It Begins. Woke Minnesota Restaurant Adds 15% “Equity Charge” to All Bills – Accuses Its Customers of Being Racist Tippers

Broders’ Pasta Bar in Minnesota announced it is adding a 15% “equity charge” to all bills because its customers are racist tippers.

Here is their announcement.

WHAT IS THE BENEFITS & EQUITY CHARGE?

Historically, restaurants have relied on customer tipping to supplement the wages of its customer-facing service staff. It is part of a traditional restaurant economic model and many states have allowed reduced minimum wages for service staff in the form of a tip credit. Studies have also shown that there is inequity and built-in bias in the way consumers give tips. In general, Black or Brown servers receive less tips than Caucasian servers. There is gender bias as well. In restaurants, immigrants and people of color work mostly in the kitchens and have no access to gratuities to supplement their hourly wage.

Because Minnesota state law does not allow a tip credit and does not allow restaurants to pool tips, only the direct-facing service employee can decide if there should be sharing of tips among other service workers. Increased menu prices constitute higher tips which, along with increased minimum wages, adds to the disparity between the front customer-facing service staff and back of house kitchen staff.

In the wake of racial injustice protests and the closures due to Covid, now is the time for Broders’ to reimagine its economics and provide fair pay across the company. Minnesota does not allow restaurants to impose an automatic gratuity and pool tips. What we can do is impose a Benefits & Equity Charge on our sales that is not a gratuity. Our Benefits & Equity Charge is applied entirely to employee compensation. This supplement helps us to set a $16 minimum hourly wage for customer facing employees, $18 minimum hourly wage for kitchen employees (more with increased responsibility) above all government standards, to provide benefits of paid time off & health insurance, and to distribute 5% of daily revenue to all employees based on hours worked. Altogether this allows everyone in our company to earn a real living wage.

The 15% Benefits & Equity Charge is not a gratuity. This means any small gratuities left on top are completely discretionary, but if you choose to tip it will be distributed to only the customer-facing service staff.


https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/begins-woke-minnesota-restaurant-adds-15-equity-charge-bills-accuses-customers-racist-tippers/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=the-gateway-pundit&utm_campaign=dailyam&utm_content=daily

I suspect this restaurant owner has effectively cut his own throat with this stupidity. Insult your customers, FORCE a gratuity, yeah.......that's incentive to bring in customers.

They make some valid points, Mine would be, pay your staff a livable wage

People like this won't be passing the cost on to me. And even if he does add this on to his customers bills...it's unlikely he'll be giving it to his help.

I tip colorblind, so my response would be to leave and never return. If enough people do that they can reverse or go out of business.

That's what we all need to be doing. These jackasses back down with a little pushback.

It's a good thing these people advertise their stupidity. I wouldn't be eating there.

I'm like Chris and tip 20% and your color is irrelevant . Gender makes absolutely no difference either and that's including 3rd genders. If the food and atmosphere sucks , I just don't return .
If the waitress has ample TaTas I do give an extra 5% .

Daily Bread wrote:I'm like Chris and tip 20% and your color is irrelevant . Gender makes absolutely no difference either and that's including 3rd genders. If the food and atmosphere sucks , I just don't return .
If the waitress has ample TaTas I do give an extra 5% .

I agree.  Except....I don't give extra for ample TaTas.   Recently, a couple of friends and I went out to eat at Bob Evans.  Poor gal was working nearly the entire floor all by herself.  We had trouble getting all the things we needed to go with the meal...BUT, the poor gal was doing the best she could.  The entire bill was $50+ dollars, my friends picked up the tab, but I left her the tip--$40.  Restaurants around here are having a hard time getting employees.

We dont tip in New Zealand, The minimum wage here is 20 bucks an hour