Mackensy Lunsford

mlunsford@citizen-times.com

ASHEVILLE - Going out to eat can be fraught with uncertainty, from navigating the wine list to understanding social norms. But some restaurants are working to take the guesswork out of tipping, one of the few pay models that relies on rules that are more custom than policy.

A flat pay rate for all employees is the new way at Blue Dream Curry House, a casual Patton Avenue restaurant where owners Chris Cunningham, James Sutherland, and Sean Park have decided to start all staff members, regardless of position, at $12.50 per hour. That means a dishwasher on his or her first day will make the same hourly wage as a new server, with opportunities for pay increases after 60 days.

In February, bonuses based on sales at the restaurant brought hourly wages to $17.50 an hour, a figure that stands to rise during the busy season. It also places both servers and kitchen staff at or above the 75th percentile for restaurant industry earners, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The restaurant owners say the move stands to help with staff retention in a business notorious for turnover.

While many view waiting tables as temporary work, that's not necessarily the case, especially in tourist-driven Asheville, said Cunningham, who argues that ensuring servers net a consistent paycheck can be beneficial to both the employee and employer.

"(Serving) can be a career, even at this level, if the pay structure is correct, and if there's not this vagary in salary based upon the whim of 150 bosses over the course of the night, all with different expectations you don't know going in as a server," he said.

Unfortunately, the reality of tipping is lost on many diners, the restaurant owners say. Although it's customary to tip 20 percent or more on the cost of a meal, often customers, particularly older diners, haven't gotten that memo.

But it's important information. The Fair Labor Standards Act sets the base minimum cash wage for tipped employees at $2.13.

Some states have raised that minimum wage. It's $10 per hour in California, for example. But North Carolina is one of 17 states where servers make the federal minimum. That means most servers are dependent upon diners to help pay the bills.

To ensure servers earn consistent cash, Blue Dream has hiked menu items some 25 percent, a move that results in entrees starting at $10, more with protein add-ons tacking on an additional $4-5.

But while some customers balk at the elimination of the tipping process, the restaurant owners say their model is nothing new.

"In any other industry, you're not going to have a line item that says 'salesperson charge,'" Sutherland said. "That's how you price your product, with wages included."

A revolutionary policy?

Christine Troianello, a former Tupelo Honey server who now works at Blue Dream Curry House, says her customers often ask how the system is working out for her.

"I've been serving my whole working life," she said. "And this was the first February I was able to pay rent, pay my bills and feed myself without stress."

Troianello said she's been better able to budget now that she knows what her financial future holds. While making a consistent hourly wage on slow nights, she doesn't even miss the windfalls she used to enjoy when peak-season Saturdays filled her pockets with cash.

What's more, her bosses dole out bonuses based on a percentage of sales on payday, which gives everyone in the restaurant incentive to work harder, she said.

"I might sometimes make a little less than I would at Tupelo, but on average, throughout the year, I'll be making more," Troianello said.

Blue Dream Curry House isn't the only restaurant to change its tipping policy.

In New York, Danny Meyer's Union Hospitality Group has eliminated tipping in all 13 of its restaurants, a move some call revolutionary, even as some diners rebel by throwing cash on tables in opposition to the restaurants' rules.

At Blue Dream Curry House, Troianello said she's faced similar antics, as not all diners agree with the restaurant's new policy. She said many who object like to ensure proper service with promises of cash.

"Some people who don't like it maybe are a little resentful because they like to be able to reward or punish a server with their tips," she said. "But it really shouldn't be the customer's job to pay a server's wages, and it's also not the customer's job to tell them how they're doing at their job ... not to the point where you're not making money because of it."

Losing out on cash?

Not everyone likes the idea of collecting a paycheck in lieu of tips.

Mary Taylor, a 37-year-old single mother who's been waiting tables in Asheville since 1999, is one of them. Taylor keeps track of her tip averages on an app, and said she tends to make about $27 an hour on most of her approximately 6-hour shifts.

"As a mother, working shorter shifts and making the most money is the attractive part of it, but I can see how people would want to count on tips in December," she said. "But I wouldn't do this for $12 an hour."

In fact, said Taylor, "most people my age that have been in Asheville doing this forever probably would be opposed to it."

Local martial arts instructor Porter Hughes said hard-working servers will lose out. "My wife used to make $27-28 an hour on a good night," he said. "No restaurant is ever going to pay anywhere near that. Ever."

But Andrea McFadden, a 39-year-old mother who waits tables at Addissae Ethiopian restaurant, said she would be "OK with it."

"Especially here with the seasonal change, there are many days of struggle," she said. "A guarantee would be a blessing."

Asheville Independent Restaurants executive director Jane Anderson said she's not aware of other AIR restaurants that have made the move to a tipless model, with many restaurateurs taking a "wait-and-see" attitude while grappling with paying for employee health insurance under new Affordable Care Act rules.

Michel Baudouin, owner of Bouchon and Creperie Bouchon, doesn't like the idea of nixing tips.

Baudouin, a native of France, said his homeland has a horrible reputation for service due to the European model of not tipping. Eliminating tips causes poor servers to coast on hourly wages while leaving customers no way to protest shoddy service, he said.

"The good servers will lose," he said. "It will lower the standard of quality and, as a customer, all I will be able to say is that I will not come back to this restaurant because I got lousy service."

Baudouin wants his servers to be financially successful, something he says is both a result of — and a catalyst for — a profitable restaurant and happy customers.

"It is not the restaurant owner's responsibility to manage the servers' cash flow," he said. "It is in the restaurant owner's leadership capabilities to build a restaurant that is not so affected by the slow season."

But Cunningham disagrees. "It's the restaurant owner's job specifically to manage the pay flow of the staff, not the customer's job," he said. "Why is the restaurant industry the only one that allows customers to dictate the pay percentage of any of the members of the staff?"

For her part, Troianello thinks servers should be able to do their jobs without the dangling carrot of incentives, "because that's what you do."

"There's no other line of work where your boss hires you and doesn't expect you to do a good job," she said. "You're expected to do your job, and do it well, because that's what you were hired to do. If you don't, there's other people who would love to take your place."

Though the three owners of Blue Dream Curry House have made personal sacrifices to put their servers on the payroll to ensure that guaranteed pay, they believe the policy will pay off eventually. For now, they simply believe it's the right thing to do.

"All three of us are strong believers in happy staff, happy customer," Park said. "We might be sacrificing now, but if you have a staff that cares about a place, it's going to benefit us in the long run."

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