A famed restaurant in San Francisco eliminated tipping more than year ago, but now, servers want the old model back. Zuni Café moved away from tipping to a mandatory service charge. The goal was to address pay inequity in the back and front of house. But servers say they are unable to make ends meet with the new system and they are considering walking out or unionizing. They agree back-of-house staff should be paid more, but they argue that wait staff deserve to be compensated even more because they are working directly with customers.
This hour, we discuss different models of compensating restaurant staff. Our guests:
- Peter Jines, owner and founder of Jines Restaurant
- Mark Potter, longtime restaurant server
- Kyle Shafer, back-of-house employee at Pizza Wizard
