Why a service charge?

1)    Pay equity. Restaurants can distribute a service charge as wages to all employees, including back of house employees, who are not included in the classic tipping model. This allows our restaurant to pay all hourly employees the same hourly rate, rather than perpetuating the income gap between front and back of house team members.

2)    Income stability. Implementing a service charge stabilizes the income for hourly workers, so there’s little pay discrepancy when the restaurant is slow vs. busy. Workers can reliably forecast their wages based on the number of hours they will be working, and the restaurant can guarantee that they will never make less than $25 for any hour worked.

3)    Solidarity. Tipping based labor models are historically problematic for several reasons. Placing worker compensation directly in the hands of the patron can facilitate sexual harassment, discrimination, and inequitable treatment of workers. The roots of tipping are based in racialized exploitation, and the system continues to amplify racial inequality. Hospitality workers relying on tips to make a livable wage contributes to a stigma that their work is a lesser or transient occupation when in fact it is a badass profession. We are against tipped wage laws that allow for workers to be paid below the poverty line.