everything u heroes do just contributes to the creative class working more for less. Ride share companies were a decent option for "off the grid" income until u mobster scumbags cracked down and turned it into another regular full-time "occupation".

Not to be a concern troll here but isn't that graphic just a leetle racist/sexist?

@2:

How so?

@2 Yes. Because it depicts a woman and a dark skinned man in any other way than... whatever ideal you have embedded in your brain.

The illustrator really should've consulted you first. It's clearly racist. Man. You really got them this time.

@3 Great. He was just DYING for somebody to ask.

Now we'll get to hear all about some stupid subjective bullshit derail about "casual racism" in illustration rather than talk about the minimum wage and tipping.

Ha ha! The white guy is the chef, the brown guy is cleaning up, the server is a woman. Just say'in. Honestly, the politically correct one-upmanship around here is as tiresome to me as it is to anyone.

Washington hasn't had a "tipped minimum" wage in decades. In most states waitstaff, bartenders, only get a buck or 2 an hour because tips will bring them up to a livable rate. In WA they have gotten the same minimum as everyone and tips still bring it up toward livable, because minimum is not livable, but now they will still be getting the same minimum as everyone and that will be $15 in Seattle. I can definitely see shifting away from tips at this point, especially if there is profit sharing. Do waitstaff in Europe, where there is no tipping, get profit sharing? Of course, they do have socialized medicine at least. Tipping is a barbaric feature of our dog eat dog country. Giving waitstaff the same minimum as everyone is a relatively forward thinking position for this otherwise backward state with a government funded only by userfees. We should run with it an ditch the tipping. Hopefully the rest will follow.

I think Dan's statement that "...if we do away with tipping, a pretty good gig will be destroyed" is a bit premature. Has Ivar's seen a mass defection of its serving staff since going tipless a month ago? What do they actually think of the change? Have their wages been lowered, have they stayed the same, or have they gone up? Also, Ansel's average income for a tipped worker of $22,620 doesn't really shed any light on the subject as this would include part-time or casual employees who might not work 40 hours per week. It'd be more relevant if he included the average hourly wage (with tips) so we could determine if they really should be considered low-wage workers.

Ansel's point is pretty pertinent here. This is about raising the bottom, not preserving the relative comfort of a very small percentage of wait staff who work in a handful of higher-end restaurants. Dan's concerns are not irrelevant, but his argument has largely been ventriloquized by the likes of Tom Douglas and Dave Meinert, who have consistently resisted the idea that the actual cost of dining to the dinershould simply be represented in the state price in the menu

How about another option - given the sticker price, customers at high-end restaurants have rightly come to expect a certain level of service bundled with the desire that their servers embody an attractive, somewhat bourgeois kitbag of specialized knowledge and skills. Raise the minimum for the Dan Savage's of the service-industry to a reasonable sum ($25-30hr) and let the actual cost of consumption be reflected in the menu. Why is this not possible?

I'll still tip if I get good service. It's a reflex to give 20% to everyone even if I'm just taking out a slice from Hot Mama's. There needs to be an incentive to every service job or you'll end up with servers who act like the people at the DMV (see food service in Europe)

I'm conflicted because on one hand eliminating "tipping" serves to bring equity the staff that is always short-change -- the dishwashers and the bus boys who are often times immigrants with no recourse to recoup their share of the tip. On the other hand, Teckel's comment on "[needing] to be an incentive to every service job or you'll end up with servers who act like the people at the DMV" is a valid point as well. I'll have to err on the side of equity and refuse patronage to establishments to sub-standard service.

Dan, you said that you worked for the customer, not the house. Maybe its a quibbling point, but as a customer, I always know that the server is working for the house. Always.

@6:

Evidently @5 knows you far better than I do. See the milkshake on the counter? See the burger in the pass-through? See the squeeze bottles on the shelf? This is a fucking DINER, not El Gaucho. The white guy is a fucking COOK, NOT a CHEF, and probably makes about the same as the other two, you fucking nit-wit.

@13 I mean, I think it's pretty racist for @6 to think that Cyanese man a white devil.

Katie, grocery employees are usually union members who are not allowed to accept tips. Furthermore ringing up and bagging someone's groceries in three minutes is a far cry from serving/managing/entertaining table service for one or two hours. Anyone can remain pleasant for three minutes even to the most obnoxious customer.

Ansel, since when is 10 percent a small percentage?

Is it a crazy idea for The Stranger to talk to...you know...people that WORK in the service industry or some of the people in the small, local businesses who are most specifically being affected by the MW increase and resultant attempts at surviving?

We're all laughing at the people that are opining about what we do, when you OBVIOUSLY don't know about how it actually works.

Dan, you know that I dig you - but really...can you maybe ask your new(ish) editor to do her job and maybe ask some actual service-industry professionals what they think?

Or, should we ask some Republicans about gay marriage and let them tell us what'r the facts?

@15, minimum wage is minimum wage. Waitstaff, Groceryworker,gas station attendant,barista.. All make that minimum wage. Waitstaff shouldn't get more just because. How would you like it if Starbucks, QFC, Safeways, Local Bars and restaurants ALL said 18.5% Surcharge on everything to pay for the new minimum wage. Every place that you hang out at, eat at, shop at, etc.

This is a Bar/restaurants owners trying to get unsuspecting customers to pay for the new minimum wage.

Like the owner of Whale Wins said on the news. He's implementing a Surcharge to pay for his employees healthcare. He used to. But now he can't afford to. So the Surcharge.

Emplyee healthcare and wages is not the responsibility of the customer. And that cost should be borne by the owner alone. It's all apart of the cost of owning a business.

You can bet that the owner(s) won't be cutting their own pay.

Death To The Surcharge!

Employee behavior at the dmv is a failure of management and monopoly power, where else you gonna get a drivers license.

If a restaurant has servers who are lackluster and slothful, customers will go elsewhere and the place will go out of business, unless management actually manages.

Good employees give good service because they are good employees. Anyone who has been inside a restaurant can tell you that tip income is equal to (# of tables in a shift x avg check size) x avg tip % (~.18 -- barring any colossal fuckups). Maximizing these inputs result in worse service not better, managing too many tables or inappropriate up sells.

Exceptional service might be worth a few dollars but it is a second order factor at best.

Good servers at good joints deserve to be paid, and will continue to be. Replacing tips with a service charge will improve service not make it worse.

What @19 said.

Article not as good as envisioned. I read the headline as "The Staff of The Stranger Argues About Restaurants Going Titless".

Bullshit, Dan. I worked at a London restaurant in 1989. No one tips there.

Dan, if working as a waiter was so damn great why did you feel the need to steal silverware?

Tipping is optional. If the waiter/waitress does a good job, is attentive and brings the food to you in a timely matter, then they deserve the tip. I don't like the thought that the tipping will be eliminated and whether or not the waiter/waitress is doing a good job or not I have to pay them. My mom was a waitress and believe me she made good tips. Why? Because she knew how to treat the customers. You tip to show your gratitude for the good service not because you are some whiny asshole. Give Service workers decent pay, but if people still want to tip for the good service then fine.

So let me get this straight, "Tips were what made the job a good one. Tips made it lucrative." So you admit that you made more than a person working in the same restaurant , yet you complain when you are told you need to share and bring everyone to an equal level? Sounds like we have a new born Republican. come-on man share the wealth!

I would like to mention the fact that the benefit of tipping is not just to the server, but also the served. The more skill, knowledge, charm, and appropriateness a waiter has, the better their tips. This allows for better waiters, who really work hard, to make better money; and for those who are not so hot to either get fired, quit (because they aren't making it on wage alone), or work harder. Big companies give bonuses to those who give a little extra. Why? because it is motivating. If tips are gone, quality of staff, and thus quality of service will be greatly diminished. I know in my years of waiting tables, I was often as important to the enjoyment of someone's evening, as the meal. It was reflected in my tips, and confirmed by repeat requests for my service.

@22 - yep I lived in London in the 90's and in my experience tipping was not a thing there.

@26, so what you mean is in Europe the service staff are spitting, shitting and cumming into my dinner?

I too have often wondered why we are expected to tip some service workers and not others. I expect the cost of good service is included in the cost of a bus fare, train ride or air-flight and should be in a meal or a drink at a bar. Tipping to me is akin to a pay-off, such as giving a tip to a head - waiter to get a special table next to the dance floor. Topping for expected service is a rip-off.

@10 - that's pretty well disproven - tipping has very little to do with the quality of the service, and much more to do with the desire to engage in a conspicuous display of virtue on the part of the tipper (the sense that it reflects on the tipper more than the service), and to a lesser degree, on the attractiveness of the waitperson. This paper covers it somewhat; this one addresses the "buying social approval argument; and this one addresses attractiveness.

The whole rational econ rationale/theory behind tipping is revealed to be mostly bogus. It's a "just so" story in support of "free market capitalism" but it doesn't hold up in behavioral economics.

FWIW (as I've posted on all these threads): I'm in favor of raising the wages of back-of-house workers, but not at the expense of other employees. This should ideally be passed on in the price to consumers of dining out, or taken from the margins of restaurant operators. It is nowhere written in stone that this is the obvious and natural unintended consequence of raising the minimum wage. it is only happening because the tip jar is a cookie jar there to be raided; that's largely true because, unlike so many other industries where wages have not kept up with productivity or inflation, front-of-the-house workers have had an indexed income - indexed to inflation and productivity, so they've been getting a more-or-less guaranteed percentage of revenue. Everyone else has had a cram-down (pay cut). If Saint Ronnie Ray-gun's "rising tide lifts all boats" were, in fact, true, then everyone would be like front-of-house employees.

The issue with Ansel's argument is that it rests on a false dichotomy: it implies the choice is either give a raise to back-of-the-house workers or let front-of-the-house have their tips.

When the min wage crowd refused to count tips toward the $15 threshold, they lost me. News flash - us middle income folks won't pay $100 for 2 for a mediocre dinner. The small restaurants will suffer, and folks will get laid off. Revise the min wage to count tips.

Not sure how this will ultimately play out, but you pathetic butt-sniffers won't long have the "tip" to hold over a waiters head anymore. Pathetic the way people expect staff to behave like circus seals for their meager handouts.

Ansel Herz states a fact, but misses the point entirely.

Waiters weren't suffering, by and large. That's true. But this law insists that they were, and insists that the business owner make up a deficit that doesn't exist. Seattle's law doesn't recognize that tips ARE wages. The Unites States government recognizes them as wages, and the IRS taxes them as such. My Social Security account grew when I was a waiter.....they knew I was making money. It's like everyone BUT Seattle's government realizes that servers make more than minimum wage.
Waiters have two income streams, two bosses, but Seattle's law will only acknowledge the employer and not the restaurant guest as a revenue source. The burden that this places on a business that survives on thin profit margins, is ridiculous.

Heidi, either you have not done your research or you suck. In a tip credit system, the waiter would be paid the $15 wage even if they didn't earn that through base wage plus gratuity. So quit the BS about the unpredictability of tips as a reason for not supporting a tip credit system.

Tipping is important. It's a way to show appreciation for the person who made your dining experience possible. If you don't like to tip you should stay at home or stick to the steam tables at Whole Foods.
If you're choosing to go a restaurant or bar you are not at Target. There's no bussing your own table, you can't just get your own water. That's a really rude and pedestrian way to conduct yourself. The culture of dining out relies on customer service. The incentive program is important.

Topless restaurants, who's going to argue against that?

So close, Dan, to actually putting your finger on.

There's nothing unfair about waiters making more money than dishwashers. They're different jobs and different jobs earn at different rates. That's OK.

Of course, as it turns out, the differences between waiters and dishwashers in based primarily on Race, Gender, Age, and Attractiveness - not in any meaningful differences in ability.

Furthermore, any ideas based on a tip-replacement surcharge - this is basically a tax on diners to support restaurant owners. Frankly we probably need restaurants in our cities, not more. The service economy is already too big.

Like Our Dear Dan, I waited tables, bartended, etc for years. (I also did a lot of back-of-house stuff like wash dishes and line cook) indeed, I started as a busboy in a restaurant at 13 and gave up my last service job (Coat Check at The Cuff) when I turned forty because it was selfish of me to be doing such a lucrative job when I already had a real job that also paid well. Plus, who wants to look at a forty year old coat check?

I am not at all a fan of this Brave New World of tipping, and I resent these restaurants who have decided to make that decision on my behalf. Waiting tables successfully is much more difficult than cooking or washing dishes, and deserves special consideration.

And if any hotel chain decides to ban tipping of maids, I absolutely, positively will refrain from ever booking a room with them. Until you have personally cleaned a guest room (let alone several every day) you have no idea of how awful that job is, and how deserving they are of that extra little bit. Five bucks a night - minimum - and that's assuming you are a clean respectable person.

Dear Stranger- you have no less than 20 bars and restaurants within a two block radius of your office. Would it have been terribly difficult to ask people actually IN the restaurant industry, both tipped and non-tipped employees, to offer their viewpoints? Or are you afraid that if you did, you would actually realize that the vast majority of restaurant workers (except for Tobias, apparently, who's guilty about making too much money as a server) think this whole idea is crap?

Has Denmark fallen into a economic depression? ( because its minimum wage is far higher than this Employers' Paradise!)

Think of the service charge as a bridge between the old world of tipping (where you are paying the server directly for expected service, maybe a little more if it was spectacular) and the new world where the price of the food covers the service provided. Your total meal cost will remain about the same, unless your tipping habit put you at the low/high end of the restaurant patron population.

There will be a period of transition where price competition between the two models exists, hence the need to advertise prices based on the tipping model while adding a service charge to cover salaries. To move directly to an all in fee would put those businesses at a distinct disadvantage vs restaurants where tipping is still expected and not accounted for in the menu prices.

Hope you people who live in Seattle are ready for the 200% cost of life raise. $15.00 per hour is going to kill you folks and the sad part is, you are too uneducated to realize it. When the pay for those so called "poor" goes to $15.00 per hour, you are all going to lose, less times out, less service, less of everything except what you will pay
Leave well enough alone, the impoverished are there because they can't figure out how to get out of that rut, Those who get tips deserve them, I tip for service and personality, a minimum tip will be $3.00, a max tip depends on the service but can and has surpassed $20.00 for the $40.00 meal.
I will stay away from Seattle and the surrounding area, no more out of town money from. here.

As I said, raising the minimum wage without any other factors changing, is a tax on the Middle Class.

Now of course, my foes will spring back with "oh, you hate poor people".

No. Not all. But it is actions like these, that pit the middle class wage earner against the low skilled wage earner. Typically, a guy with a well paying job likes to leave a good tip, for good service. A guy likes to have a quality lunch.

But what the powers that be do is stick in a wedge such that people are raked over the coals no matter what. And it's not like the guy getting his roast beef sandwich is a plutocrat. He works just as hard for his $70,000 a year or whatever.

But what these actions (and I could list so many of them) do mainly is set the middle class at war with the poor. Meanwhile , the super elite, for whom a $10 sandwich is as cheap as $50 sandwich, feel no effect whatsoever. And in fact, they would never enter those types of places to begin with. And if they did, it would be with an entourage of cameras and only because they were running for office or making a hiphop video.

It seems like the restaurants (not in all cases) are in part taking revenge on their employees for daring to get a higher wage by eliminating tips-- "oh you want a higher hourly wage? Fine, here you go, but no more tips! See how u like that higher minimum wage now!"

@47: You make an unsupported assumption that raising the minimum wage will result in no benefit to the middle class. Now maybe if you're making $60k a year you won't see a benefit, though depending on your sector you could see increased business for your employer and bonuses, but if you are making $17/hr now, your wage is going to go up from this, if your employer is smart. There is going to be a ripple of higher wages, and those making more than minimum wage may see less benefit, but they won't see none. I know that's true where I work, my boss is fighting to push through wage increases to keep the various positions at the relative pay levels they're at now.

@49

I understand that could happen.

That yes, if say Home Depot workers started making $35/hour then their IT staff might start making $125,000 a year. However, for this to happen overall there has to be a way to "suck down" a big chunk of the total money supply.

But how is that going to happen if Richie Rich isn't eating 50 hamburgers a day at Arbie's?

In it's current state, the people who interact with and use minimum wage staff the most, in aggregate, are the middle-middle class.

#28 no, they are all far too proud.

Yes #38, Japan and Europe have it wrong and the rest of us still have it right.

We were kind of forced to take them over, were we not?

You bring up Japan and their class stratification as though it is something to be defended.

Oh, wait, that's right, you don't know anything.

Dan's argument that waiting tables is a good way to make good or great money doesn't really hold that much anymore. While its certainly still possible (or even common) to make a living in the right area or the right restaurant, in vast chunks of this country your average tipped service employee doesn't. And a slow economy and inflation haven't help matters. In most of the country tipped workers are not eligible for the minimum wage. If you're lucky your hourly will cover your taxes on withholding, and while traditionally you've been able to get away with under reporting (or not reporting) your tips there's an increasing crack down that makes that less possible. So your not even getting that "its tax free!" bump like you used to. So shift pay hasn't gone up (like ever), but its worth less and less due to inflation and increases in cost of living. Income from tipping was on a down trend for a long while thanks to the economy, and I couldn't even tell you at this point if its on an up trend. And that's without accounting for all the dodgy business practices and labor abuses. I'm on my first job in a couple of years where I actually get paid honestly and on a regular basis.

Most of the servers and bartenders I know are making 30-40k max. I'm lucky enough to be living and working in a busy, upscale, tourist area. I got about 30k last year, working 12 hours a day 6 days a week or more. Which is to be honest not horrible, its a livable wage in a lot of places. Where I'm at less so. I went broke working in NYC while making slightly more. There are scattered people who make a lot more, in the really, really high end or high volume places. But they seem to be a lot rarer these days then they used to be. Most of us just seem to be treading water. So while you're young and have few bills or responsibilities you can probably gather up some disposable cash doing this. But noone I know seems to be doing very good. And that's in major metro areas.

But there is a big reason why doing away with tippings not a good idea. In practice in doesn't work outside of the high end of the market. Waffle House isn't going to be too successful instituting a 20% surcharge. And many of the sort of middle market or upscale but affordable places I've seen try it have met with failure. If you want to do away with tipping you need an national minimum wage hike, and you need to apply it to tipped workers. Frankly I think I'd come out ahead. Outside of the 6-8 month tourist season I'm lucky if I take home $200 a week on 40+ hours. If I could get even a solid, guaranteed $10/h during those slow times I wouldn't mind missing out on the high season days or weeks where I pull $15-$25/h. At $15 for damn sure.

If you can afford the Upper Class, then you can afford to ban Poverty (which is a cheaper thing to do).

26 is 100% right.

So is Dan.

Anyone who bitches about tipping either never worked as a server, was/is a shitty server, is a fucking moron, is a communist moron or is any/some combination of any/all of these.

Also, good servers know to take care of their bussers and bartenders-- who make it easier for servers to to provide great service and, in return, get bigger tips. Common fucking sense for anyone who's ever worked in a restaurant.

BTW, saying a dish washer deserves equal or comparable compensation is fucking moronic. Communistically moronic.

Tip-less eating out is for McDonald's and Taco Bell.

This is a very interesting topic to me, as I've had several problems with 'tipping' in Seattle.

I was in England in 2005, London and in Whitechapel, and had a cup of coffee at the Blind Begger Pub.
As I was getting ready to go, I left a decent tip. The waiter refused to accept it. He said that in England they aren't

allowed to accept tips.

It sounded like a great idea to me.

It's my understanding that all employees of Washington State are paid a wage that they agree to. If tips are mentioned as

something that will be guaranteed, and amounts mentioned, then that should be taken with a grain of salt it's not a

guarantee.

A worker that feels he deserves more money, has incentive to find a better paying job and better society, not asking

society to pay his freight. A person who feels he is owed a tip for doing the job he was hired to do, has no such

incentive.

I hear one of the waitiers at Scott's restaurant in Shoreline makes over $90,000 a year including his tips. That's 3X as

much as I've ever made in 1 year. Should I be required to tip at Scotts, to pay someone for doing his job who is making

more money than I make, and a total stranger to boot. He could be funding the mafia (or worse) for all I know. And
if you should disagree, and think leaving a $5 tip is no big deal, let me ask you... Do you have $5? Can I have it?

Exactly.

When I go out I'm already paying double for drinks and food at supermarket prices . If I tip every time I go out and just

leave $2, and go to the same bar or restaurant 250-300 times a year, that's $500-$600. At the end of the year would I

rather have that money, or should a total stranger have it for doing a job he or she was hired for?

If you're one that thinks a waiter, bartender is entitled to a tip, then I would have to think I am now that persons

employer, and the employee will have to fill out a w4 form for me and at the end of the tipping year I would have to file a

1099 form for my new employee...wouldn't want to get into tax trouble would I...

I've had arguments from 2 or 3 bartenders or waitresses. One was at The Duck Island Ale House in Seattle. The bartender was

upset that I usully don't leave something; Well look up the acronym for T.I.P. for starters and get back to me. (Most don't

seem to even know what it means.)
Being upset, he used an extortion racket manuever, pointed at the 'right to refuse service' sign, well sonny, I have a

'right to sue for discrimination sign', want to see it?

I did suggest to the bartender that we take this a socialist step further, and he could just stay in bed all day and every

half hour we will throw dollars at him.

Needless to say, I do not go there anymore. I'm sure his owner likes customers driven away. Maybe one day he will lose

everybody and have to close down and then he'll have to tip himself.

He said that being a food service industry implies leaving a tip, well once again sonny, last check, Jack In The Box,

McDonalds, Burger King, wendys, Dicks, are all food service industries, and...all together audience, when is the last time

you left a tip there? Anything else?

The mail carrier works in the mail service industry, do I tip him? I get on the bus...tip? I get off the bus, tip? The

guy in traffic stops for me to cross the street...10 percent tip there? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker? 10/

20/ 30 percent? TSA at the airport? Girl Scouts - what do i tip there? Arco? Lemonade stand?

H&R Block- What Do I tip there? 100% surely.

Do I get to keep any of my money? Maybe I should work a second and third job so I'll have tip money to give away.

I've seen bartenders get off work, get a drink and tip the replacement bartender, then the next day the replacement
bartender gets off work gets a drink and tips the other bartender, on and on like the mirror effect. How about everyone

keeping their own money and leave the musical chairs in position. Simple.

I've overheard waitresses at The Gainsbourg in Greenlake talk about tips. One said to the other, 'if someone leaves
a dollar tip they might as well keep it, they need it more than I do.' (Maybe they do...) The entitlement arrogance.....
I don't go there anymore.

I can see if you're making a nice living, and leaving some money for a high school or college student working hard,
not relying on daddies money, ok, your call not mine but when the part time job becomes a career due to tips, I do have

trouble with that and I shouldn't be required to support that and I won't. Freeloaders can get a better job.

Thanks

Carl Marksey