On our menu right now it says, "We include a 20 percent service charge with checks so everybody in the restaurant makes a living wage." It gets shared. It's distributed. Nobody in the restaurant makes less than $14 [an hour] at the end of the day.READ MORE: A Look Inside the 'Sanctuary Restaurants' Popping Up Across America
By not having gratuity, the hospitality-included price is just 20 percent higher. You can just distribute that however you want, so rather than having $45-an-hour employees and having a $9-an-hour employee, you have $30-an-hour employees, and then nobody is below $15 an hour. Some of the servers at the top of that payscale don't get that top wage, but I could argue that that's not real. That's not an equal distribution of the work that is happening there.In my restaurant, nobody makes tipped wage. Nobody makes $2.13 an hour (minimum wage for employees who receive tips). At $2.13 an hour we get a tax credit from the government; If I pay them more, i don't get that credit anymore.Why does that exist? Who is the powerful restaurant lobby that makes sure it stays that way? The National Restaurant Association. So we're trying to make change.The psychology that goes into making money by tips, it's an impoverished mentality, and it's the same mentality that leads to generations of classism, and it's the same mentality that NGOs around the world are trying to solve with sex workers.
This system that we're abiding by makes an antagonistic relationship. The customers don't win. The bartender doesn't win, because the psychology that goes into making money by tips, it's an impoverished mentality, and it's the same mentality that leads to generations of classism, and it's the same mentality that NGOs around the world are trying to solve with sex workers. It's the same power struggle, and so why in the United States in 2016 are we still abiding by this?You look at the president-elect's nomination for secretary of labor, it's like the Darth Vadar of possibilities.
[Joining Sanctuary Restaurants is] a response to the whole system and what it feels like this election is representing: a smaller voice for women, a smaller voice for minorities, and sort of a stronger voice for fear-mongering.
By preaching bravery, by sharing with other restaurants, forming an alliance where owners are of a certain position of power and of the same mindset, we can form an alliance to show that we can retain talent better this way.There's financial interest in this for the restaurant, but this is only going to really work if we form a strong enough alliance to combat the NRA [National Restaurant Association] lobby, to combat the minimum-wage tax credit, and get that repealed, and get that changed to a more progressive law that makes sense for everybody that works in a restaurant, that really brings awareness about what the facts are, and how to shift your business model to take care of people, and how that takes care of you as an owner. I do believe this, but we need to prove it. So we're trying to prove it, and we're trying to work with other people who are trying to prove it.After the election, Adam and I spent a couple days upset and in shock, like 52 percent of America was. After that our whole staff was sad, but it's our job to be leaders—it's our job to set examples and get everything going. Adam brought it up and was like, "What are we going to do here to make it better?"It feels like a dark ages with social issues, so do we accept that or do we fight? Our population, we don't fight enough. We have to fight for what we believe in.As told to Brad CohenIt feels like a dark ages with social issues, so do we accept that or do we fight? Our population, we don't fight enough. We have to fight for what we believe in.