Increased Wages and Tip Elimination at Ivar’s Successful So Far
• As I previously reported, Ivar’s Salmon House on Lake Union raised wages for front- and back-of-house workers to $15 an hour on April 1, when Seattle’s new minimum wage ordinance took effect. To cover the increase in labor costs, Ivar’s president Bob Donegan increased menu prices by 21 percent, eliminated tipping, and now distributes the income from the price increase among all hourly workers.
“None of us know how this is going to go,” Donegan told me at the time. Fourth months later, Donegan says the change is working out well for everyone.
“It’s been a surprise,” Donegan told AP reporter Gene Johnson. “The customers seem to like it, the employees seem to like it, and it seems to be working, at least in this location.”
According to the AP, “It is staff, not diners, who feel the real difference, with wages as much as 60 percent higher than before. One waitress is saving for accounting classes and finding it easier to take weekend vacations, while another server is using the added pay to cover increased rent.” The higher pay increases (60 percent or more) are being seen by bussers and dishwashers, the restaurant’s lowest-paid workers.
Jerry Traunfeld Opens Lionhead, a Tipless Restaurant
• As of last night, Lionhead, a Sichuanese restaurant from celebrated Northwest chef Jerry Traunfeld (Poppy, the Herbfarm), is officially open on Capitol Hill. The food—Traunfeld’s take on the traditional dishes like pork lion’s head meatballs and ma po tofu—will likely be amazing.
Interestingly, Lionhead will not be accepting tips. Traunfeld, who in 2013 told Capitol Hill Seattle that moving to $15 an hour without a tip credit “would certainly jeopardize the health of my business,” has instead decided to build the cost of higher wages into menu prices. According to Seattle Met, the restaurant’s menus carry this simple explanation: “Our menu pricing allows us to pay an equitable wage to all our employees. You pay only what you see (plus tax).”
Renee Erickson Has Increased Her Service Charge, Still Hopes to Operate Without One
• Finally, as I reported last week, Renee Erickson (Barnacle, the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Whale Wins), who in May raised all employee wages to $15 an hour and eliminated tipping in favor of an 18.5 percent service charge, has since increased the charge to 20 percent.
For the most part, the new system is working out as Erickson and her business partners Jeremy Price and Chad Dale intended. The owners say they have expanded health and retirement plans, maintained front-of-house pay, and increased pay for dishwashers by 20 to 30 percent.
Sea Creatures’ ultimate goal is, like Traunfeld’s, to do business without a service charge and have all costs built into its menu prices, but, said Price, “we are not quite there yet.”
