, that's what freedom is all about.

 

[Flopsweat]

This isn't new. There are restaurants in the U.S. that have mandatory tips. It seems to be mostly the more expensive places. Often it only applies to parties of more than a certain number. The ones I've seen are usually 15% or so. I've been told it's a European thing. If they aren't a pretty fancy place and well known for great service, food and atmosphere, I don't expect them to last long.

 

[Longwalkhome]

I used to enjoy a nice Sunday breakfast at a favorite restaurant but today I went with a tomato sandwich on white bread. Reset

 

[made in china]

$25/hr may not be that great a deal anyway. My daughter worked in a restaurant where tip sharing was practiced and calculated that she was making $40/hr with tips. But she had no benefits.

$25 definitely isn't enough, especially in places like Seattle. I used to work in Seattle, we made $55/he, I think they now make $62/hr and we still couldn't live in Seattle. Of course that's because we'd want to buy a single family home, but rents aren't much less than a mortgage.

$25/hr, your car is street parked getting damaged, lunch is $20 minimum, rent is $1.5k minimum.... Yeah $25 isn't enough. Those employees need a career change, not advocate for inflation...err I mean "living wage"

 

[slimmer13]

It's probably a pay cut for any big boobied waitresses.

 

[Flopsweat]

$25 definitely isn't enough, especially in places like Seattle. I used to work in Seattle, we made $55/he, I think they now make $62/hr and we still couldn't live in Seattle. Of course that's because we'd want to buy a single family home, but rents aren't much less than a mortgage.

$25/hr, your car is street parked getting damaged, lunch is $20 minimum, rent is $1.5k minimum.... Yeah $25 isn't enough. Those employees need a career change, not advocate for inflation...err I mean "living wage"

The last time I moved from a suburb to a big city, it was based on a few places I liked to go there and a few more I was sure I would visit regularly. It turned out I no longer enjoyed the "hustle and bustle". It seemed more like noise, filth and hassle. I wound up paying thousands to break the lease and move away. Bigger apartment on the lake, way nicer people, pleasant sounds like boats, planes, birds and crickets instead of winos and busses. No more big city for me. It was fun in my 20's and 30's but no more.

 

[Alexx1401]

People will only pay the price if the food is good and the service is too. You can have all the reasons in the world to change but what you offer better stay worth the change to the customers.

Plus with inflation really kicking in this restaurant is doomed to failure.

YEP!!! When it fails they will pretend like this is not what killed it. Wife and I got to go out other night, first time in a LONG time. GREAT food at a Mexican place. The kid who waited on us looked like it was his first day. He was nervous and having trouble with the tablet they use to place orders but the damn guy was trying. He was attentive after the food got there too. So he got a good tip, in cash, from me. I was impressed that at his age he was willing to work at all, that he was in something new to him and he was striving to do it well. It would make me not go to the place if he was paid the same as someone who could care less.