Server Rose DeStefano at Camino in Oakland. Photo: The Chronicle/Tim Hussin
Straight from today’s Inside Scoop column in the newspaper:
Abolishing tipping isn’t proving to be as straightforward as some Oakland restaurateurs had originally hoped.
Duende in Oakland. Photo: The Chronicle/John Storey
Camino (3917 Grand Ave.) and Duende (468 19th St.) were among the handful of restaurants that made national headlines last month when they decided to take tipping off the table in favor of implementing a 20 percent service charge. The move was inspired in large part by widening staff salary discrepancies and increasing minimum wage requirements.
Berkeley’s Comal (2020 Shattuck Ave.) has been using the new system for several weeks — it’s been very successful and the transition has been smooth, says Comal partner Andrew Hoffman — but the Oakland restaurants have hit a bit of a legal roadblock.
Oakland’s Measure FF, which will raise minimum wage to $12.25 per hour beginning on March 2, contains a sentence that could curtail the service charge idea. It reads, “This measure would require that hospitality employers in Oakland who collect service charges from customers pay those service charges to employees who provide the service.”
So how would the courts define “employees who provide the service”? Does it mean only those servers who directly interact with the customer? Or does it include the cooks who prepared the food, or the dishwashers who clean the plates?
Camino co-owner Allison Hopelain says the wording is vague enough to give them pause on their plan to distribute the service charge to help pay restaurant employees, both in the front of the house and in the kitchen.
They don’t want to fight the language in the courts, so they’re moving to Plan B. They’re eliminating tipping, nixing the service charge idea — and simply raising menu prices.
“We’ve decided to just go straight to our end goal: basically raising prices and paying employees hourly wages,” says Hopelain, who estimates that when the shift happens in late January or early February, Camino’s prices will raise 20 to 25 percent. It will allow entry-level employees to be paid in the $16- to $25-per-hour range. Furthermore, whereas most servers make at least double the money of cooks because of tips, now both will be paid more equally.
“In some ways, it’s cleaner,” says Hopelain, who had originally hoped that the service charge would be a bridge toward the end goal of inclusive pricing. But now the process has been accelerated. “It’s a big shift culturally, for diners and for restaurants,” she adds.
Duende chef-owner Paul Canales has a similar goal at his Spanish restaurant and bar, although he plans for a more gradual change, waiting to gauge the impact of the new law.
“We love the idea of the longer-term sea change, where we eventually move the tip line away and toward a model that includes all costs, like every other business,” says Canales.
In the new year, expect even more restaurants to rethink tipping models to adjust to rising minimum wage requirements and a continued shortage of cooks, among other reasons.
Aster (1001 Guerrero St.) — the forthcoming San Francisco restaurant from Daniel Patterson and Brett Cooper — will also forgo tips and surcharges in favor of higher menu prices. Oakland’s Toast (5900 College Ave.) is experimenting with a hybrid service charge model wherein the restaurant will tack on a 15 percent service fee, with additional tip optional.
· Previously: 5 Bay Area restaurants taking tips off table, adding surcharge [San Francisco Chronicle]
· Previously: At Aster, Daniel Patterson will forgo tips and surcharges [Inside Scoop]
· Previously: Toast in Oakland experiments with ‘hybrid’ service charge model [Inside Scoop]
· Previously: CHAT: Tipping Point on Tipping? [San Francisco Chronicle]
