The concept of "pooling tips" in restaurants

[Gifted Gourmet]

A story which appears in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today involves a federal lawsuit filed by the waiters at Joel, an upscale restaurant here in town:

Waiters sue Joel in dispute over tips

One of Atlanta's marquee restaurants was named in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday by a group of its current and former employees.  Waiters allege that Joel Restaurant withheld a portion of their tips to stash in an "incidental labor fund" to compensate dishwashers, glass polishers, marketing staff and managers --- even those on vacation.

Like many upscale restaurants, Joel has operated as a "pool house." Management has required waiters to put all their tips into the evening's kitty, ostensibly to divide it among all staffers who come into contact with customers. Over the years it has modified its tip-out formula, but all waiters are still required to leave a hefty fraction of their accumulated tips --- 36 percent according to the lawsuit --- to reward other service providers.

Has anyone who has worked at such a place ever experienced this type of "pool"?

How did the situation resolve itself among the servers?

Did management ultimately set the policy and require acquiescence?

Your experiences? Would you leave over this type of an issue?

[jilli42]

I used to work at Ram's Head Tavern. They used to pool tips for all the servers. I would count my tips for the day before I turned them in & I would have $80-100 for a day shift, $100-$150 for a night shift in the Rathskellar. The next day (when they handed out tips from the night before) I would only receive $50-60.

Management said they employed tip sharing to stop jealousy between the servers, because some would make more tips than others. (Regardless of whether we like it or not looks count in the serving industry. Looks and a good personality) But all it actually did was make the good servers bitter, because they had to share their hard earned tips with people who didn't do their share of the work

The system doesn't work because some people realize they are going to get tips no matter what and slack off. So the people who actually earned good tips get shorted while the slackers get rewarded.

Needless to say, I only worked there for about a month until I found a better job.

[NulloModo]

I have never been a server, but I know a couple local restaurants who do tips like that. When dining at these places I never leave a very large tip, regardless of service, simply because I know it isn't going to go to the person who really deserves it, and I have a big problem tipping those who have done nothing for me as a customer. If there was a way I could know that the money I left would only go to the server I had I would be much more inclined to tip more heavily.

[Gifted Gourmet]

I have a big problem tipping those who have done nothing for me as a customer. If there was a way I could know that the money I left would only go to the server I had I would be much more inclined to tip more heavily.

My exact feelings! Thank you for voicing my objection so nicely ...

[jackal10]

Mnay restaurants in France have a "tronc" system operated by the head waiter.

The notion is to compensate the runners, and the kitchen staff involved in service, but without firect or only incidental customer contact.

How else can you tip the sous-chefs, who actually prepared your meal?

[Carrot Top]

Never heard of a single really good server that liked this idea. Generally they will leave the place for greener pastures where they can operate on the concept of working for a 'bonus' based upon their performance...which is what a traditional 'tip' is.

This tip pooling system allows restaurant owners the ability to give lower salaries to many of their workers...based on the idea that 'you will get more from the tip pool...if we all do well operationally...we will all do well financially'.

It is assumptive that teamwork is in place, cross-training is in place, and everyone helps everyone else.

Hah.

It is true that some smaller (usually family owned) restaurants could not make ends meet if they had to account for higher salaries rather than rely on this system.

It is also true that unless you know who is controlling and distributing the tip pool and that the information is posted daily as to who is receiving what...you might be surprised to find that even the owners make themselves part of the distribution.

Edited September 2, 2004 by Carrot Top (log)

[davesgrill]

I believe that the person(s) who earn the tip should keep the tip, so when I find that a place pools the tips I'll either tip less or avoid the place all together. Which then hurts all of the hard working servers.

I hate to sound overly political here, but dosen't the pooling of tips have the ring of communism? And the former Soviet Union has shown how well that works.

Just my humble opinion.

[NancyH]

We recently had a big brouhaha in Cleveland over a prominent restaurant that was using the pool system for the coat check and valet staff also - but not giving the money to the workers directly; they would use the money to "treat" the workers to a party or something. A reporter stumbled onto this by accident when she attended a function at the place, and got into a conversation with the coat check girl about it. She wrote about it and solicited opinions; the restaurant was embarrassed and claimed that the employees had "voted" for the system years ago (not even the same people) and that the employees liked the system. I think the publicity shamed them into changing the policy.

[beans]

As a server, never.

As a bartender, we all "pool" at each bar. Teams of 2, 3, 4, 5 work a particular bar during a particular night/shift count up and divi-up equally.

[beans]

I believe that the person(s) who earn the tip should keep the tip, so when I find that a place pools the tips I'll either tip less or avoid the place all together. Which then hurts all of the hard working servers.

I hate to sound overly political here, but dosen't the pooling of tips have the ring of communism? And the former Soviet Union has shown how well that works.

Just my humble opinion.

Actually it smacks of "union" -- an organised group of workers within the same profession.

It rewards the lazy.

[Gifted Gourmet]

I hate to sound overly political here, but doesn't the pooling of tips have the ring of communism?

Smacks a little of indentured servitude ... but then anyone can quit and leave as they see fit ...

I personally think that I would avoid these places, if I knew in advance about them .. but that would hurt everyone if others did the same ...

[Holly Moore]

Pooling tips worked for us back when I had my restaurant. Only forty - fifty seats depending on how effectively I packed the dining room. Two servers. One bus person.

If turn-over is an indication, two servers were with me from the day I opened until the day I sold the place and stayed on with the new owner. Most of the others had tenures of 1 1/2 to two years. Over the entire period there was only one issue with missing tips - and this was a server who was pocketing the entire check.

From an owner's point pooling took pressure off for balancing the dining room - not just in number of covers, but quality of covers. No need to profile low tippers.

Pooling also was a form of natural selection. Peer pressure. Servers and bus people who didn't pull their weight either changed their slovenly ways or were pushed out.

It was also good for morale. At the end of the evening we'd sit together over a glass of wine - I'd add up the credit card tips, one of the servers would empty out the plastic Halloween pumpkin where cash tips ended up, and we'd count everything out. Good casual conversation, talking about that evening's service and all sorts of other things.

The servers decided what went to the bus person - their call totally. Servers made servers required percentage of minimum wage. Bus people were paid a buck or two an hour over minimum.

Pooling may have worked so well for us because we were a small staff and had good rapport. I suspect there would be a lot of problems with pooling in a restaurant with more servers on the floor.

[TheFoodTutor]

I do not mind the idea of pooling tips, but I have never worked in a place that actually does it. I have, however, been working in places that require tipshare among bussers, food runners and such.

The reason I don't mind the idea of pooling tips, particularly in upscale or fine dining environments is that tips are really a crap shoot. One night, you have the section with only 2-tops, so you get the same number of tables, but not as many covers as the person with the 10-top in their section. However, you will be running their food for them, since one server cannot run 10 entrees at once. Because I'm the type who's always working cooperatively with other servers, I get screwed on the nights that I have the smaller table sections when it comes to tips.

Any place that pools tips should have a cooperative system, where everyone treats all the tables as their own, which is really the best way to provide the highest level of service. Saying, "I'll go find your server" is simply not as good as saying, "What can I get for you?"

All the higher-end restaurants in NYC pool tips, according to bitterwaitress, and he says it's a system he has no problem with. The case with Joel in Atlanta, however, appears to have more to do with fraudulent tipsharing, forcing servers to pay for breakage and walkouts, and servers paying tips to managers. That's a horse of a different color.

Oddly, in my experience, the servers with whom I've worked who were adamant about stating that they'd "never work in a place that pooled" were some of the laziest and least competent servers I've ever known. I don't know why, but they were always the ones who perceived themselves as being very competent, while everyone else thought of them as the slackers.

[beans]

I do not mind the idea of pooling tips, but I have never worked in a place that actually does it. I have, however, been working in places that require tipshare among bussers, food runners and such.

The reason I don't mind the idea of pooling tips, particularly in upscale or fine dining environments is that tips are really a crap shoot. One night, you have the section with only 2-tops, so you get the same number of tables, but not as many covers as the person with the 10-top in their section. However, you will be running their food for them, since one server cannot run 10 entrees at once. Because I'm the type who's always working cooperatively with other servers, I get screwed on the nights that I have the smaller table sections when it comes to tips.

Any place that pools tips should have a cooperative system, where everyone treats all the tables as their own, which is really the best way to provide the highest level of service. Saying, "I'll go find your server" is simply not as good as saying, "What can I get for you?"

All the higher-end restaurants in NYC pool tips, according to bitterwaitress, and he says it's a system he has no problem with. The case with Joel in Atlanta, however, appears to have more to do with fraudulent tipsharing, forcing servers to pay for breakage and walkouts, and servers paying tips to managers. That's a horse of a different color.

Oddly, in my experience, the servers with whom I've worked who were adamant about stating that they'd "never work in a place that pooled" were some of the laziest and least competent servers I've ever known. I don't know why, but they were always the ones who perceived themselves as being very competent, while everyone else thought of them as the slackers.

Oh, I minded. I somehow was lucky where I work I started as a boat server waiting on the boat row D5+ with that being the 35 foot and larger yachts. I already knew many of the private boat captains as I was lived with one for the last year or so.

There are better sections and better shifts.

I'd never share what I earned equally with a Monday morning opener, stationed on the "right" no less.

We're an enormous staff of 48-52 bartenders and about 150 servers in all. There are all sorts any given shift.

Edited September 3, 2004 by beans (log)

[KarenS]

Chez Panisse pools tips, but they also pay everyone decent wages. Also, it is a service charge on the bill and not a "tip".

[Gifted Gourmet]

it is a service charge on the bill and not a "tip".

Now that I do remember .. but would expect nothing less of Chez Panisse.

[chromedome]

My night job "pools," but it seems to be on a different basis from what's been discussed here. Each of the servers surrenders up a percentage of the night's tips, which are shared out to the bussers and kitchen staff according to a fixed arrangement recognizing tenure and hours worked.

We're a small place with low turnover, and (amazing to me) everyone gets along well. I've never worked anywhere that I could say that, and I've had a varied 20+ years in the workforce. Nobody takes advantage of the system, and if the tips are insufficient to cover a share for the back of the house, the chef/owner ponies up the difference.

They feed us well, too.

[StudentChefEclipse]

Most of the servers in town here get $2.13 an hour. I don't know who does and does not pool tips, but i suspect if you are paying someone that little AND expecting them to share what they earn by the sweat of their brow.... That's just wrong.

[Holly Moore]

Most of the servers in town here get $2.13 an hour. I don't know who does and does not pool tips, but i suspect if you are paying someone that little AND expecting them to share what they earn by the sweat of their brow.... That's just wrong.

   

←

The servers in your town are earning just $2.13 and hour AND 20% of the restaurant sales and sales tax. Very profitable brow sweat.

My understanding is that the sharing of tips with other staff is for the same reason servers are tipped in the first place. To insure proper service from those they rely upon such as the bus person. It also is probably a survival thing. Eases the animosity between servers going home with $25 or more an hour and bus people pocketing what's left after taxes on maybe $8 an hour.

[Chris Amirault]

These posts remind me of a college waiting job I had at a mid-scale Indian restaurant in 1984-5. The owner had brought a bunch of people from India to cook and one to run the front; I was the best non-Indian waiter he had. I also helped out in the kitchen now and then, stirring the ghee or stuffing samosas, when things were quiet.

His tipping system? We got flat wages -- a buck or two above minimum wage, if I remember carefully -- and all tips went to him. You read that right. No pool here.

That system was barely tolerable on very slow lunches with only a table or two, but it really sucked at dinner. I regularly watched gobs of cash slide into the can behind the bar as I hustled between tables. When I learned that some pals were clearing $100-150 in tips on weekend nights (when I got no raise for my added work, natch) at another restaurant downtown, I gave two weeks.

On my last day, the owner took me out for a drink next door before my lunch shift and, after many compliments about my work, offered me a fifty cent raise. When I told him that I'd only work for him if I received the tips that I earned, he told me that he couldn't change the system. I finished my double Macallan and worked my last lunch loopy.

Some eGs may want to celebrate his capitalist brio, but, alas, the joint closed about a year later. Waitstaff problems, I was told....

[chow guy]

Chez Panisse pools tips, but they also pay everyone decent wages.

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A very rare occurance indeed. They also hire mature servers and hosts with knowlege and stlye, which was like a breath of fresh air.

[KatieLoeb]

These posts remind me of a college waiting job I had at a mid-scale Indian restaurant in 1984-5. The owner had brought a bunch of people from India to cook and one to run the front; I was the best non-Indian waiter he had. I also helped out in the kitchen now and then, stirring the ghee or stuffing samosas, when things were quiet.

His tipping system? We got flat wages -- a buck or two above minimum wage, if I remember carefully -- and all tips went to him. You read that right. No pool here.

That system was barely tolerable on very slow lunches with only a table or two, but it really sucked at dinner. I regularly watched gobs of cash slide into the can behind the bar as I hustled between tables. When I learned that some pals were clearing $100-150 in tips on weekend nights (when I got no raise for my added work, natch) at another restaurant downtown, I gave two weeks.

On my last day, the owner took me out for a drink next door before my lunch shift and, after many compliments about my work, offered me a fifty cent raise. When I told him that I'd only work for him if I received the tips that I earned, he told me that he couldn't change the system. I finished my double Macallan and worked my last lunch loopy.

Some eGs may want to celebrate his capitalist brio, but, alas, the joint closed about a year later. Waitstaff problems, I was told....

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I suspect he was shut down because what he was doing was patently illegal, unless it was clearly stated on the menu that "servers here do not receive their tips. They go to the proprietor." Customers clearly were tipping based on the usual belief that they were rewarding their waiter, not the unscrupulous owner. I'm sure a first year law student could argue that as a "bait and switch" or some other basis for complaint.

"Waitstaff problems" probably is equivalent to not being able to keep a waitstaff once they realized they were indentured servants by comparison with their compatriots at other establishments.

[StudentChefEclipse]

QUOTE(StudentChefEclipse @ Sep 6 2004, 10:17 AM)

Most of the servers in town here get $2.13 an hour. I don't know who does and does not pool tips, but i suspect if you are paying someone that little AND expecting them to share what they earn by the sweat of their brow.... That's just wrong.

The servers in your town are earning just $2.13 and hour AND 20% of the restaurant sales and sales tax. Very profitable brow sweat.

My understanding is that the sharing of tips with other staff is for the same reason servers are tipped in the first place. To insure proper service from those they rely upon such as the bus person. It also is probably a survival thing. Eases the animosity between servers going home with $25 or more an hour and bus people pocketing what's left after taxes on maybe $8 an hour.

hrmmm.. thanks for the heads-up on that HM. The guys from school who worked as servers bitched mightily about the $2.13 and never mentioned the other. You are talking Phoenix/Scottsdale, right?

*trying to work out the new quote feature... i am SOOOO not technological!*

[nancygreengrapes]

I worked for a restauranteur as a server and as management, whose 3 places all pooled. They were all smaller houses, so perhaps that is the key. My experience was that it inspired healthy competition among servers to achieve higher tip averages, naturally pushed out those who weren't doing their share and inspired a team atmosphere where the guests benefitted from the "everyone's tables" mentality. The owner or managers never handled the server's money, nor were involved in the tipshare(they never should be) and tip outs for bussers and runners were at the waitstaff's discretion. They tended to be more generous because no one wanted to be a cheapskate in front of their fellow servers. This also eliminated the "extorsion" that takes plece where bussers will not enter your station if you've not overtipped as your co-worker did. All in all, if handled honestly, I think the polling system works. In fact I've recently gone back to serving and in certain sections of thr restaurant where I work, where seating evenly ins't always possible we do pool. I have no issues. It helps that management insures that weak or dishonest servers don't last very long.

[Squeat Mungry]

My night job "pools," but it seems to be on a different basis from what's been discussed here.  Each of the servers surrenders up a percentage of the night's tips, which are shared out to the bussers and kitchen staff according to a fixed arrangement recognizing tenure and hours worked.

This is actually a separate policy known as "tipping out", at least in the bars I have worked in. It is a way of helping to compensate workers such as barbacks and door-staff who do not recieve tips directly from customers.

Both tip pooling and tipping out can be implemented separately or in combination. At the bar I worked in the longest, tip pooling was not an issue during the week, when there was only one bartender on duty. Tips were pooled among the two or three bartenders who worked on weekend nights when we were slammed, but it was always done amicably, and the barback and doorman were tipped out from the pooled tips.

Cheers,

Squeat