One of my favorite words deserve. Nobody deserves to go out to eat.
But let’s say there is no tipping and the employer pays their workers in full. Is the any chance those added costs are added to the menu prices or portions are trimmed?
Oh no, the owner just reduces their income or cuts wages for the kitchen staff.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
If you can’t afford to tip – you shouldn’t go out for that “nice meal.’ Get take out or cook at home. Otherwise, you’re morally – not legally, obligated to tip.
No business is obligated to pay a “living wage.” If you don’t like the pay – get another job. Almost all waitstaff would rather work for tips than for an straight hourly wage – why is that?
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Nowadays I see servers busing tables, wiping them down, running the sweeper and doing basically all the dining room stuff. I’m sure there is some downtime but not a lot if you get at least a trickle of diners coming in during the non mealtime rush and they handle that as well. The days of the busboy are gone.
I am seeing more and more restaurant chains going belly up and trying to make it through bankruptcy which tells me the field is overcrowded and not as many people are interested in spending their last dollar on a meal out.
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Nope. I disagree. With the tipping system as it is, everyone pays a different amount depending on what they decide to tip. Without tipping, the price would go up, but it would be the same for everyone. Also, servers do not have a reliable income stream when it depends on tipping. Let the employer pay a fair wage and have it included in the price of the meal. While the poster’s use of “deserve” is absurd, she is right that it is the employer’s responsibility to pay the wages and set the price to account for wages.
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Not so sure. Servers have a reliable income stream which is the federal minimum wage, but based on hours worked, of course. A server can easily earn more on tips, especially with part-time hours. I doubt many restaurants, especially small ones could survive paying severs salaries when the income is highly variable based on meals served.
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The minimum wage for tipped workers is terrible and does not represent a living wage. If restaurants cannot survive based on a variable income why do we expect servers to? All sorts of businesses have a variable income but pay their workers a constant salary.
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The MW for servers is the same as others because if they do not earn that by the combined server MW plus tips, they must be paid the standard MW.
How many companies do you know that could afford to pay workers standing around doing nothing because there is nothing to do which is often the case in a restaurant? It’s just not the same as other jobs.
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