Server Says She Was Fired From Restaurant Job After Receiving $4,400 Tip

[demmiblue]

A server in Bentonville, Arkansas, claims she was let go from her job after she and another employee were tipped a combined sum of $4,400. The gesture reportedly sparked a dispute over the restaurant's policies regarding tips, which resulted in her firing.

Ryan Brandt, a server at Oven and Tap, told KNWA that she and a coworker were recently waiting on a party of over 40 diners. Each person left a $100 tip, resulting in $4,400 between them.

The generous gift wasn't spontaneous: Grant Wise, the owner of real estate company Witly, reportedly checked the restaurant's tipping policy in advance to make sure everything would go according to plan.

Inevitably, things became more complicated. Brandt told KNWA that she was asked by her employer to pool her tips with her coworkers—despite the fact that in her three-and-a-half years at the restaurant, she had never before been asked to pool her tips.

"I was told that I was going to be giving my cash over to my shift manager, and I would be taking home 20 percent," Brandt explained to the news outlet.

https://www.newsweek.com/server-says-she-was-fired-restaurant-job-after-receiving-4400-tip-1658378

[7wo7rees]

1. Fuck this.

Ryan deserves better.

[JohnSJ]

2. Most reputable restaurants do pool their tips, and that is usually told them when they are hired

[Celerity]

4. in her three-and-a-half years at the restaurant, she had never before been asked to pool her tips

[malaise]

7. That simple

[malaise]

8. That simple

[totodeinhere]

13. She probably has never been asked to pool her tips because she had never got a tip that large

before.

With a tip that large she should want to share it with the other workers.

[Celerity]

15. non sequitur

With a tip that large she should want to share it with the other workers.

she was not given the choice

[totodeinhere]

16. Whether she was given the choice or not she could have wanted to share it even though she was

not able to.

[Celerity]

20. Again, that is not germane to the discussion. You are injecting a subjective element into

an objective review of what occurred.

[totodeinhere]

23. What's wrong with injecting a subjective element into it?

I though that we were free to say what we want here as long as we don't violate the TOS.

[paleotn]

32. You are. Type away. But everyone else is ALSO free to poke holes in it.

That's how free discourse within the basic TOS works.

[Celerity]

35. Because it has nothing to do with the simple factual evidence that my initial reply dealt with, it's

tangential and muddies the waters.

I though that we were free to say what we want here as long as we don't violate the TOS.

another non sequitur

I said nothing about you being allowed (or not being allowed) to post anything. I was simply contesting the relevance of your reply.

[colorado_ufo]

17. Do you know how much work it is for just two people to take care of FORTY diners?

If this were a USUAL policy, to pool tips, and this were a USUAL dining party of two to ten diners, that would fly. But the constant refilling of glasses, getting orders, serving, checking on the customers, and on and on, would necessitate at LEAST a hundred trips to the kitchen each. This is back-breaking work.

Maybe the other employees should be generous enough to rejoice in their co-workers' good fortune and congratulate them on a job well done!

[totodeinhere]

19. What about the work required by the cooks to cook for that many people? Shouldn't it

be shared with them? And I bet the busgirls or boys had a big job cleaning up after a party that big. Maybe I'm old fashioned but I have always believed in sharing.

[colorado_ufo]

21. Sharing is excellent.

Being forced to share by your boss, who apparently gets part of it, is not.

The money was given directly to the wait staff and intended for them. How it is used should be up to them, if this is not an established restaurant policy. Yes, of course it would be great for them to give a portion to their fellow workers, especially the cooks and bus people (unless the wait staff has to do the busing themselves), but the amount should be up to them.

BTW, what is with this establishment, assigning only two people to such a large party?

[gldstwmn]

52. If the menu is pre set and you have a good busser or back waiter then two servers

plus the bussers could probably handle it. This place looks like a pub so it's probably one course plus drinks. They are probably regulars but you can believe they won't go back there again. What a terrible move by the manager.

[qazplm135]

26. cooks get paid a full salary

waitresses don't, thus why they get tips.

[pnwmom]

30. The restaurant should be compensating the Chef enough for their jobs. Since when

do the chefs share in the tips of the low paid waiters?

[xmas74]

39. Tipped wage in Arkansas is $2.63 an hr

I guarantee the kitchen makes more.

[gldstwmn]

51. If the guest wanted her to have it specifically

then that's how it should have shaken out. Not everyone in the restaurant gets paid the same shitty hourly wage either. The final say is with the guest.

[qazplm135]

25. welp

this isn't most restaurants. They hadn't done it til now.

[JohnSJ]

27. got it

[secondwind]

3. A very joyous occasion was ruined by her manager... what a shame.

[JohnSJ]

5. and why is the shift manager getting 20%? Something isn't right in that place

[Celerity]

18. Where does it say the manager was getting 20%? I cannot find that statement in the article.

https://archive.ph/Sxas4

[JohnSJ]

22. I misread it. My mistake. Thanks.

[Celerity]

36. No problem!

[JohnSJ]

37. +++

[ms liberty]

28. I think the server was saying the shift manager took her cash and she got 20% of it

My understanding of the quote is that the shift manager confiscated/forced the sever to hand over the tip money and then gave her the server back 20% of it. She's quoted in the clip in the body of the OP.

[JohnSJ]

29. I got it. I misread it. Thanks

[ms liberty]

31. Happens to all of us sometimes!

[JohnSJ]

33. +++

[lpbk2713]

6. The tips were in the form of cash.

Therefore they were intended for the employees who served them. If the party had
wanted to leave a gratuity for the entire business they would have added it to their bill.

[Mr. Ected]

9. Pay the wait staff a livable wage and relegate tipping for exceptional service only

Why do patrons have to subsidize the overhead costs of restaurants by tipping staff? Add the costs to the meal and be honest about it.

[Prof. Toru Tanaka]

10. Only problem with that is

unscrupulous owners who would pocket the difference.

[Iggo]

43. "...and mind your own fucking business when it comes to other people's tips."

Is how that sentence should end.

[Sherman A1]

11. This is BS

and amounts to wage theft by the employer.

[Tommy Carcetti]

12. Oven and Tap is about to go through some things, me thinks.

Google and Yelp will not be kind.

[durablend]

14. Already being torched on Yelp

Seems their Facebook page is unavailable for some reason........

[Bev54]

24. Could someone explain to me how this all works, being Canadian I am confused

I keep hearing that servers are given a very low wage as they are expected to live off their tips??? If that is the case and the cooks etc are provided a higher wage, would it not be the server's tip?

I like to tip cash to my server so they can keep it, as I do my hairdresser, instead of adding it to the credit card.

[paleotn]

40. It's complicated and varies by state....

By federal law, servers must make at least $7.25 per hour in tips and wages, with employers having to make up the difference to $7.25 if tips fall short. In more progressive states, the minimum is higher. $13 to $14 in CA. $11.25 here in VT. Many red states have no minimum of their own and fall back on the federal minimum wage. A quick google search shows $11.00 in Arkansas. Not bad for a red state, but still pretty damn bad.

[appalachiablue]

42. Herman Cain & 'the other NRA' (I give cash for service too).

'Herman Cain’s Enduring Lobbying Triumph.' Mother Jones, July 30, 2020.

- It has kept restaurant workers poor for decades... In 1996, Cain won his greatest triumph as a lobbyist. In a 2016 piece on the racist history of tipping, my colleague Maddie Oatman explained: America’s first minimum-wage law, passed by Congress in 1938, allowed states to set a lower wage for tipped workers, but it wasn’t until the ’60s that labor advocates persuaded Congress to adopt a federal tipped minimum wage that increased in tandem with the regular minimum wage.

> In 1996, former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain, who was then head of the National Restaurant Association, helped convince a Republican-led Congress to decouple the 2 wages. The tipped minimum has been stuck at $2.13 ever since. Restaurant employers were supposed to help servers earn tips to make up the difference between this tipped minimum wage and the regular minimum wage. But the result was by and large a disaster for restaurant servers. According to the Economic Policy Institute, in 1996, the tipped minimum was half the regular minimum wage; by 2014, it was “equal to a record low 29.4% of the regular federal minimum wage of $7.25,” where it remains today.

Around 2/3rds of workers making the tipped minimum are women, EPI reports. Forcing women to rely on the whims of customers for the bulk of their livelihoods exposes them to sexual harassment: “Tipped workers have a median wage (including tips) of $10.22, compared with $16.48 for all workers. While the poverty rate of non-tipped workers is 6.5%, tipped workers have a poverty rate of 12.8%.”

Tipped workers rely on food stamps at a rate twice that of the general population.

The burden of Cain’s lobbying accomplishment falls heaviest on Black women. “The subminimum wage results in a nearly $5 per hour differential in wages (including tips) between Black tipped women & white men tipped workers nationally, & a nearly $8 per hour differential in New York,” the group found. The low minimum is more painful still, the group adds, as the coronavirus destroys demand for restaurant dining, & a “majority of workers & employers surveyed are reporting that tips are down at least 50%."
Under pressure from One Fair Wage & other advocates, there has been a stirring among restaurateurs in recent years to abandon the whole vexed institution of tipping & pay all workers a regular wage...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/07/herman-cains-enduring-lobbying-triumph/

[Bev54]

44. Thanks, I have always wondered why! Here in Canada, servers are just like every other

worker and in our city it is $15. minimum wage and tips are extra. I know when my son was younger and was working at a nightclub, good servers could easily earn $800 - $1000 per night in tips. Most of them were University/College students who only worked on Friday and Saturday nights and made good money. Some outlets have shared tips but often that is a percentage (often 20%) go into the pot for the non servers.

[appalachiablue]

45. That's exemplary, glad to hear & not surprised

since Canada is a Full Democracy, in the top ranks, unlike the US which had slid lower in that category and others over the last 30 years.

Good for your son, the other workers, and shared tips- the way it should be.

[mountain grammy]

46. Nine, nine, nine!!!!!

I shed not a tear when COVID took this man. the two tier minimum wage is despicable, outrageous, and should be illegal and unconstitutional.

[appalachiablue]

48. The one and only- a monster in business & personally

with women as well it's claimed. A real swine of a person.

This shameful racket needs serious reform, decades ago!

[DENVERPOPS]

47. I always give the tip in cash

and never put it on the credit card. I tip the pizza delivery person this way, as well as any take out driver, waiter in restaurants, etc.
I even hand the person who helps the waiter five bucks........

Of course I worked as a bus boy in two of the finest restaurants in Denver at that time, and I remember what went on..........

[paleotn]

34. Management making retroactive policy on the fly.....

That's generally NOT a good idea and creates more problems than it solves. I get lessons learned, change the policy going forward, but it's unfair to do it retroactively.

[xmas74]

38. The minimum wage for tipped employees in Arkansas

Is $2.63 an hour.
Screw that manager.

[Iggo]

41. She was. And fuck that restaurant.

[orleans]

49. that manager should be fired!

"The generous gift wasn't spontaneous: Grant Wise, the owner of real estate company Witly, reportedly checked the restaurant's tipping policy in advance to make sure everything would go according to plan."

grant wise should go after the restaurant owner--insist the two servers get their full tip money and if they were fired they need to be rehired. with a bonus!

he didn't make sure about the tipping policy in advance in order for the fucking restaurant to confiscate the tips his large group intended for their servers.

[gldstwmn]

50. I used to have a manager who added himself to our tip pool.

Until we caught him that is.