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Tuesday, December 09, 2014

L.A. Restaurant Adds Gratuity Line For Kitchen Staff To Every Check

While it’s surely the mark of a good consumer to reward a server for taking orders and ferrying food to and from the kitchen, what about the people on the front lines who are making that cuisine happen? Though many restaurants pool tips to ensure that line cooks and other kitchen staff get a piece of the pie, some workers feel they’re not getting their fair share of gratuities. That environment has prompted one L.A. restaurant to add a line to all checks to make up for any tipping gaps.

The chef-owner of Alimento tells LAMag.com that the idea came to him after two of his best line cooks jumped ship for jobs that paid more.

“They couldn’t make it work on their end, and I couldn’t make it work on mine—this is a small restaurant,” he explained. “But at the same time, the servers are walking away with a lot of money. That’s great, but it put an issue in the spotlight that I’ve been aware of for a while.”

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

People in the kitchen make at least min. wage. servers make around &2.75 per hour so they rely on their tips to make it.
If your restaurant isn't generating enough income to pay more to your chef and other kitchen help then you just maybe as an owner need to ask yourself how you increase business. You would be taking money from the servers to supplement wages for your kitchen help.

Anonymous said...

And restaurants wonder why their business is down.

As far as I am concerned I should not have to tip a waitress. I am paying YOUR employee to bring me my food? It is an outdated system.

He is simply a cheap jerk... because his idea is to take more from others and not from himself.

Anonymous said...

Businesses should be required to report all monies paid in excess of the charged amount to the IRS. As long as the reported tips by the waitstaff equals the amount reported by the business, the returns would not be flagged for audit for this reason.

Now there's accountability for the tips - then we'll see the real numbers of what the waitstaff is really making and how that compares to the minimum wage that restauranteurs fight so vehemently!

Anonymous said...

I guess next there will be a line item for a tip for the Sysco driver that brings all the frozen crap in that you serve.....No thanks I will stay home and prepare my own

Anonymous said...

There are plenty of local and national places to eat that advise against tipping.They're called fast food restaurants.A good 25% + of local residents barely tip at all & should be ordering from a counter or drive up window.I routinely see large groups of people eating at respectable restaurants and leaving zilch for a tip.They expect the waiter or waitress to wait on them hand and foot for the pittance they are paid by their employer.

Anonymous said...

I thought wait staff was supposed to give some of their tips to the cooks and busboys. At least that's the way it was when I was in school...

Anonymous said...

Socialism.