PrintShould A Service Charge Be Included at Restaurants So That Servers Can Have Benefits?
[Photograph: Robyn Lee]
In a New York Times op-ed piece Phoebe Damrosch, the author of Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter, and also a former server at Per Se, poses the following question: "How can restaurants attract more professional, committed and inspired workers and how can they persuade current waiters to be proud of their work?"
Her answer: restaurants in America should consider switching to the European system of servis compris (service being included in the check).
The result, Damrosch argues would be the following:
- Restaurateurs could pay servers a steady, consistent wage and perhaps even provide their servers with a benefits package that would include health insurance.
- Servers would feel better about their profession and their lot in life in general.
- Happier servers would provide better service, so serious eaters would have a better time when they eat out.
Some restaurateurs like New York's Danny Meyer (Union Square Cafe, Shake Shack, Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, Eleven Madison Park, The Modern, and more) have already figured out a way to provide health insurance for its employees without adding a service fee to every check. I called him to see what he thought of the ideas that Phoebe Damrosch espoused.
His answers, after the jump.
Danny Meyer had not read Damrosch's piece, so it was left up to me to summarize it. His first thoughts:
To me, these issues are completely separate. We do offer health care benefits to the people who work at the Union Square Hospitality Group. But for us, providing health care to the people who work for us is a choice we make as restaurateurs. It's just like any of the other choices we make, like having flowers in our restaurants or art on the walls. Every choice we make involving expenditures has consequences for us as business people, and obviously for our employees as well. Our offering health care benefits to our employees is a philosophical choice that we have made.
As far as imposing a service charge at his restaurants, Meyer had this to say:
We looked very hard at this [servis compris] policy fifteen years ago. We were going to call it "hospitality included." We felt people who worked in the dining room were apologizing for being hospitality professional. I felt there was a resulting shame or lack of pride in their work. My assumption was that it was fueled by the tipping system, and I was troubled by the sense that the that tipping system takes a big part of the compensation decision out of the employer's hands. So we brought up the "hospitality included" idea to our people. To our surprise, it turned out the staff actually enjoyed working for tips.
Meyer also mentioned another important issue: Restaurateurs would have to pass the attendant cost to their customers. To diners who already suffer sticker shock at many restaurants, some prices might become too high to accept.
Phoebe Damrosch's piece was thoughtful, well-reasoned, and elegantly written—but the issues she was trying to confront are complicated and don't lend themselves to easy answers.
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20 Comments:
I have a lot of problems with Ms. Damrosch's piece. It begins with this quote-
"But despite our infatuation with those who grow, butcher, cook, style, photograph and review our food, we still dismiss the people with whom we have the most contact in the food world: our waiters."
Her entire piece starts off with this us vs them attitude that bothers me. I don't know many butchers, farmers, cooks, or chefs with health or dental insurance, paid sick leave, or retirement options either. Being the rare chef in a magazine spread doesn't pay the bills. And farmers are constantly living on the edge. I'm also unsure of who these waiters that are being dismissed are.
I've had and worked with good servers and bad servers with all sorts of check averages and it's all sort of random to me. Shoot, I had extremely poor service at a 3 star, $$$ restaurant in nyc recently, wrote my first complaint letter EVER and got no response so I'm not even sure people care anymore if I get good service. In general I think service everywhere has gone way downhill. Is it because of the general economy? Perhaps. But on the rare occasion I actually go out for dinner now, I'd really like good service and will tip accordingly.
I have my own feelings on health care, but I don't think mandatory service charges are the answer. In SF they require restaurant owners to offer health care and most tack on a service charge to the bill. But just because they offer insurance, doesn't mean that restaurant workers can afford to buy it and so then where does that service charge money go?
As for the "employer-sponsored travel and dining", hahahahahahaha. Danny Meyer could probably afford that as could some of the larger restaurant groups but the person that owns one restaurant, has 12-25 employees type, not so much.
michellelikestoeat at 8:35PM on 09/20/09
How about we start with tip sharing? The waitstaff (delivery system) can share tips with the people who actually CREATE THE FOOD.
The only restaurant where the waitstaff is more important than the food is Hooters.
therealchiffonade at 9:07PM on 09/20/09
I dunno, I have worked as a waiter and I work harder and try better cause I believed I would get tips or better tips. I don't think other waiters always feel that way.
I am more than willing to not tip a waiter who is not good. I'll tip at least 15% if they at least do their job. But I feel that I shouldn't be compelled to tip with bad service. And the cost of the wait staff is already in my food bill.
If I had crap service and compulsory tipping I would not go back to that restaurant. I would probably argue to get it removed.
I dunno, you should take pride in whatever you do. Good things tend to follow.
midnightsun027 at 9:12PM on 09/20/09
Restaurants in San Francisco do it. As I understand it, the law in the city is that employers must offer employees health insurance, provide some other form of reimbursement for health care costs (I would assume via something like partial payment of employees' premiums or contributions to employees' Health Savings Accounts), or pay a certain amount per hour worked by each employee to Healthy San Francisco to cover the costs of those employees' participation in the program. The program itself is a network of clinics and medical facilities available to uninsured residents (so, in effect, those residents are no longer entirely uninsured).
Most restaurants pass those costs directly on to their customers here; the bill for a meal typically includes around a 4% surcharge that's specifically denoted as going toward Healthy San Francisco. According to the article linked below, studies on the program thus far have shown that this has not had an adverse effect on employment or profits.
http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/is-the-employer-mandate-a-job-killer-not-in-san-francisco/
TeaBea at 9:51PM on 09/20/09
We do already!!! It is called margin on the food!!! What the hell guys they don't sell the food for cost. The cost of the food should include all business costs and profit.
SouthPaw at 10:48PM on 09/20/09
What about the spot in San Diego that doesn't allow tipping at all? They all seem to managepretty well, from what I last heard.
lemons at 11:08PM on 09/20/09
One could disagree with the premise of the question itself: "How can restaurants attract more professional, committed and inspired workers and how can they persuade current waiters to be proud of their work?"
I would argue that the American tip culture provides fantastic professional service. While NYC service culture may be transient (wanna be actors, models, etc.) for the most part, they are very professional and take great pride in their work.
Chris De Noia at 11:53PM on 09/20/09
"Should A Service Charge Be Included at Restaurants So That Servers Can Have Benefits?"
Yes. Then tell me what my meal will cost, and I will pay happily.
Likeswords at 12:01AM on 09/21/09
Salaries are a great idea, health insurance is an even better idea, but I have two examples from my restaurant life to contribute.
First, in the area where I live (Charlottesville, Virginia), the best service is provided at restaurants that pool tips - it supports a team atmosphere and creates a consistently high level of service throughout the dining room - not just at certain tables.
Second, I just worked with a client to help him open his first restaurant. He tried to hire a GM and offered a salary, but the first GM candidate couldn't accept a "pay cut" to switch to salary. He's averaging over $700 a week (mostly from tips) and makes well over $40k a year. For our area, that is quite sufficient for a single person who doesn't have a mortgage (which he doesn't). In other popular fine dining restaurants in our town, servers are pulling down $600-$700/night in tips on Fridays/Saturdays and they are used to a high, cash-based lifestyle. Trying to get these folks to switch to a salary-based life without tips would require an enormous culture change, which I am not sure is possible.
For a start-up restaurant in particular, offering salaries and health insurance without tips would make recruiting extremely difficult, as well as financially challenging. Most folks are not inclined to change the status quo, especially when they're used to the big cash lifestyle.
anthgirl at 7:36AM on 09/21/09
I think it is a good idea at places like Denny's where the ladies who wait on people probably aren't rolling in money. At higher end places the wait persons can make quite a bit of money so it's probably unnecessary and unwanted.
redfish at 8:31AM on 09/21/09
i'm with southpaw. when i dine out, i pay for the food, i tip on the service, and deal with the requisite sales tax. that's enough for me. if restaurant owners need to find a way to cover costs, just take it out of profits, or if that's not good enough, raise the prices up a notch and hope it doesn't affect business.
j at 9:38AM on 09/21/09
Just look at the number of threads on various foodie sites discussing the complexities of tipping and anyone can see that the obvious way to correct this is to simply add 18% or whatever the standard is these days in the US to every restaurant bill. I think it would be a godsend.
Most industry people will tell you that holding back on the tip is not the way to make a correction for poor service or food, despite what the original historical purpose of a tip may have been. If service or food is poor, either complain to the management, don't return to the restaurant, or both.
There's no reason not to add a service charge to every bill in every instance.
Lorenzo at 10:13AM on 09/21/09
could work... although if you made it mandatory by law, it would make certain borderline profitable restaurants not profitable. High priced goods will almost certainly reduce the number of customers on some level (however small). Yet your fixed costs would go up. This means your profit will go down.
The Danny Meyer kingdom can do this b/c his restaurants are highly successful and have profit margins to allow for this to happen.
foodinmouth at 11:16AM on 09/21/09
Service charges are added to hotel restaurant checks and I can safely say the servers don't get insurance coverage either. Sure, they have the option to purchase overpriced healthcare, but it's definitely not included.
Can't we all just put our bullshit aside and let Obama's bill pass? I mean, really. Come on, now.
oh_no_eric at 11:21AM on 09/21/09
I agree with Lorenzo in the US. As a server if someone didn't tip I basically paid to wait on them as I had to still tip out to expo, busboys, and bar. I was a good server, so when not tipped it was completely in the hands of a jerk/cheap skate.
But living now in Asia I see the lows of a compulsory service charge. There is nothing adding any kind of spark to service. If you're in a nice hotel or something where people are actually trying to move up then you'll have good service...everywhere else is horrible. There's nothing to motivate them to care to do a good job. Without the money as a carrot, people will do the minimum they can to get by (assuming they're in a regular restaurant with less than perfect management and not at one of these special cases people quote).
accidentalepicurean at 11:33AM on 09/21/09
I agree with Midnightsun027. There are waiters who really go beyond the call of duty and I like the feeling of rewarding them for a job well done. I also like the feeling of tipping little or nothing to a server who has been rude and unhelpful.
Jeremiahc at 2:01PM on 09/21/09
I take issue with the premise & the way Mr. Meyer presents his providing of insurance for his employees. If he worked in just about any other industry, his business would be required to carry health insurance for his employees since the restaurant group has more than 50 employees, a simplified but standard definition of being bigger than a small business. I also take issue with his comparison of health care for human beings to flowers or art. Expenses are expenses but I imagine there are things that he considers more important than others, like restaurant insurance or electricity versus linen napkins.
kdroste at 2:40PM on 09/21/09
accidentalepicurean,
Which part of Asia are you in? I've had the exact opposite experience as you.
I prefer good, consistent service and I find that almost everywhere in Eastern Asia. Perhaps I'm not sure what "spark" you are looking for. In my experience, generally, service is above and beyond the minimum. Perhaps it's a cultural thing, but I definitely can not complain about service in Asia.
eatfood at 3:27PM on 09/21/09
Like others have said, I think it's a good idea in certain settings. For example, my brother was a server for a long time in Arizona. When I moved out there I'd frequent the restaurant he worked at. Arizona only pays their servers five something an hour because of the tips they're supposed to be getting. I saw my brother busting his ass each and every night and sometimes he'd only come home with fifty bucks in tips.
PumpkinBear at 4:58PM on 09/21/09
I think the premise of the piece, that there should be a surcharge specifically for benefits that eliminates tipping, is extremely troubling. I don't know any other business that expects its customers to pay for its employees' health insurance, other than through the company's profit margin on its products. So, raise the prices on the food, if you like, and cover your health coverage costs that way, but allow the waiters to do what they want with the tips that they earn.
klg19 at 5:25PM on 09/23/09