FAWKING BRAVO! BRAVO! THANK YOU!!!!

Why is there a WAR ON SERVERS? It reminds me of the way teachers are being smeared!

I'll still tip.

But the long-running Seattle tip escalation competition ("oh, I always tip carry-out 20% on the post-tax total because they get paid so little, and if you don't, you're a tightwad") is over.

Doesn't your argument imply that servers must be bribed if they are to provide decent service?

If you think these changes will result in your taking home less money for the same work, then that's a problem. But all this stuff about principles (beyond self interest) seems like a lot of nonsense.

Bravo to Camille! In all the recent slogs regarding serving staff and tipping, she is the first to ever refer to the whole staff as a team. No restaurant can exist if the employees do not work as a team; the whole staff deserves to share in the tips since all are involved in making that customer happy so that they will leave a tip.

Errbody in the club getting tips.

"I work hard, sometimes nine or ten hours a shift with no break."

Which is totally illegal.

But, which totally happens in many different industries (I'm a nurse and I can't just waltz off the floor for 15 if shit's getting hairy).

I was a server for years. If I was still a server, I, too, would prefer to keep tips. When servers go to $15/hour, I'll probably round up like they do in Europe, but I'm not gonna be tipping my usual 20%.

How do you live in Seattle on that wage?

Kudos to Camille for mentioning that she works for a "team". Glad to hear she shares her gratuities. For the record, I DO tip. And like Camille I, too remain wary about the forthcoming mandatory $15 wage. Tips matter.

So Camille works at a place that does tip pooling with the entire staff ?

"Both front and back of the house are a team that function together to make sure people leave fed and happy, and at my restaurant, that means the cooks, hosts, bussers, and dishwashers take home a percentage of the tips that I make as well."

I don't think anybody's implying servers don't work hard. The real point is tipping is annoying, doesn't make sense, doesn't feel equal to other service professions, etc. All I keep hearing from people in the restaurant business are "we'll make less money."

All I keep hearing from the pro-tip side that is genuinely compelling is "we're going to make less money." Fine, that's a valid issue – but tipping fucking sucks and tons of people hate doing it. So quantify how much money you're making under tips and let's equalize it. I've dined in non-tipping countries and the lack of the overly chipper server hoping for a base tip is refreshing. Let's move on.

Can we just do away with tipping so we don't have to have this debate for the rest of eternity?

Yeah, I think this entire movement - raid the wages of the few remaining living wage workers to raise the wages of other workers - is going to run into some issues. It's ok to have crappy morale and turnover in your kitchen, particularly for disposable workers like bussers and dishwashers, since they're "hidden" from customers. You treat front-of-house staff that way and the low morale becomes visible to the customers. It's going to take a while, but I predict you'll wind up with substantially lower morale/quality front-of-house as a result, and then all the "I hate tipping" folks will be bitching about that.

If her article were written better, I might be more likely to care about her perspective. As it stands, her writing has no substance and no evidence and therefore I can't support her position. Yeah, it sucks that she might make less money, but in the long run it will be better for the industry and the customer to have consistency in pay and incorporate what has become pretty mandatory tipping into a base wage.

Thank goodness those shots given to the cooks are accepted as currency everywhere. Their landlords love getting partially paid in Jäger.

Why don’t I want to make $15 an hour? Because with tips, I get to make more than that.

I fully understand this motivation, but don't get why we aren't instead fighting for an equivalent wage that isn't dependent on tipping. The $15 minimum wage should be viewed as a floor not a ceiling.

I almost always order take out because I don't want to pay extra for 'service.' I just realized that if a bunch of places start doing away with tips and increasing their prices to compensate I'll be paying for it anyway.

So has it been decided that if there's a $15 minimum wage that tips go away?
Seriously asking. I haven't heard that is the case, but it's been mentioned quite often.

Also is $15 also the MAXIMUM wage or something? Is every bartender, server, busboy, and cook going to earn the exact same $15/hour? No one can make more? Again, seriously asking because that's what this debate seems to imply every time it's discussed.

I would hope that wages and tips would just be normalized as part of this process.

@19, lots of different establishments are trying to figure out what the best way is for them to incorporate higher wages. If The Stranger really wants to be so involved with the $15Now movement, I think they should start to incorporate the tipping policies and distribution as a part of the restaurant/bar reviews.

Im so glad the Stranger is here to keep reminding us that this is a law exclusively about the wait staff and bar tenders in their favorite hipster haunts. Keep up the amazing work.

Can we please shift this conversation away from being exclusively about bars and restaurants? Please? It's a complete disservice to the discussion to have it revolve almost exclusively around only one small portion of the people who will be affected by the increased minimum wage.

What about the people who clean your office or your hotel rooms? What about the people sitting at a desk entering data all day? What about the person working at a retail store ringing up your new shoes? And if we want to talk about restaurants, how about the people waiting on you at Denny's and getting people's scrap change for tips rather than the people working at a Capitol Hill or Ballard joint making $25+ with tips? Or the Starbucks baristas getting screwed out of tips in the interest of speeding people through by not making them sign a receipt for their credit transaction?

There are lots and lots and LOTS of minimum wage workers who aren't restaurant and bar staff, so can we talk a little bit more about that, please? Because, frankly, if I was working at a decent restaurant or bar, I wouldn't want the $15/hr wage either.

So, please, enough already. Let's talk about ALL of the minimum wage workers.

No Tipping works fine in Europe. One thing I enjoyed about our visit to Italy is the price you see on the menu is the price you pay going out the door. No sales tax added, and no tipping (but we usually left a couple extra € just to be nice; old habits die hard). And not hustling for tips didn't seem to hamper service.

I'm glad the stranger could share another article suggesting that tipping must go away for the sake of restaurant survival. Thank you so much for continuing to suggest that there is some sort of debate in the air among servers as to whether they should get tips. Good to see you stand up for business owners against the only people in that profession earning a livable wage.

but hipsters dig bars and restaurants with waitstaff the most, they don't care if the guy who vacuums their building lobby is getting a raise or not

@23--Spot on, thanks.

Translation: I got mine. You're on your own.

Will people stop with this "no tipping in Europe" bullshit. Service workers are not dependent on tips because there are commonly service charges in restaurants AND, of course, they have nationalized healthcare in the EU and cheap continent-wide mass transit. So working class people are subsidized better. We don't have ANY of that here.

People don't wantonly consume there. They save to buy shit. Living in Europe is expensive. Taxes are far higher. Americans, the most entitled whiners on the planet, would shit them selves just paying the gas prices there.

They DO tip in Europe, ok. Can we dispel with this myth already. For fuck sake the EU has 28 countries in it and the continent of Europe has widely divergent cultural practices. Tipping is cultural. It's not a god damned law of nature.

Clearly the people that say this are getting their exposure to Europe from skimming Rick Steves books on France and not from actually ever living there. I lived there. Tipping is just not an automatic assumption in many places in Europe like here. But people still tip. In Rome you always leave change for a cappuccino. In Germany you tip your bartender. And even in Spain you tip. you just don't tip extravagantly.

Again, in the EU, service workers don't have to be dependent on tips not because restaurants pay so much more, but be cause they have socialized infrastructure.

Do you need to have your gas pumped? How about supermarket checkout? I'd just assume do as much as possible self service.

Order on an Ipad, self service water, I'll pick up my own food at the kitchen.

I'm there for the food. The wait staff is an archaic annoyance as far as I'm concerned.

Overpaid eyecandy, get them out of the way, I want to eat!

Conveyor belt sushi? I think they are on to something there. How much should I tip the conveyor belt?

The issue is that tips are unregulated. Just because your restaurant distributes tips evenly doesn't mean any other place does, or can be compelled to. If businesses were particularly interested in fair recompense, we wouldn't be taking about a $15 minimum wage at all.

We should relegate tips to their original status, that of making a positive comment about a server's service. We shouldn't make salary dependent on tips. THAT is the problem, not tipping, per se.

@31 Welcome to your future

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW-4LU79…

Wow. @31 I don't think you grasp the scope of what all a waiter does.

I am a waiter at a popular restaurant on Bourbon St. so many of my customers are tourists. I am not just someone who slings food in front ot our guests. I am there to greet them with a warm welcome in a town that is new for many of them. I'm a menu. People ask me every day what should they order. I just don't tell them what to order but guide them to something that they will want and to what they will enjoy. I am a map. I give directions dozens of times a day. I'm an information booth. want to know where the best jazz clubs are or best tours to take, ask me. I'm the entertainment. People are amazed and really enjoy the storys of this unique city's strange and interesting past. I am all these things and much more as my role as a server.

People enjoy my service and I am rewarded nicely. Yes i do this because it is a job where I make a living wage. But, what makes me most happy, and why I don't dread going to work is that I really feel the love of people whom I've helped. People come back to me for the food, yes, and the experience I provide.

Not everyone needs or wants my service. Yes you can order your food on an tablet and pick it up yourself then go sit at a table. Just know when you leave your credit card at the restaurant your tablet is not going run down the street to give it back to you. Your tablet is not going to assist you with seating your toddler as you are also holding your new born. Your tablet will not push tables together as your party of six, eight, or ten enters and needs seating. Your self service tablet world can never come close to all the thing I do to serve and help my guests.

Lastly FYI I make way more than 15 dollars an hour. I am proud to make what I do because i just don't have a just a job, but I have a profession. It is one that I try to do the best at every day for me AND my guests.

@31 Ah. Yes. The "ComCast philosophy of life." Sounds totally awful. See, normal humans enjoy interaction with other humans.

Why even go out to eat? Hell. Why even eat solid food?

Just buy some kind of nutrient paste and have it auto ejected into your gullet while you play Word of Warcraft 24/7 and never leave home.

I wonder how this article is any different from "I am a homeowner and I think we should not increase property taxes," or "I am 65 and think we should keep the same age for Social Security benefits".

(Or even: "I am a black female and think we should keep gender and race-based scholarships." Which is to say, regardless of its rightness or wrongness, selfishness or fairness, the sentiment that someone might want to keep a system that helps them ought to be unsurprising)

i.e. Aside from providing another web page onto which people can funnel their VERY STRONG OPINIONS ON TIPPING, I'm not sure how this is news, or even remotely interesting or unpredictable information. At least the other server was musing an unusual-in-its-lack-of-direct-self-interest perspective. Yes, this particular arbitrary-but-broken system gets you more money money right now at the expense of the rest of the staff where you work. And you get to be the nice person who because you're so nice choose to tip out the Back of House employees with your unequal share. But that doesn't make it fair.

Caveat: all this is, at its root, a function of the fact that 70% of Americans are trying to squeeze by with something like 9% of the country's wealth, and in situations like that, you're naturally going to have a lot of infighting as the barely-getting-by resent having to split more equitably with the not-quite-getting by. Financial instability is a bitch for everyone, but this issue needs to be dealt with at a macro level. There's no "tipping solution" that's going to fix our country's economic polarization problem. (we can't even referendum a Millionaire Tax around here)

A higher base wage, though, is probably the "least bad option" for the greatest number of people until we can make these bigger changes.

Actually, i'm pretty cool with $70,000/ year by way of Dan Price. Go Dan! Way more cooler and meaningful than ultra hipsters venture capitalists, would be restauranteurs and philanthropists wanting tax breaks, exemptions, and "public-private" partnerships. Means more money for me to eat out and tip folks AND pay for that $15 an hour dude who drives the shuttle. Now that's investment. That's livability. That's having enough to set aside for rainy days and OMG, the future. That's the little bit of confidence and piece of mind you get when you don't have to watch half your monthly paycheck goes to rent.

I am excited to not have to tip when I visit Seattle anymore.

So, the ~90% of minimum wage employees who don't get tips? Who cares, you might buy them a shot if your in the mood. In all seriousness, this:

Not every restaurant culture is the same, but at my restaurant, we take care of our kitchen: We tip them out, we buy them shots.

Is particularly revealing about absurd injustice of a tiered system of compensation in the low-minimum wage+tips for servers model. I remember working a back-of-house job in which a very friendly, borderline-alcoholic servers "paid" us in shots, whether we wanted them or not. Some of my co-workers couldn't afford or didn't want to spend their wages on alcohol, but of course they went along because we depended on the good graces of servers for a chunk of our compensation, so we couldn't afford to appear ungrateful for the scraps they tossed us.

Whether tipping will continue once we get up to a respectable minimum wage is up to restaurant owners and the public. (I suspect it will continue, for the most part, although perhaps be less ubiquitous; it's pretty deeply embedded in our culture at this point.) But the notion that a system of compensation in which a chunk of employees only get their share if another group of employees feels like giving it to them is the kind of thing so obviously flawed that no one would defend it any other circumstance.

This whole conversation makes me really uneasy. I'm a student who relies on tips to survive. I don't have help to pay for school, rent, food. Living in Seattle is growing more and more expensive. 15/hr is not enough. Those of you who say you aren't going to tip now are missing the bigger picture. People that I work with have families they support and 15 is not enough. People I work with have college loans and 15 isn't enough. Lord knows my health insurance clears out my bank account every month trying to pay it. This is a very scary very real thing for us. 15 is NOT enough. :(

Stunning how it takes liberals in Seattle so long to see the obvious: The leveling force of socialism, where more people making "the same" (positioned as "equality"), are starved of incentive and opportunity -- and so become a malleable political force, to do more of the same harm, requiring (natch) a "government" solution.

Fools.

I make, on average close to 30 dollars an hour just on my tips alone. My per hour wage "granted" to me by my the establishment i work for is 4.30 an hour, twice that of waiters who work for stand alone restaurants. I DO NOT WANT my hourly wage to be 15 dollars. This will mean that the establishment I work for will TAKE my tips to pay the cost of the price increase of not only my wages but the rising tide of the other non wait staff employees.

I work really hard evey day to give the guests the best experience they can have while dining at my restaurant and my table. I make a living off the service I provide to my guests. And I do provide a high level of service. My compensation is more than fair and well deserved.

What I do not need is do gooder government interventions, while meaning well, actually do more harm than good.

Yes the system is not optimal. But I have learned the system, and my coworkers and I have learned the system and do well. Nothing good comes from do gooders intentions. Ever.

Leave the system alone.

There is a ratio of what cooks get paid to what servers get paid. Are servers worth more? Maybe. But that is part of the discussion the relative worth of the various jobs. 15 minimum, 20 and up for cooks, 10% tips.

Well, Nora Roberts, let's see how you feel if you get hit by a bus after leaving work one night, and can't work at your wonderful job, or any non-wonderful job. I guess you'll not apply for do-gooder government interventions of any kind, like disability, because they'd do you harm? Yup.

And of course that should be NolaRobert. Or Dave Meinert, possibly.

@47, its so strange to me that Dave Meinert is given so much exposure in this entire conversation. Yes, he runs a couple of successful bars - and sure, one doubles as a diner and the other is a below avg pizza by the slice place. (sure, the pizza is ok, but the bar feels like a bit of a soup kitchen/half-way house when its busy. it kinda smells too. the pizza is not better than Mama's, and it's a lot more expensive)

i am so tired of him being positioned as an expert in anything regarding social policy, economic theory, or urban planning. can we stop quoting him and giving him a platform for this debate. the city is much bigger than pike street.

Oh! Thank you for this shot of tequila most gracious white lady. Your job is clearly superior to mine because you are white and good looking and far more skilled than I, a lowly cook.

Hang on. You think it's okay that you work nine or ten hours with no break?? First of all, that's illegal.

Secondly, why should the public be responsible for the wage you earn? Don't you find it demeaning to have to rely for your earnings on the mood and whims of surly and sometimes broke customers? Your employer is responsible for your wage, so why let them off the hook?

The dumbest thing I've read all week. Plus, if you LOVE your job as a server, you may want to rethink your life plan because you won't be in your 20s forever, and you probably need to challenge yourself more. But regardless, your boss should pay your wage, not the public because as broke as I am, you shouldn't have to rely on me. If I can't afford to come out, you don't get paid, and you're good with that?

@12 Thank you. That's what I was saying in the post that this post is rebutting. Servers don't deserve to have their current income stripped from them, but the way shit is right now ain't working.

I was making a point that change needs to happen somewhere, and the current system is highly biased towards server compensation. I'd be fine pooling a service fee with the back of the house and taking home a fair percentage. Everyone deserves to make a living, and even $15/hr is cutting it close. The true cost of employing competent servers and cooks is higher than that, and the industry as a whole needs to face that fact. If that comes in the form of a flat service fee, fine. If that comes in the form of overall higher wages, fine. But it's gotta happen somehow.

Also I hope Camille isn't under the impression that I don't work hard. I work hard as fuck nearly every night. I run my ass off during service, and after all that's over, I scrub toilets, I mop floors, I spray out drip trays full of stale beer, etc. I do all the cleaning that her dishwasher is likely doing for her (or for a shot of tequila?), and I tip mine out same as she does, more when I have money to spare. But guess what? The guys juggling pans and spraying down plates work hard too. And without them, the restaurant wouldn't run at all. I do believe serving is a difficult job, oftentimes more so than BOH jobs. I've had many a chef tell me they prefer the kitchen even though they make less because serving is too hectic or they can't deal with people or don't want to learn about wine or whatever. Servers probably should make a little more. But the current gap in wages is way out of balance. My argument that everyone taking $15/hr would be better than the current system was a hyperbolic one, but I was hoping to use hyperbole to drive home the incredibly obvious point that THIS SHIT IS CURRENTLY MAD UNFAIR NO MATTER HOW MANY SHOTS OF TEQUILA YOU BUY THE DISH PIT.

Tipping allows customers to be jerks. They can be totally rude but servers still coddle them to earn tips. Without tipping, rude customers could be ignored and put in their place. It would encourage people to earn good service by being pleasant rather than expecting it regardless of their behaviour.

Christ. This so symbolic of the fundamental problem with Americans: You don't really want to pay what things truly cost. You want market forces for only things that advantage you and government interventions for somebody else.

You don't want to pay more in taxes. You don't want to pay more for food or gas. You don't want to pay more for services. But yet somehow everybody is magically supposed make higher incomes and - viola -social justice! Well. It doesn't work like that.

I mean, fuck, since when are cafe and restaurant owners the villains here? The villains are YOU. All of us. We want other people - these mythical billionaire Restauranteurs in this case - to pay for equal wages, safe food, a cleaner environment. But the second those costs have to somehow be passed on to US, we freak the fuck out.

Tips exist because we, you dear readers and writers, don't want to pay for shit. We want it OPTIONAL. We don't want to tip but we also want people paid better... and we want food to be cheap. This is not tenable.

Americans have deferred and externalized the real costs of goods and services via exploitation for so long we simply don't understand the scope of the changes we say we want.

Again, take Europe for example (the example everybody seems so eager to cite in discussions about tips): The reason restaurant workers in some countries in Europe don't need tips is because they have a socialized system. Healthcare, transportation, housing subsidies, rent controls and high fucking taxes for everybody - that's why - not because restauranteurs are any less greedy or pay so much better.

It's good to hear a server actually admit that they treat everyone the same whether they tip well or not. Can we ditch the stupid "it encourages good service" argument?

Also: @28 FTW.

Well good for you that you worked in a place where you were lucky enough to make more than $15 an hour in tips. I work as a server in four different restaurants and rarely was that the case for me, sometimes I made as little as four dollars an hour because of over staffing and shitty management. And then when I tried to leave to get unemployment, I was told I wasn't allowed because I should've expected unstable income in the service industry and that wasn't a valid reason for leaving my job.
No one is saying you cant still get tips, but many servers need that safety net of a guaranteed mininum income and it selfish to say otherwise. It also stops management from exploiting us so easily, because it will no longer cost them nothing to put like 10 servers on the floor at once.

That place looks like Tillicum in the photo. I eat there. And if she ever serves me. I ain't tipping. It's not my responsibility to help her live, pay rent, feed her pet, etc. If she can't live on what she makes. Then she needs to change how she lives. Change jobs. Or, both. She in not anyone's responsibility.