Fat Guy

Per se calls it a service charge: "Beginning September 1st, in lieu of gratuity, per se will be adding a 20% service charge to all guest checks."

I'd say that 80-90% of the associates starting at Cravath were not particularly motivated by the possibility of partnership. They knew that only about 1 in 50 would make it, and that only about 3 or 4 in 50 would stick around long enough to try to make it. No, I think the incentives were multi-causal -- they couldn't be reduced to any one thing. And I think that's the same in many business contexts, including restaurants: take-home cash pay is one incentive, but it can be part of a matrix of incentives including some that can easily be reduced to monetary value and many that can't. It's also worth noting that incentives aren't universal. Some people value money more than others. Some are willing to demean themselves for relatively small amounts of money. Some just want enough money for food and shelter and after that they focus on being treated well or having a sense of accomplishment. When Per Se switches over to the new system, it may lose some staff who have certain priorities, but it will likely gain other staff with other priorities. Whether those new staff will provide better, worse or different service is an open question.

Having worked at one of the world's top law firms -- Cravath, Swaine & Moore -- I can testify that at the Per Se of law firms everybody was paid the same, lock-step. Same salary, same bonus for every third-year associate, etc. Although ruthlessly capitalistic, the Cravath system was premised upon teamwork and esprit-de-corps -- many of its key components were inspired by United States Marines operations -- not on internal competition. We competed with other law firms. We didn't compete with each other. And the primary reward for doing good work was that you got to keep your job and every year you got more money. Eventually you had a shot at partnership, where compensation was also lock-step. There were other rewards for good performance as well, of course: you got assigned to better partners, you got to work on better cases, etc. However, the notion of equal pay is a red herring. Nobody says servers need to get equal pay just because they share equally in a service charge pool or a tip pool. The restaurant controls several other parameters that can be used as rewards. It's quite simple to implement an incentive bonus program for servers who get favorable evaluations. Some shifts are more desirable than others. Extra hours are a commodity that can be doled out. And base salaries can be increased -- not everybody has to be paid the same; these amounts can range from the minimum legally allowable amount to $10 or $15 or more per hour. Of course, were the service profession less oriented towards the itinerant, there would also be long-term incentives, such as moving up into management, accumulating retirement benefits, etc. Since when did tips become the only way to reward employees?

Chicken, meet egg. Egg, meet chicken. I don't consider it any surprise that a trade designed around the tipping system (which essentially makes servers into something very close to independent contractors) would attract exactly those people looking to do work "for a short time, for quick cash, while attempting to become something else." Whereas, it is also no surprise to me that a profession designed as a profession, paying a decent wage base, results in pride in performance and (in Thomas Keller's words) furthers "the establishment of a unified work culture within the restaurant."

Just because a total pooling or service charge arrangement leads to equal division of that money doesn't mean every server has to be compensated equally. In many businesses, all employees in a certain category might get the same basic wage, but there are often plenty of opportunities for better performing employees to distinguish themselves and either earn more or otherwise be rewarded. In a restaurant context, better servers can be given better shifts, more desirable schedules, performance bonuses, promotions, etc. Poorly performing employees can be placed on probation and, eventually, either retrained or let go. The rugged individualism of tipping is not the only means by which businesses have figured out how to reward better employees.

Rich, teamwork is not communism. It is an essential part of operating a successful business at anything larger than the scale of a hot dog cart.

How is a service charge communism, Rich?

If anything, greed is what motivates opposition to the service charge.

I'm not sure what the differences in French health insurance and culture have to do with whether or not a service charge provides better service than an open tipping system would. I think it's simply the case that you can have good or bad service either way. The fact that fine dining service in France is on the whole better than in the US is, however, a telling counterexample we can offer to people who claim that without tipping service automatically becomes terrible. Except in atypical cases, such as where demand radically exceeds supply, any viable business where service of any kind is provided needs to have systems of ensuring good service and compensating customers for bad service. Tipping is one of about a hundred ways to achieve this, and it's probably not a very good one. Yes, it has a certain immediacy, but it doesn't really address the issues it should be addressing: again, you get bigger tips for bigger checks; better service is a secondary concern. Where tipping is truly a minor gratuity (as opposed to the actual wage, as it effectively is in the restaurant business), it may provide a slight incentive for better service (as it does in France, where people often leave a modest amount above the service charge for excellent service). But I don't think it really does here -- it is a totally common experience for waiters to haul ass to provide the best possible service and get a 10% tip from some cheap bastard. I see no reason to give consumers that sort of discretion when it comes to paying servers' wages. In businesses where there is no tipping, there are plenty of other ways to ensure good service, for example firing employees who don't do a good job, promoting those who do, offering bonuses, etc. There are three main constituencies opposed to ending the tipping system: customers, servers and restaurateurs. So it's not likely to end any time soon. But Thomas Keller deserves a lot of credit for thinking way ahead of the curve. His goal "to further the establishment of a unified work culture within the restaurant" is an admirable one. It's how enlightened 21st Century managers think and speak. Bravo.

That's how they do it in France. Anyway, it's a myth that good service equals better tips. The number one factor correlating with better tips is . . . bigger checks. Most people tip whatever percentage they tip, within a very narrow band, no matter what level of service they get (save for the extremes of a total disaster or a sexual favor). In New York, you've got your people who double the tax, you've got your 20-percenters, etc. -- and they don't vary much. But if you upsell that person on a bottle of wine or bottled water or whatever, then the check is higher and therefore the tip is bigger. The one person in a hundred who actually sits there and says, "I'd rank my service today 7 out of 10, therefore I'll tip 17.9 percent instead of the 17.1 percent I'd have tipped for 6 out of 10 service," doesn't affect the overall tipping picture. So the incentive isn't to provide good service; it's to sell as much crap as possible.

What other services are you allowed to pay for, after the fact, according to your whim? That doesn't strike me as a right; it strikes me as an anomaly.

Let me be more precise: I know of no restaurant above the level of a diner where a server gets to keep all the tips left for him or her by customers. There may be such a restaurant -- my sample size is only about 40 or 50 restaurants in half a dozen states -- but I don't know of one. Either the server puts 100% of tips into a pool, which is allocated by shares (this is pretty much universal at the high end and common at every level -- and becoming more so now that credit card payments are so prevalent); or the server puts some lower percentage (say, half) into a pool for the bussers, bartenders, etc.; or the server is required to share tips with other service staff at specified percentages according to one scheme or another.

We get Psaltis-related information pretty quickly around here because Doug Psaltis's brother, Michael Psaltis, is a literary agent (and also the co-author of the new Psaltis book, Seasoning of a Chef) and numbers among his clients not only Doug Psaltis but also me, the eGullet Society and probably half a dozen folks who participate heavily here. (I met Michael through Doug, after I spent a week working alongside Doug in the kitchen at Alain Ducasse New York a few years ago). At the same time, this relationship prevents me from divulging some of that information ahead of the media release schedule. Right now, the only official word from Bullfrog & Baum, the publicists for Country, is that Zakarian will be opening the place. This was announced in an e-mail blast to media on May 24. The Psaltis involvement has not, as far as I know, been officially announced. So I can confirm the information Sammy has but I can't provide much more at this time. Once the official press materials come out, we'll try to get more information online as quickly as possible.

Most every restaurant above the level of a diner pools tips. The two interesting features of the Per Se arrangement are 1) the fixed service charge, and 2) the purportedly equal division (most tip pools are divided by shares, with captains getting more than waiters getting more than bussers).

First of all, what the heck is "hoar frost"? Secondly, I can enjoy White Manna (Hackensack) despite the crummy fries, but I can't go all the way and forgive them. It would be so easy to serve superior fries, and they would so enhance the White Manna experience. I've often been tempted to get the burgers to go and eat them with McDonald's fries from directly across the street because the McDonald's fries are so much better.

The Carlton hotel on Madison Avenue and 29th Street has been undergoing an extensive renovation over this year. Geoffrey Zakarian, of Town restaurant in the Chambers hotel, will be operating the new restaurant in the Carlton, which will be called Country. There has been a little bit of press about this, most notably a New York Times feature in May. Doug Psaltis will be working in the kitchen at Country as chef de cuisine or whatever it is that they're going to call the chef running the kitchen on a day-to-day basis, as opposed to Zakarian who will be more of an executive-restaurateur figure. To the extent that Psaltis has no ownership interest or anything of that sort, it's not "his" restaurant, but that's where he'll be.

The fries are the shame of the Hackensack two-N Manna. While I haven't dined at the JC one-N Mana, I could have predicted with great confidence that any non-Hackensack two-N Manna burger place serving burgers and fries in a similar style would have had 1) worse burgers, and 2) better fries. While there, did you check out the wall of newspaper articles? If so, did you discover any information worth reporting?

Wondering about the definition of "dumpling." Must a dumpling be filled? Must it have a wrapper? Are those the same question?

Both White Manna/Mana locations claim to be the original, which both claim was moved from the 1939 world's fair to New Jersey. The one in Hackensack has several newspaper articles on the wall attesting to its provenance. It's not clear what each of the stores was at the world's fair. They're both, according to some of the diner aficionado sites, Paramount diners built in the late 1930s. Whether either or both were at the 1939 world's fair grounds, and whether either or both served hamburgers or were called White Manna/Mana does not seem to have been definitively resolved. Apparently they used to share common ownership, in a mini-chain of five -- at least it is so rumored around the web. A lot more research and evidence will be needed before authoritative claims can be made.

I live on the Upper East Side, so Wu Liang Ye on 86th (215 E 86th St, 212.534.8899) is my local place for Sichuan. I've been there many, many times. I think overall it's the second-best Sichuan place in New York, after Grand Sichuan International Midtown, but that's not an across-the-board determination. Grand Sichuan has a greater assortment of good dishes, but there are some things that Wu Liang Ye does better. So if you know how to order, you can do very well at Wu Liang Ye. And imagine our surprise, at lunch the other day, when we walked in and saw Qing, formerly a server at China 46 in New Jersey, working at Wu Liang Ye. His sister turns out to be the manager, and he turns out to be starting school in the city this fall, so he'll be at Wu Liang Ye for the foreseeable future. Qing is one of the great Chinese waiters -- 60+ eG Forums posts are only the beginning -- so if you go to Wu Liang Ye be sure to introduce yourself. My favorite items at Wu Liang Ye are as follows. These are the dishes that I think Wu Liang Ye does better than Grand Sichuan, or that Wu Liang Ye does well and Grand Sichuan doesn't do at all: Cold apps: Poached Razor Clams with Sichuan Pepper Corn-scallion Vinaigrette Shredded Chicken & Mung bean Noodles with Spicy Garlic Soy Vinaigrette Spicy Mung bean Noodles Salad Sichuan Pickles Hot apps: Chengdu Wonton with Sichuan Peppercorn Vinaigrette Dan Dan Noodles with Minced Pork Chili Vinaigrette Main dishes: Stir Fried Prawns with Yibin Spiced Chili Cucumber Cellophane Noodles with Minced Pork (some places call this "ants climb on tree") Braised Pan Seared Tofu w/ Sichuan Chili-minced Pork Crispy Tangerine Prawns Smoky Hot Shredded Beef with Spicy Capsicum Baby Eggplant W/spicy Garlic Sauce Sauteed Spinach with Garlic Sauteed String beans “with Yibin City Spiced” That's what I've been able to learn from trial and error over the past couple of years. Now with our Qing connection, though, I expect to get some additional insight. And Qing is right: the 86th Street Wu Liang Ye is rarely busy, so you can always get in, get a lot of space and get a lot of attention.

Epstein's Bar 82 Stanton St New York, NY 10002 (212) 477-2232 Apparently it is not named after the virus but, rather, according to CitySearch, "it's actually a tribute to Welcome Back Kotter's fun-loving Puerto Rican Jew, Warren Epstein--a hero of the bar's owners."

Korean barbecue, as it is called, is popular all over America: New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.

It's common for Korean restaurants in New York to do this.

Cute. I don't think there's anything about Mix in my book. There's plenty about it in Doug Psaltis's book, Seasoning of a Chef, which comes out in September. My understanding is that Ducasse was in town at the beginning of the week, met with the relevant people and made the decision, allowing two weeks for Mix to wind down its affairs.

I use three sets of mixing bowls, because different bowls are better for different jobs. I have one set of three melamine bowls with relatively straight sides, pour spouts and rubber nonskid rings. These are incredibly versatile and durable (have had for 11 years and they still look quite good after many trips through the dishwasher), and if I could only have one set of bowls this is the one I'd keep. I also have a set of three very heavy gauge stainless mixing bowls. I agree that most stainless bowls sold to consumers are flimsy, but there are heavier, thicker, better ones available at the upscale retailers and professional suppliers. Mine are from Williams-Sonoma. Finally, I have three attractive white-and-green ceramic bowls, because sometimes I want to mix and serve in the same bowl and because they provide excellent insulation (hot stuff stays hot, cold stays cold -- important in some applications).