Interesting...fat, greasy, tip-stealing hack is no way to go through life...

This too...maybe bark on this is worse than its bite though

http://ny.eater.com/archives/2...nichs_sla_issues.php

quote:

Originally posted by Machine:
This too...maybe bark on this is worse than its bite though

http://ny.eater.com/archives/2...nichs_sla_issues.php

?

this has nothign to do with batali.

in essence ny sla has a very simple rule,

if you are a winery, you can't get either a distro/wholeasle license or a retail license except in the special case of a winery direct license which was through the supreme court ruling.

if yer a wholesaler you can't make wine and you can't sell retail

in this case the bastianich family has all kinds of interrelated businesses where they have different licenses across the spectrum of their business.

so they would probably have a choice, they would have to close one aspect of their business if they wish to keep a SLA license in NY.

Tho, i'm surprised he's still in business after likening bankers to hitler

guess the dot com boom in NY is help propping up some pricey restaurnats that or people have short term memories

I worked at a restaurant and when we did private events the tips were incredible. Then the restaurant started giving us what they felt we deserved and kept the rest to buy stuff for the restaurant.

Yeah Machine - G-man is right, the two articles have nothing to do with each other. In the first case, Batali shows himself to be a low-life slob of the first order.

But the second issue has nothing to do with being a low-life, it has to do with the idiocy of the NYS liquor laws vs the bone-heads of the Bastianich group. Everyone else hates the laws too but somehow figures out a work-around. The Bastianich group OTOH just tried to act as if the laws didn't apply to them.

The laws are written and controlled by the big distributors, who control wine and liquor sales in every state. The laws are harmful for customers, small distributors, importers, and retailers; they are moronic and very anti-customer, but the way to change the laws is to use the techniques that got the laws written in the first place - buy off the legislators.

The Bastianich folks should have wined and dined a few legislators, taken them on "fact-finding" trips to restaurants and wineries in Italy or wherever the particular legislator's grandparents came from, and picked up the votes to have the laws changed. It's the way democracy is supposed to work.

Matter of fact, the politicians all want to be on TV so Batali should have arranged for a few of them to be on Iron Chef or some cooking show as judges or something and hinted that there should be a law allowing him to collect all tips and distribute them as he sees fit. THAT would have been the smart move, rather than the stupid bone-head move of just snatching whatever he could.

quote:

Originally posted by spo:
I worked at a restaurant and when we did private events the tips were incredible. Then the restaurant started giving us what they felt we deserved and kept the rest to buy stuff for the restaurant.

I get it to some degree for the purposes of 'tipping out' employees that participate in service but don't get directly tipped. On a similar note, this place books some larger (20+) parties, and after a recent booking the party organizer emailed the restaurant to specifically thank gf, saying her efforts gave them a great night. The owner forwarded gf the email...but didn't tell the party organizer that the owner took a significant percentage of the tip that the party left for that great service. Not sure if this is common practice but its pretty shady, and these guys keep the money for themselves.

Machine, sounds like your gf's employer is sleazier than mine.

Management should not be pocketing gratuity.

Although my friend is a bartender and he says he works 30 hours a week and makes more than management. I could see where management gets resentful.

quote:

Originally posted by spo:
Machine, sounds like your gf's employer is sleazier than mine.

Management should not be pocketing gratuity.

Although my friend is a bartender and he says he works 30 hours a week and makes more than management. I could see where management gets resentful.

They are sleazy, are likely violating an assortment of legal requirements, and (perhaps worse) confused and hypocritical when it comes to providing service to customers and making money for themselves. She only stays there because she has a lot of control over her schedule, and the harder she works per hour the more $ she makes per hour (for the establishent in terms of sales and for herself in terms of gratuities), to some degree in line with your bartender friend...but seems like almost a charicature of a situation to me, hard to believe people could act and behave that way, but I guess I'm naive in overstimating the honour of the average human.

Management is prohibited from tip sharing by the FLSA and many state laws. If you have a job where management is taking your tips, you need to talk to a lawyer. My office does a fair amount of FLSA work and you would be shocked at the number of large employers that do not follow the FLSA. I'd be happy to make a referral to anyone looking for a quality FLSA attorney.

G

quote:

Originally posted by thirsty man:
Management is prohibited from tip sharing by the FLSA and many state laws. If you have a job where management is taking your tips, you need to talk to a lawyer. My office does a fair amount of FLSA work and you would be shocked at the number of large employers that do not follow the FLSA. I'd be happy to make a referral to anyone looking for a quality FLSA attorney.

G

The first post on this was from Machine in Canada. They could have some law like the FLSA, but, of course, US Law does not provide any succor to the waiter who gets screwed in Canada.

Good thing he got caught...a lot of owners try to skirt labor laws and get away with it.

quote:

Originally posted by irwin:

quote:

Originally posted by thirsty man:
Management is prohibited from tip sharing by the FLSA and many state laws. If you have a job where management is taking your tips, you need to talk to a lawyer. My office does a fair amount of FLSA work and you would be shocked at the number of large employers that do not follow the FLSA. I'd be happy to make a referral to anyone looking for a quality FLSA attorney.

G

The first post on this was from Machine in Canada. They could have some law like the FLSA, but, of course, US Law does not provide any succor to the waiter who gets screwed in Canada.

I believe the applicable law up here is somewhat vague. She also mentioned that the owners charge wait staff for any credit card fees on any payments by customers, which I understand might be permitted south of the border but undsure whether it is permitted here. The owners had also wanted to automatically skim 10% of all tips directly into their own pockets. Personally I don't think I could work for people who treated others in that manner, but that sentiment might eliminate a lot of employment opportunities.

If your GF wants to make as much as the owner, she should open her own restaurant - I've heard it's an easy, risk free life.

If the owner has to pay between 3-4% back to the CC company and someone tips a server $100, why should the owner be out the $3??? of course it should come out of the tip, just as it comes out of the food and booze when a cc is used.

The situation in Canada is much different than in the US for the simple fact that the server is already making well north of $11/hr as a base rate.

Hey, I'm not saying your gf or any server doesn't deserve the tips but someone is giving them the avenue to earn that kind of money and it doesn't seem that we're talking about Denny's here.
Maybe the owner employs an extra 2-3 guys in the kitchen to get the food out quicker, or extra runners, busers, hostesses etc. A smooth running restaurant is a well oiled team and the server that thinks he/she is the only one responsible for earning that tip usually gets traded.

On the other hand , the owner that steals from his/her employees won't last long either as the favour is usually reciprocated.

quote:

Originally posted by mangiare:


If the owner has to pay between 3-4% back to the CC company and someone tips a server $100, why should the owner be out the $3??? of course it should come out of the tip, just as it comes out of the food and booze when a cc is used.

Credit card fees are usually included in the price of the good or service.

I have seen gas stations offer a cash price but never seen any business pass on cc cost to the employee.

That restaurant is just making it up as they go.

Agreed spo BUT when a restaurant is collecting money for someone else. IE tips for a server and not for the restaurant, why should they pay the 3%? This does not strike me as fair at all. We are not talking about their wages here but a gratuity that is above and beyond wages.

Also, not sure if this happens in the US, but I have seen credit cards threaten to pull their services from merchants if they advertise a discount to customers paying in cash or debit.

In the US, the merchant agreement for most credit cards prohibits charging a different fee for Cash -vs- credit.

Irwin - I was really talking to spo who is in CA - where it sure as hell is illegal to withhold tips to purchase restaurant equipment.

G

quote:

Originally posted by mangiare:
Also, not sure if this happens in the US, but I have seen credit cards threaten to pull their services from merchants if they advertise a discount to customers paying in cash or debit.

This happens. If banks/cc companies find a merchant charging a fee for using the machine they also yank them very very quickly.

quote:

Originally posted by mangiare:
If your GF wants to make as much as the owner, she should open her own restaurant - I've heard it's an easy, risk free life.

If the owner has to pay between 3-4% back to the CC company and someone tips a server $100, why should the owner be out the $3??? of course it should come out of the tip, just as it comes out of the food and booze when a cc is used.

The situation in Canada is much different than in the US for the simple fact that the server is already making well north of $11/hr as a base rate.

Hey, I'm not saying your gf or any server doesn't deserve the tips but someone is giving them the avenue to earn that kind of money and it doesn't seem that we're talking about Denny's here.
Maybe the owner employs an extra 2-3 guys in the kitchen to get the food out quicker, or extra runners, busers, hostesses etc. A smooth running restaurant is a well oiled team and the server that thinks he/she is the only one responsible for earning that tip usually gets traded.

On the other hand , the owner that steals from his/her employees won't last long either as the favour is usually reciprocated.

Geez did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning???

I didn't say anything about her wanting to make as much as the owners, and if you knew the place I was talking about and knew them you would probably think they are just about the cheapest weasels you've encountered. There is nothing smooth or efficient about the way management runs the establishment, they don't think she is entitled to make the money she does from tips, i.e. think that they are entitled to take a share of the gifts given to her by customers, yet also think that a reasonable tip percentage is between 8% and 12% according to the default tip percentages they wanted to put into the handheld cc/debit machines that they only finally agreed to acquire in the last year. The only thing well oiled is the food and toilets in this place full of garage sale tables and chairs.

And they aren't taking the CC fee from her tips, they are taking it from the total billing that was paid by credit card...so if she serves $3,000 of food/booze and gets $450 of tips, she has to pay them the credit card fee on $3,450, paying them cash out of her tips, and that cash certainly isn't being reported in any financial statements of this establishment. She still does ok, but seems like a pretty unacceptable manner of doing business to me. Luckily a good portion of her regular customers still pay in cash, but that's dwindling all the time.

quote:

Originally posted by Rob_Sutherland:

quote:

Originally posted by mangiare:
Also, not sure if this happens in the US, but I have seen credit cards threaten to pull their services from merchants if they advertise a discount to customers paying in cash or debit.

This happens. If banks/cc companies find a merchant charging a fee for using the machine they also yank them very very quickly.

It was my understanding that this is no longer an enforceable provision.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07...cash-discounts.html

Regarding the whole tip sharing and costs, etc., sounds like another reason to just get rid of the archaic practice in the food service industry. Set your prices to what they need to be to hire the number and type of worker you want and have a go at it. Stop complicating your and your employees lives and use that energy to focus on providing a better experience for your customers.

quote:

Originally posted by Machine:

quote:

Originally posted by mangiare:
If your GF wants to make as much as the owner, she should open her own restaurant - I've heard it's an easy, risk free life.

If the owner has to pay between 3-4% back to the CC company and someone tips a server $100, why should the owner be out the $3??? of course it should come out of the tip, just as it comes out of the food and booze when a cc is used.

The situation in Canada is much different than in the US for the simple fact that the server is already making well north of $11/hr as a base rate.

Hey, I'm not saying your gf or any server doesn't deserve the tips but someone is giving them the avenue to earn that kind of money and it doesn't seem that we're talking about Denny's here.
Maybe the owner employs an extra 2-3 guys in the kitchen to get the food out quicker, or extra runners, busers, hostesses etc. A smooth running restaurant is a well oiled team and the server that thinks he/she is the only one responsible for earning that tip usually gets traded.

On the other hand , the owner that steals from his/her employees won't last long either as the favour is usually reciprocated.

Geez did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning???

I didn't say anything about her wanting to make as much as the owners, and if you knew the place I was talking about and knew them you would probably think they are just about the cheapest weasels you've encountered. There is nothing smooth or efficient about the way management runs the establishment, they don't think she is entitled to make the money she does from tips, i.e. think that they are entitled to take a share of the gifts given to her by customers, yet also think that a reasonable tip percentage is between 8% and 12% according to the default tip percentages they wanted to put into the handheld cc/debit machines that they only finally agreed to acquire in the last year. The only thing well oiled is the food and toilets in this place full of garage sale tables and chairs.

And they aren't taking the CC fee from her tips, they are taking it from the total billing that was paid by credit card...so if she serves $3,000 of food/booze and gets $450 of tips, she has to pay them the credit card fee on $3,450, paying them cash out of her tips, and that cash certainly isn't being reported in any financial statements of this establishment. She still does ok, but seems like a pretty unacceptable manner of doing business to me. Luckily a good portion of her regular customers still pay in cash, but that's dwindling all the time.

They absolutely should not be taking the CC fee from the server for the total amount.

Regarding the whole tip sharing and costs, etc., sounds like another reason to just get rid of the archaic practice in the food service industry. Set your prices to what they need to be to hire the number and type of worker you want and have a go at it. Stop complicating your and your employees lives and use that energy to focus on providing a better experience for your customers.[/QUOTE]

Couldn't agree with you more. It would also increase gov't revenues as a large percentage of tips are not claimed.

quote:

Originally posted by mangiare:
They absolutely should not be taking the CC fee from the server for the total amount.

Something seems awry. Used to largely only take cash so was never a historical issue but maybe started small and has crept up into something material.

quote:

Originally posted by mangiare:
Regarding the whole tip sharing and costs, etc., sounds like another reason to just get rid of the archaic practice in the food service industry. Set your prices to what they need to be to hire the number and type of worker you want and have a go at it. Stop complicating your and your employees lives and use that energy to focus on providing a better experience for your customers.

Couldn't agree with you more. It would also increase gov't revenues as a large percentage of tips are not claimed.[/QUOTE]

agreed but geez how would that even be rolled out? i may be mistaken but are there some countries in which tips are not customarily given and workers are paid a wage that takes that into account?

What a sleaze bag!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by Machine:


agreed but geez how would that even be rolled out? i may be mistaken but are there some countries in which tips are not customarily given and workers are paid a wage that takes that into account?

Australia and New Zealand. I am told by our Australian friends that it works very well there.

In most European countries a service charge is added to the bill. An additional small gratuity is customarily left for very good service. Many North Americans don't understand that, and so they leave their customary tip as they would at home, which is pretty nice for the servers and restaurant, but unnecessary.

Lots of posters here are experienced travellers, and likely can add other places where hospitality service provides a reasonable income without tips.