What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Is tipping racist? (1 Viewer)

HellToupee

HellToupee

Footballguy
Is tipping racist? Shake Shack CEO says customers SHOULDN'T leave cash for waiters because it 'harks back to the American Civil War'







Shake Shack CEO Danny Meyer has continued his crusade against America's tipping culture 



The multi-millionaire owner of popular burger chain Shake Shack has said he will stop customers from tipping his staff because the practice has a 'racist' history.

Danny Meyer, revealed that tipping customers stems from the American Civil War when the government accepted a petition to allow restaurants not to pay its staff.

To get around new slavery laws, customers were advised to leave a small payment for servers so that no-one could argue that they were enslaved. 

Most waiting staff at the time were African-American, Meyer said. 

In the US, it's accepted that customers should tip up to 20 per cent for every meal - but Meyer points out that in other cultures, it's very different.  

Calling tipping one of 'the biggest hoaxes ever pulled on an entire culture,' he told The Sporkful podcast: 'You don't see it in Asia, you don't see it primarily in most European countries. 

'It created a completely false economy so that when you see a menu price at a restaurant, you know and I know that it includes the cost of the food, the cost of the linen, the rent, but it doesn't include the service and here's what finally moved me to my own tipping point a year ago,' he said.

Meyer said that tipping isn't fair on other restaurant employees such as pot washers and low-level chefs, whose wages are not topped up by tips.

He also said that waiting staff who aren't white tend to get less tips from customers on average. 

'Tipping started in our country right after the Civil War,' said Meyer. 'The restaurant industry as well as the Pullman train car industry successfully petitioned the United States government to make a dispensation for our industries that we would not pay our servers, but it wasn't considered slavery because we would ask our customers to pay tips. And therefore no one could say they that were being enslaved.

'And, no surprise, but most of the people who were working in service professional jobs and restaurants and in Pullman train cars were African-American.'






The original: Danny Meyer opened his first Shake Shack in 2004 in Madison Square Park in Manhattan - to a rapturous response 



'There's just nothing good about that,' Meyer told the podcast.

Despite having just over 100 locations worldwide, Shake Shack is one of the most popular burger chains in the US, with a market capitalization in excess of $3.4bn as of last year.

The chain is fast becoming a hit in the UK as well with five restaurants in London and one in Cardiff. 

Originally set up 12-years-ago as a summer pop-up in Manhattan's Madison Square Park, Shake Shack has grown exponentially, fueled by its no-nonsense back-to-basics burger philosophy.

So popular are the cheap $6 burgers from Shake Shack that it has created an East Coast-West Coast rivalry with Californian hipster favorite In-N-Out - with fans swearing one is superior to the other. 

Indeed, so potent is the brand that is estimated that a single Shake Shack restaurant franchise is worth $50m, whereas one McDonald's joint is worth only $3m.

Owner, Danny Meyer, 58, was already one of New York's pre-eminent restaurant owners, with the Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern part of his stable.

He is estimated to be worth upwards of $350m and has taken on the issue of tipping in the United States and made it something of a crusade. 






The CEO of US chain Shake Shack, which has six restaurants in the UK, said tipping isn't fair on restaurant staff who don't meet customers



Just last week, the company announced that it was raising its prices so that it could pay its workers more.

Shake Shack spokeswoman Laura Enoch wtold Fox News, 'The moderate price increases reflect our continued commitment to lead with hospitality, pay above minimum wage, and provide our team with real career growth opportunities.'

In October of 2015, Meyer eliminated tipping at his 13 full service restaurants.

Instead of leaving cash at the end of the meal, diners are told to leave 25 per cent more for each dish, with no option to withhold their generosity if the experience is not up to scratch.

Meyer said the extra money went toward raising basic salaries for all his workers, from pot boys all the way up to chefs, and placed into a revenue share program, allowing employees to profit from the restaurant group's success.

The controversial comments come after the recent furore surrounding London resturant Le Gavroche. 

It was revealed last month that the two-star Michelin restaurant keeps the discretionary service charge paid by customers as revenue.

Its chef patron, Michel Roux Jr, came under fire as many customers believed the service charge was passed on to staff.

The restaurant will now include service in the bill from the end of the month and  that staff wages were not dependent on fluctuating service charges or tips. 


 
Click to expand...
Interview on Sportful. Meyer claims up tipped employees have had a 300% wage increase from when he started  31 years ago and non tip eligible employees have seen their wages go up 20% over that span

 
I'm sure a lot of things have racist roots, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are racist today.

That being said, if this guy doesn't want to have tipping at his restaurants, but instead increases his prices and pays his wait staff higher salaries, more power to him.

 
Simply a cheap ploy by Meyer.  Who cares what the genesis of tipping was, or if he's correct?

There is no plan to eliminate tipping.  This plan is for restaurants to take control of the tips, now just revenue, and decide what happens to them.  The important part of the story:

In October of 2015, Meyer eliminated tipping at his 13 full service restaurants.

Instead of leaving cash at the end of the meal, diners are told to leave 25 per cent more for each dish, with no option to withhold their generosity if the experience is not up to scratch.
Click to expand...
They've eliminated tipping!  Hooray.  Oh, and unless you are a regular tipper above 25%, your overall spend just went up.  Except now the server that is taking care of you gets the same amount of money whether you receive good service or not.  That will lead to more indifferent service, something that Americans are not going to stand for (how many threads in the FFA about bad service?).

If they wanted to take care of the kitchen staff, why not just dedicate a portion of the gratuity to the kitchen staff, for them to share?  Currently, servers will tip out hosts, bussers, food runners, wine directors, and can expect to actually receive anywhere from 45-60% of the actual tip.  There are already a LOT of underpaid people getting money from that tip (By the way, 20-30 years ago, servers kept around 70% of their tip, so their percentage has gone down. Meyer's 300% number is a joke).  

So, simply take a little bit from the server, some from the busser, the runner, eliminate the hostess tipout, and give some to the cooks.  Why not?  Why isn't that an option?

I'll tell you why.  Because then the company couldn't steal the tips from their staff-their entire staff.  They want the system the Europeans have.  Any good restaurant in London has tipping--usually 12-18%.  It's called 'service charge' not gratuity or tips.  The company then distributes that money to its staff at its discretion, and is under no obligation to give it all to its staff-kichen or otherwise.  It puts it in a pool called a tronc, and they distribute a percentage to the staff based on hours worked.  Kitchen staff gets some, but less than front of house.  

Sounds fair, even if the house is keeping some of it, but what winds up happening is that servers, now paid almost exclusively hourly, get their hours slashed.  Less hours everyone works, less tronc they have to distribute.  The restaurant makes the hourly look good, but a server working 35 hours is suddenly working 28 hours.  

American consumers are already seeing this happen.  If you've ever booked a private event, wedding etc., the contract will have a service charge included.  Laws here state that restaurants can keep service charge, but not tips/gratuity.  So the contracts have now named it service charge, and the staff gets a set hourly wage to work private events, no matter how much revenue that event produces.  Have the cooks' wages gone up?  No, they have not.  

 
HellToupee said:
In October of 2015, Meyer eliminated tipping at his 13 full service restaurants.

Instead of leaving cash at the end of the meal, diners are told to leave 25 per cent more for each dish, with no option to withhold their generosity if the experience is not up to scratch.
Click to expand...
That's the whole story right there -- a business owner wants tips to go to the business, not the wait staff. The "roots in racism" cover story is just crap to dress up what he's doing.

 
there's a pretty good freakanomics podcast on tipping (and a restaurant in NY that eliminated it)

edit - oh wait, just realized it was danny meyer interviewed on the podcast (same guy from this article). however, they don't mention racism on the podcast

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Service tips haven't been based on service for a long time.  Blacks are tipped less than whites, blacks tip less than whites, and pretty girls make more than anyone else on the wait staff. 

If you've heard Meyer on the Freakanomics podcast, he makes an excellent argument.  I do think too many people watch Food Network, think they can make a good career being a chef, and thus have the market saturated, but there's no doubt wages are stagnant.  I couldn't imagine having to fill the back of the house in New York or some other, large city.

 
jplvr said:
Service tips haven't been based on service for a long time.  Blacks are tipped less than whites, blacks tip less than whites, and pretty girls make more than anyone else on the wait staff. 

If you've heard Meyer on the Freakanomics podcast, he makes an excellent argument.  
Click to expand...
For one thing, of course tips are based on service.  All you say might be true regarding demographics, but a good server/bartender makes more than a bad one.  Significantly.  This is 25 years in the industry, in Florida, Vegas, Boston, NYC, London, and Aspen.  

Meyer's excellent argument makes sense in the abstract--maybe.  Maybe.  But in practice, what would happen is what I described above.  It is already happening.  I'm not guessing.  

NYC restauranteurs are unhappy with the price of doing business going up.  Meyer has closed Union Square Cafe because his lease expired, and the landlord cranked it up.  Union Square Cafe was massively successful, spawning a cookbook or two.  So these restauranteurs look around, and decided their waitstaff are making too much money.  By the way, they have been paying less than minimum wage to their waitstaff for decades, because the staff received most of their money through tips.  The tips also allow the management to pay minimum wage to bussers and food runners, because they are getting tipped out.  

Restaurants don't want to lower your cost of dining by eliminiating tipping.  They want the tips for themselves, to do with as they see fit.  

 
So popular are the cheap $6 burgers from Shake Shack that it has created an East Coast-West Coast rivalry with

Californian hipster favorite In-N-Out
Click to expand...

WTF? Hipster favorite?? :lmao:  

Which dumass wrote this?

 
massraider said:
For one thing, of course tips are based on service.  All you say might be true regarding demographics, but a good server/bartender makes more than a bad one.  Significantly.  This is 25 years in the industry, in Florida, Vegas, Boston, NYC, London, and Aspen.  

Meyer's excellent argument makes sense in the abstract--maybe.  Maybe.  But in practice, what would happen is what I described above.  It is already happening.  I'm not guessing.  

NYC restauranteurs are unhappy with the price of doing business going up.  Meyer has closed Union Square Cafe because his lease expired, and the landlord cranked it up.  Union Square Cafe was massively successful, spawning a cookbook or two.  So these restauranteurs look around, and decided their waitstaff are making too much money.  By the way, they have been paying less than minimum wage to their waitstaff for decades, because the staff received most of their money through tips.  The tips also allow the management to pay minimum wage to bussers and food runners, because they are getting tipped out.  

Restaurants don't want to lower your cost of dining by eliminiating tipping.  They want the tips for themselves, to do with as they see fit.  
Click to expand...
If you think men and women, and people of different races all get paid equally, according to their service, you're kidding yourself.

 
jplvr said:
If you think men and women, and people of different races all get paid equally, according to their service, you're kidding yourself.
Click to expand...
I don't really care about this point.  And it really has nothing to do with this subject of this thread.  

 
This entire thing would be better if it was arguing if you tip a blatant racist 

is tipping a racist, racist?

 
shady inc said:
there's a pretty good freakanomics podcast on tipping (and a restaurant in NY that eliminated it)

edit - oh wait, just realized it was danny meyer interviewed on the podcast (same guy from this article). however, they don't mention racism on the podcast
Click to expand...
There is actually an earlier Freakonomics episode called "Should Tipping Be Banned?" that covers the racial component of it. Worth a listen.

 
Regardless of its history, our tipping culture is good for both restaurant owners and for customers.

For restaurant owners, tipping helps rid their staff of bad wait staff. Instead of having to invest in monitoring work, doing performance reviews, and the legal hassle of letting someone go, crappy wait staff just quit because their compensation is so bad. Without a tipping culture, restaurant owners would have more issues to deal with employee wise.

For customers, tipping (or more importantly not tipping) allows the customers to vent their frustration without have to say a word. Instead of having to talk to management about bad service, a customer can simply leave a bad tip, or not tip at all, and be done with it. Without a tipping culture, customers would be asking to talk to management a ton more than they do now. 

 
And yet somehow all those restaurants in numerous other countries work just fine without a tipping culture. 

 
Politician Spock said:
Regardless of its history, our tipping culture is good for both restaurant owners and for customers.

For restaurant owners, tipping helps rid their staff of bad wait staff. Instead of having to invest in monitoring work, doing performance reviews, and the legal hassle of letting someone go, crappy wait staff just quit because their compensation is so bad. Without a tipping culture, restaurant owners would have more issues to deal with employee wise.

For customers, tipping (or more importantly not tipping) allows the customers to vent their frustration without have to say a word. Instead of having to talk to management about bad service, a customer can simply leave a bad tip, or not tip at all, and be done with it. Without a tipping culture, customers would be asking to talk to management a ton more than they do now. 
Click to expand...
I'm torn on this and agree with both you and with what EYLive said.  It can definitely work without tipping, as the structure in Europe has shown, but there have been times where I express my frustration with the tip I leave rather than speaking with the manager.  I hate having to talk to the manager.

Not sure why the article talks about Shake Shack so much, though.  I have never seen waiters at Shake Shack.  Its a fast food restaurant.  You go up to the counter, place your order with the cashier, and then they call you when it's ready and you pick it up at the counter.  Same basic setup as McDonalds, just better food.  Nobody tips.

 
EYLive said:
And yet somehow all those restaurants in numerous other countries work just fine without a tipping culture. 
Click to expand...
And yet people in those numerous other countries treat others like #######s more than here. Perhaps if they had a tipping culture, they would express their negativity towards others with a lack of tip instead of verbally. 

 
Politician Spock said:
And yet people in those numerous other countries treat others like #######s more than here. Perhaps if they had a tipping culture, they would express their negativity towards others with a lack of tip instead of verbally. 
Click to expand...
:lmao:  I'd like to know which countries that don't use antiquated tipping customs are known to be verbally abusive toward restaurant staff.

 
Very sad to learn that much of the tip I leave goes into owner's pockets. The community tip jar is out, try to be nice, throw in a few bucks but then learn the owners in many local spots skim 20% off the top, just wow!

It makes me not want to tip but hat feels yucky so then it's just opt not to go at all and save my money at home. 

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I like how Meyer laments that fact that the wait staff pay was up 300% because of tipping but the back of the house was only up 20% during the 30 years. Seems to me like the shortfall is his fault

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I couldn't find another general tipping thread, so I'll pose my question here. I'm a tad racist too, if that helps.

How much do I tip guys delivering a new couch and dining room set?

 
Jobber said:
I couldn't find another general tipping thread, so I'll pose my question here. I'm a tad racist too, if that helps.

How much do I tip guys delivering a new couch and dining room set?
Click to expand...
I think it depends on a few factors, but generally somewhere in the ballpark of $10-$20 each.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

timschochet
The current state of retail
2
Replies
50
Views
2K
Phil Elliott
Phil Elliott
P
AT&T Fiber vs Xfinity. Tired of paying more.
Replies
26
Views
403
BLOCKED_PUNT
BLOCKED_PUNT
C
Delivery Question / Tipping
Replies
33
Views
972
Dr. Octopus
Dr. Octopus

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
Back
Top