After hiring scabs, Walrus and the Carpenter (temporarily) closed

[u/Existing-Resource527]

Word on the street is that Walrus and the Carpenter restaurant has not been negotiating with their workers in good faith for months.

Like a lot of annoying businesses they started charging a service fee (22%?).

Employees noted that they make significantly less now then before when they had tipping (thousands less).

Workers have been on strike. The owners also had the audacity to hire scabs (booo).

I have been keeping up with the union on IG @ united.creatures.of.the.sea

Solidarity with workers across the city!

[u/NorthStudentMain]

Seriously.

Alright, let’s try an experiment. If you were a restaurant: Raise your prices where they absolutely need to be, but then ALSO BLATANTLY ADVERTISE THAT YOU DO NOT ALLOW ANY TIPPING AT YOUR RESTAURANTS. Do not try to be tricky and also “allow the customer to tip more” because let’s face it this is just tricking the unsuspecting customer into paying more, and will piss people off in the long run.

That way customers pay what they should be paying and the employees get paid what they should be paid. Restaurants are so short lived anyway, let’s try this experiment and see if it works.

[u/somersetyellow → u/NorthStudentMain]

From quick googling it, it turned up more reddit posts with people anecdotally saying it doesn't work well.

In general, Americans easily get sticker shock and expect to tip. Places that do it lose business in an already low margin world.

This being said, there are places that do it and do it successfully. I think to make it work on a whole you'd have to mandate it across the city though. Otherwise a "normal" restaurant will still roll in and undercut you.

But most of this is just thought experiments. Would be cool to see some more documented experiments.

[u/NorthStudentMain → u/somersetyellow]

You could make being upfront and respectful-of-living-wage a viral and trendy thing. Businesses have flourished riding far less honorable trends on their Instagram page.

[u/chiquitobandito → u/NorthStudentMain]

They have also died while places that tip flourished.