CINCINNATI — A Hyde Park restaurant owner says his mandatory gratuity model is helping him retain loyal staff and combat rising inflation. Since the model was introduced last fall Red Feather Larder at Dutch’s Head Chef and Owner Brad Bernstein says there have been mixed reviews from customers.
“I’m happy to pay gratuity for good service anytime,” said Max Berg, a regular customer at Dutch’s. “Its a great local spot.”
Berg said he routinely gets good service at Dutch’s but wouldn’t care for it to become an industry policy if the same service wasn’t given at other restaurants.
“Gratuity has to match service wherever you go,” Berg said.
Originally Bernstein introduced the gratuity pay scale model to entice new employees when staffing shortages were trending. On top of employee base pay, mandatory 20% tips from customers are pooled each week and split evenly among all the staff.
“Having that service fee allows us to kind of keep our costs down a little bit because we are sharing that service fee,” Bernstein said. “That service component helps kind of balance the wages out from back of the house to front of the house.”
Bernstein also believes it has helped with the mentality and morale on his team.
“We all work together, we all contribute. There is no job that anybody doesn’t want to do because we all partake and reap the benefits of our busyness,” Bernstein said. “The idea of gratuity and tipping and the way it was seems very archaic to me in a very modernist progressive model."
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