Perhaps out of the range of some, sure... it's not diner food. Which is usually cheaper because of location and longer peak hours driving down rent more than greed factor of places that charge more. But do you see how the operational costs are generally well in excess of what the food costs are? And how much negative impact increased wages there instead of tips would have for staff, customer, and employer?

Yes, in your example. It would be different if he actually owned the restaurant instead of the bank. But then you have Red Lobster that charges 50$ for a handful of water bugs and can't pay their staff minimum wage.(yes,Red Lobster adds 15% gratuity to the bill, 20 years ago maybe more now) Then you have Mcdonalds that pays minimum wage or better, no dishwasher and still has a dollar menu and still turns a huge profit.

what you're saying is with the gratuity system the waiters make way more than anyone could pay them. I get that.

Sure, and there are still a lot of other factors in there. For example McDonalds uses cheap shit meat, keeps everything frozen, and moves MASS volume. Red lobster specialized in products that go bad rather quickly and don't freeze well, and moves a much smaller volume.

Its sort of like comparing a US manufacturer with a Chinese one. Lower quality and higher volume = larger profits. Consider in my example about real estate consumption of customers. I gave 2 hours per top... because at a nice cloth napkin place that's a reasonable average. How long does one sit at a McDonalds? About 10 min to get your foot (vs 20-40 at a sit down place) and 20 min to scarf it down and leave... if you even stayed. The greatest volume of fast food sales is "To Go". It's their primary appeal... quick meals on the go. So in the cost per customer of rent/ownership of the property factor it's much much much lower. I think last time I discussed the matter, with overhead including wages (including marketing) the cost of a single taco bell taco to be made was about 8 cents. They sell for $1. You want to talk about greedy profits... it's the places that ARE paying wage instead of tips... lol.

0to60 wrote:what you're saying is with the gratuity system the waiters make way more than anyone could pay them. I get that.

And it's why the one lobbying hardest against eliminating tipping and paying instead a "fair wage" are the workers themselves, not the business owners. If the business could up the price of everything 20% and then pay serving employees $14 an hour while still getting good service out of them... they certainly would. They'd make more money at it.

well I only went to Red Lobster once 20 years ago, I didn't know it was an expensive place. I just saw the TV commercials side by side and thought it was probably the same as Long John Silvers. When I saw their prices I stayed anyway because it was my son's birthday. You're right about the spoilage there. When we got home we both puked our guts out.

Weird. I've never gotten sick there. I like the place mostly, and they have come down in their prices a bit. Cheddar biscuits for the win!

We had shrimp and lobster. Born and raised in the west Texas desert and poor, I had never tried lobster before. So I thought I'd give it a go. Not a fan of seafood.

ah yeah, you could just have a sensitivity to it. i like lobster ok... but i go there for their coconut shrimp mostly. tasty as fuck.

I remember a guy on another forum who was a graduate, but chose to be a valet parker in Vegas ( or whatever you call them) as it paid more. Kind of defeats the purpose of paying for an education.
The system sounds unfair on customers, who are paying service staff $200 a night to work in an organic diner.


A couple of things that puzzled me on Vegas advice was the taxi wave guy and limo drivers. The limo tip was suggested at around $20 - $25 if I remember correctly. What's that in American minimum wage cost to the customer? Three hours of their hard earned? ( unless they are a waiter )
And why do you tip a guy who waves at a line of waiting taxis? imho, that screams "scam". The taxi would drive up anyway, as they are waiting for customers. What service do these guys actually provide, except lining their own pockets?