Danny Meyer is known far and wide for his restaurant empire, but he is also known for a controversial new change to the food service business, or at least his corner of it.
Danny Meyer has announced a change that will affect around 1,800 of his employees, and it is no surprise. Meyer has eliminated tipping from his establishments.
How it works
According to Meyer, his restaurant checks will now feature one total, and for more reason than one. The problem with tips in the past, other than relying on the generosity of customers, has been the fact that customers may feel guilty about not tipping — for whatever reason.. In addition to that, eliminating tips removes the animosity between the kitchen staff and the waiters regarding pay rates. “The gap between what the kitchen and dining room workers make has grown by leaps and bounds, kitchen income has gone up no more than 25 percent. Meanwhile, dining room pay has gone up 200 percent,” Meyer said.
As of right now, it is expected that the wages for the kitchen staff will raise to $15.25 from $11.75, adhering to the new state minimum wage which sits at $15 per hour currently. There is some controversy over this change, particularly because the price of eating will increase. Will this stop customers from going to the restaurants? That remains to be seen, but as of right now there are a number of people praising the changes.
While there is going to be some obvious controversy, there is also plenty of acceptance, and this does mark the end of an era where servers were only compensated fairly according to the moods of their customers. In the end, this could change many things, and it may be said that Danny Meyer started a revolution.
Do you agree with Danny Meyer’s tipping policy?
