Seattle has long considered itself to be cutting edge, and of course leans towards the very, very liberal side of the coin when it comes to politics. Naturally, Seattle was the first to elect a real live Socialist to City Council (I’m not kidding). She championed the already high Washington State Minimum Wage to be raised from $9.47 to $15.00 an hour. While this failed statewide, Seattle and Port of Seattle have adopted the $15 an hour wage – and it isn’t sitting well with most people, contrary to what our local news affiliate may report. Three popular local eateries are doing away with tipping entirely, and giving us all an 18.5% service fee – to provide ‘benefits’ for employees. Uhm, OK…
The restaurants — the Whale Wins, Walrus and the Carpenter, and Barnacle — will soon implements an 18.5 percent service fee on all meals. To offset that added cost, the restaurants are banning tips.
Jeremy Price, owner of the Whale Wins, said the change in policy is a reaction to the city’s higher minimum wage and the added costs associated with the Affordable Care Act.
“All those things kind of started us thinking about all this,” he said.
The change won’t happen until May, but customers seem to be okay with the added fee.
“It just removes the ambiguity. It makes it easier to keep track of everything. It’s the way they’ve been doing it in Europe for years,” one resident said.
Last month Ivar’s became the first restaurant in Seattle to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour, and the Whale Wins will be the first to eliminate tips.
Price said the change will help balance the pay scale between servers and workers in the back.
“It’s going to free up and help us to provide benefits to our employees, health insurance, as well as matching retirement accounts,” he said.
The question of banning tips left some customers with a question. What do you do if the service is bad? Price doesn’t think that will be an issue.
“We actually kind of believe that our staff is going to do a great job because they’re professionals, because they have pride in their work,” he said.
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4 comments:
Elections have consequences. What the hell did they think would happen?
Idiots
Well, not quite the way they do things in Europe. There's no stigma associated with particular jobs. Everyone is expected to do the job they're paid to do and do it with integrity. Wait staff are paid a decent wage and tipping is not expected. However, no one charges a service fee (unless you count the VAT).
I'd rather the restaurant simply raise their prices by 18.5% rather than tacking on the service charge to pay the wages of the waitstaff. Wages are part of the cost of doing business and should be already factored into menu pricing.
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