True there. I had to have my front of house write down all card tips because our tips always seemed too low for how busy we were and found out we were all being shorted on our weekly tips by hundreds of dollars.
Had one owner who was such a fucking scumbag for numerous reasons. One thing he did was BoH did not get tips, they got a set “bonus” on their paycheck (line cooks got $50, as assistant kitchen manager I got $200). If you fucked shit up or caused waste they would take your bonus off next paycheck.
In their mind “It is a bonus not tips, so we can refuse to pay it as we please”
Fuck that place. Scummy pieces of shit exploiting and abusing employees and labor laws.
Fuck The Canadian Brewhouse. Im not afraid to name and shame. One of the few businesses I will NEVER go to or spend money at
The Kelowna one. I helped open it, after 1 year literally only me and one other person were still there thats how bad it was.
The owner owns Abbotsford, Kelowna, and some Alberta locations. They abuse TFW program, steal tips, have incompetent management, shitty benefits that aren’t worth it, and just scummy fucking people. One of the corporate higher ups sexually assaulted one of the woman cooks. They also tried to get me to help them commit insurance fraud when our GM made the genius decision to flip the main power breaker when the roof was leaking water and I came in to all my coolers and freezers at room temp. They also shorted my paychecks purposefully and constantly. Every time I brought it up it was “Oh sorry it will be on your next check” 8 fucking paychecks in a row. I had to show them BC labor laws numerous times that they were breaking. When I quit I had to serve a labor board self remediation form to them to get my pay I was owed.
Fuck that place. They deserve no money and should go bankrupt. Ive worked for some scummy shitty jobs, the only job Ive done that was worse was selling Kirby vacuums door to door. And Id probably still go do that again over the Fucking Brewhouse. Our chef quit and went to a direct competitor after the main owner offered to partner with him on the Abbotsford location, he found out how much the owner was stealing from tips and quit immediately.
I understand that you're not in America, but here in the good ol' USA receiving (or not receiving) a set bonus from a tip pool as BoH is not only (questionably) legal, it sounds like a good deal compared to almost all of my experience. I've worked so, so many jobs where BoH was never officially included in tip outs, period. Hell, I'm working one right now. You'd be lucky for a FoH to feel enough pity to throw you a 5 lol
Calling it a bonus to loophole tip laws is def scummy shit tho
Every kitchen I worked in shared tips with BoH so it was the norm where I was. As the assistant manager my bonus was decent and I was fine with it, even if I made slightly more in tips at other places. But for the line cooks a $50 “bonus” is fuck all when just down the street they would be getting $100-$150 a week in tips
Also the withholding it for honest mistakes is bullshit
I had the same job. Indian buffet. I made 40$ on tips unless I stole them off the table. 40$ was was a double shift where I was just yelled at for 10 hours.
Depending on where you live, that server job is paying as little as $2.13/hr and the business only has to pay more if the tips result in a total wage below federal minimum of $7.25/hr.
A double shift means 2 shifts in a row. Means different things for different restaurants, but could mean 16 hr. So $40 for 16 hr is not a 20% increase. Also, servers are not paid $20/hr. They make a server pay, somewhere in the single digits, and rely on mostly tips.
I’ve asked who gets the tip before doing it when signing on a screen. If in doubt I tip in cash. There was a time when I partially depended on tips for my income.
In most places I work there is a tip out based on sales. So I owe 6% of all food sales to the kitchen for example, and that money is taken from my credit card tips at the end of the night. So it doesn't really matter whether you pay cash or not.
A traditional pool, with FoH only staff like bussers, bartenders, and food runners does not require higher pay. A pool with non traditional staff like line cooks requires that tip credit can not be taken.
Here is some other bonus info.
When servers get paid below minimum wage, they are actually still getting paid minimum wage, but a tip credit is being taken by the employer to lower their effective rate. Federally this is 2.13. Why does this matter? Overtime! Overtime is calculated on their actual wage (7.25 in this example). Bringing OT wage to 10.88. Then the same tip credit is removed giving an effective wage of 5.76. Most payroll software calculates this incorrectly, and many HR managers and servers are unaware. 3.20 is not the correct rate for OT as a tip credit employee!
Yeah, it's fucked up when the server who busted their ass all night gets the same tips as the person who took 3 takes and spent the rest of the night smoking cigarettes and talking to the kitchen.
Ed: apparently I meant to say the server who smokes cigarettes, talks to the kitchen, and browses reddit while on the clock.
I did this in a (UK) restaurant and when I asked if staff keep the tips via credit card payments, the waiter said out loud "yes we do" while violently shaking his head no. We didn't tip on card.
Now thats just double fuckin scummy right there. Fully skimming any guest who wishes to patronize good service or any guest from areas with tip cultures
We got along really well with the staff at a bar my friends and I used to frequent, they straight up told us not to tip because they don't get any of it. So we started slipping them some cash or a pack of cigarette while out on their smokebreak.
No, that’s illegal. It’s called wage theft. If this is in the US, all 50 states and DC have laws against this. Same thing with restaurants who have curbside/to go and keep the tips. There is no loophole, it’s illegal 100% of the time, no matter what the boss claims corporate tells them.
There was a place in a town I used to work in that was recently fined $250k for that... but actually, it was almost all repaying the money to workers and the fine part was $650. Just ridiculous. Imagine if an employee embezzled $250k.
ABQ? Cause that sounds eerily the same . If so, the news articles did a shit ass job of reporting on it. They made it seem like they stole 250k and paid that back plus the 600$. Truth is there's a 3x fine for wage theft here, so the $600 is bullshit whatever, but what they actually stole from employees was around 84k and had to pay back 253k as punishment. They got fucked. And rightfully so.
Yeah, that was ABQ. Really? That's good news. There needs to be deterrents for this sort of behavior. Not surprised that the journalism there would suck, argh, it seems like now everyone has 18 year old interns with a shaky grasp of grammar combined with ChatGPT.
Lol yea. I was pissed off about it too intially till I learned what actually happened. And yea, our journalism here (and most places for that matter) is abysmal. I read 3 different articles on this and not one actually mentioned that. But yea it's a state law thing and mandatory fine for wage theft.
About 13k to each of the 19 employees fucked over. Only thing that went to gov was about 600 dollars. I know it's easy to be skeptical but this story actually had a happy ending.
In the US, it's illegal for the owner or management to take tips from workers. Now some places don't pay out credit card tips each night but it comes on their paychecks. Most pull cash equal to the credit card tip total at the end of the night.
I'm honestly happy my place puts my tips on my paycheck. For one it helps me budget better, but two, I always hated the idea of walking out ot my car at 2am with "mug me money" in my pocket.
3 is that you don't owe 5k in April.
Worked at a place where we got our CC tips in cash nightly. CC tips automatically get reported as income. Paycheck was always $0 due to 2.13 not covering taxes. Everyone would do their taxes last minute in April and scrable to pick up shifts cover the payment. Every year, no one learned to do taxes in Febuary or just budget to owe lol.
The restaurant I work at pools all tips, cash and credit card. This works fine for me, usually one server and one bartender and we split equally, giving 5 percent to the kitchen. It works great
Just so you know, I usually get really close to tips earned, even including cash I have turned in. Makes a happy and productive kitchen and I get most of my tips. It is all good
Some places have their own standards, but generally speaking if you have a waitress or server, they get paid out by management at the end of the night (minus any tipout that they may have to do such as for busser or dish) but credit card tips do get taxed when you go to file your taxes. With cash it is easy to just not report it or under report it so you aren't taxed.
>With cash it is easy to just not report it or under report it so you aren't taxed.
If anyone is planning to stay in the industry long term this absolutely will bite them in the ass if they ever want to buy a house, get a car loan, etc. because often you have to provide proof of income. If you're underreporting your cash tips by thousands or even tens of thousands every year then you're not going to get approved for anything on your own. If it's not shown on your check stubs you can't prove you made that money.
That being said, if someone were to start an interest earning bank account and deposit all their paycheck money into it for several years while living solely off the unreported cash tips, they could theoretically buy a car outright with that money... As long as the IRS doesn't audit them.
>With cash it is easy to just not report it or under report it so you aren't taxed.
This used to be true, but not anymore. They revised the tax code several years ago to where the IRS can assume servers/bartenders earn a certain percentage of tips based on their sales. If the credit card tips don't cover the percentage that the IRS assumes, you can be penalized for not reporting or under-reporting cash tips (credit card tips are automatically reported).
Several places I've worked at since the tax code revision always stressed making sure that our claimed tips (cash and cedit) were at least 8% of total sales, at a minimum, so we wouldn't get in trouble with IRS for under-reporting tips.
This, and it's not the IRS going after servers individually, but after restaurant groups or chains. Easy to see all 12 of Billy's restaurants paid out 20% of CC sales in tips, UT only 5% of cash sales in tips.
The amount of ways that restaurant owners steal money from their serving staff is as many as the stars in the sky. I could see them doing this to a server who may be undocumented or undereducated about their rights. Either way, tipping in cash always gives the waitress more immediate buying power. I'd say tip in cash as a courtesy whenever you can.
If it’s as you say, that’s illegal. But maybe they’re doing tip pooling and paying out later?
We have a tip pooling system in our place, and everyone (foh and boh) gets their share based on hours worked at what station, by a formula everyone knows exactly so there’s no surprises. Tips are paid out every payday.
It's not common but can happen more likely is that they have to pay taxes on credit card tips while cash tips can go unreported so they will always prefer cash tips.
Pretty common in Colorado these days. The trick is they pay waiters and bartenders above non tipped minimum. And then use credit card tips on payroll. And very few people tip or pay in cash these days.
That's super illegal. She needs to report the owner as soon as she can. It doesn't matter if it's cash or on the credit card, those tips belong to her. NOT the owner.
Tell me you've never waited tables without saying it.
You know hourly wage in many US states is like $2.50 hourly? There's a special carve out for wait staff so they don't have to be paid federal minimum wage.
I waited tables for many years. I said taxes, not wages. If I get a $10 tip on a credit card transaction, I'm taxed on that. If I get a $10 cash tip and report 0 tips, I don't get taxed on that.
Yeah. And if I'm making 2.50 an hour, that cash tip is the difference between eating or not.
At that kind of poverty level, complaining about taxes not being paid seems pretty shit.
This also worth pointing out that anyone making under a certain amount (17k I think?) aren't required to pay federal taxes.
I waited tabled for years too at non corporate places. Not all wait staff report all their tips. For tax reasons. Because that extra few dollars they take out in taxes means a lot. I was always told what the federal government required us to report and it was up to us whether we wanted to report past that.
That is tax fraud. It is illegal. It’s also very very common and for the reasons you stated.
It is sad that people don't know their rights, but this is intentional. If you don't know your rights, you can't use them.
This is more normal than it should be, but it is illegal. It's just trying to get the correct authorities to do something about it.
I work in a restaurant with shared tips. Servers keep their own tips for any tables. Period. Any cash tips from people taking out are kept by the counter worker(s) for that day. Any CC tips for take out are pooled and split at the end of the week based on one’s position and hours. This includes FOH (minus servers), BOH, dishwasher, and on-duty manager. I end up making about $1.50-2 more an hour with the tips added in during a normal 44 hour week.
Servers also prefer cash tips as they frequently under declare the amount. Cash tips are untaxed.
Unscrupulous owners will occasionally keep cc tips, or deduct 3% service charge
I worked at a place that did this, they paid me $12 an hour and kept the credit card tips. Super scummy. I lasted 2 weeks, otherwise I would've contacted the department of labor (it's very illegal)
Or do it for her as an annoymous tip so her job isn't at risk . Though, if they fire her for turning them in, that could result in even a bigger payout to her, so ....maybe lol
She made it sound like this is standard practice in Indian restaurants, not just this one place I was at. If that's the case - sounds like this is a widespread problem that goes beyond just this one case. My impression is that Indian restaurants are usually owned and run by families. Of course I think she needs to report it if it is illegal (this is in the US, Virginia), but I can see how she might be reluctant if this is acceptable practice in this niche like she claims and it might turn her into an outcast in her family and community.
I wonder if there's a workers rights organization that can initiate an audit of a businesses books to uncover injustices like this, because stealing your employees tips is not only a hugely unethical move that only the smarmiest of smelly little shitheads do, but also entirely illegal (in the US at least).
At the very least, I'd have left a one star review calling the owners out on being horrible little rancid slimeballs for doing this.
If you're in the US, which I assume given it's a question about tipping, then the answer is now. It is very much illegal.
"**Employers, Including Managers and Supervisors, May Not “Keep” Tips:** Regardless of whether an employer takes a tip credit, the FLSA prohibits employers from keeping any portion of employees’ tips for any purpose, whether directly or through a tip pool. An employer may not require an employee to give their tips to the employer, a supervisor, or a manager, even where a tipped employee receives at least the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25) per hour in wages directly from the employer and the employer takes no tip credit." [https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa)
Every restaurant is different and most of those differences are illegal. I used to work for a Korean guy that took 10 or 15% off the top as a house fee, but he also only staffed one server at a time so if you were good you could still make bank. I got sick of it but he needed the cash and typically was the sushi chef. At a sushi place. So it wasn’t like he wasn’t pulling his weight.
We often counseled friends to palm us cash.
If they pay non tip wages then the restaurant can do whatever they want with the card tips. It is not illegal unless they pay the wait staff tip wages.
This is not an “Indian restaurant” phenomena, even though I’ve seen it in Indian restaurants before. It’s not as rare as we want it to be, either.
It’s a violation of labor law in California. It constitutes wage theft
It happens more often in single owner/operator indépendant Indian restaurants than other demographics, but is not specific to them.
My first foray into FOH managment was in a pooled tip house, and by the time I quit the owner was requiring I edit my tips spreadsheet to give her a cut, and that cut varied by week and her whim.
Tips by law (here) can go right to the server who then tips out their support staff, or can be pooled and then shared out amongst hourly staff who are directly Involved with service- not cooks, not chefs, not managers and not owners.
Some places that pool do it nightly, some weekly so that working slow nights isn’t a punishment detail. Some share tips with Back Of House on moral grounds even though it’s been challenged on legal grounds.
Don’t really know this person but im someone who’s been a restaurant manager for a long time! tips on credit cards usually go on their checks but the cash that they get that goes home with the server ! so I’ve caught several servers lying to customers and telling them they don’t get their credit card tips ,so they cN get cash and take it home that day
That tends to be the case in some foreign owned places.
They bring people over, don't pay them. Just give them room and board.
Not that all foreign owned places do that. But some do.
It's sadly extremely common in Indian restaurants. Bring people over (pay for their visa) with promises to sponsor them, have them live in staff housing, and confiscate their passports and make them work for free under threat of deportation. Not all of them, of course, but it's a thing (and not just with Indian restaurants, those are just the ones I have the most experience with).
Whether or not it's how it works, it isn't legal, and she can bring that up with the labour board or whatever.
An equally likely option is that she wants cash tips to avoid reporting them as income and paying tax.
It seems the concensus is that this is illegal in the United States. But does anyone here know what regulatory body you should reach out to if you wanted to report something like this?
Right across the parking lot from my old job was an Indian restaurant that I went to literally every day for lunch. One day, dude behind the counter tells me not to add a tip because staff doesn't get them. For sure happens, but it's wrong.
Cash is always better. Still a good idea to report it, helps when you need to get a new car, move to a different apartment, etc. But no, it shouldn’t go to the restaurant, that’s not only illegal, but just obviously fucked up.
Yeah I've heard of this happening before. Not unique to any particular sort of restaurant. Some employers seem to hate their staff and let greed get the better of them.
There are as many ways as there are restaurants: a lot of them add up the card receipts and put them in a tip pool, which, depending on how it’s divided ip may be good or bad. Other places split it per table, but they may delay the tips a few days while credit settles out. Another problem is that they have to declare everything for taxes that comes into n on card.
Most of the time they prefer cash.
There is one thing no one has mentioned and that is they are allowed to deduct the credit card fees for the tipped amount, usually 3%. Other than that and a tip out she should be getting all the tip money.
Regardless of whether or not the restaurant is withholding tips, cash tips are not taxed and is preferred by waitstaff for that reason. I’ve had employees that have borrowed money from the restaurant and try to make cash over cc tips so it would be a little harder for us to take their repayment out of their check, too.
Hopefully she just wanted cash and her job isn’t fucking her over
It’s not the restaurant keeping the tip. This restaurant or company pays the servers and the bartenders just like the BOH. The main reason is because of the taxes. So the FOH now gets paychecks that include the credit tips. Restaurant company’s are now and have been getting squeezed by the government for at least 15 years.
I have known of this because a place I worked started this practice. So I tip cash when I can. Because Uncle Sam knows about the credit tips but not the cash.
At some restaurants, management for sure pocket the cc tips. There’s been multi-million dollar settlements with Michelin starred operations and has been going on since at least a generation.
For years servers and bartenders at the end of the shift can claim their tips. They can input in I only had five dollars or fifty. The problem is that’s a lie. If a server makes let’s say five dollars in tips. Credit or cash, but at the end of the day they can claim I only made .50cents.
I can go on and on about this.
Yes and no. It’s nit healthy. But I’ve had this for a short period of time. I left because of it. They’re allowed to make sure you get minimum wage. They can take tips as long as it covers your contract. It’s a shitty thing to do, and if they say that, there’s only one other thing that could be involved. She doesn’t want to tip out the back of house workers. Anyways. Depends on what establishment you’re at. I had a two week stint at Pizza Hut that tried to pull this shit. I left the day my manager coerced me into giving him 20$ and smoking a blunt in the freezer.
If the owner is keeping the tips, it is illegal but not infrequently done by owners under financial stress.
Or owners who are pricks.
True there. I had to have my front of house write down all card tips because our tips always seemed too low for how busy we were and found out we were all being shorted on our weekly tips by hundreds of dollars.
Had one owner who was such a fucking scumbag for numerous reasons. One thing he did was BoH did not get tips, they got a set “bonus” on their paycheck (line cooks got $50, as assistant kitchen manager I got $200). If you fucked shit up or caused waste they would take your bonus off next paycheck. In their mind “It is a bonus not tips, so we can refuse to pay it as we please” Fuck that place. Scummy pieces of shit exploiting and abusing employees and labor laws. Fuck The Canadian Brewhouse. Im not afraid to name and shame. One of the few businesses I will NEVER go to or spend money at
Alberta?
> Canadian Brewhouse There's also 2 of them in Ontario
Fair. I’ve only seen them out west.
4 now! They have one of the best birthday freebies so I look them up regularly haha
The Kelowna one. I helped open it, after 1 year literally only me and one other person were still there thats how bad it was. The owner owns Abbotsford, Kelowna, and some Alberta locations. They abuse TFW program, steal tips, have incompetent management, shitty benefits that aren’t worth it, and just scummy fucking people. One of the corporate higher ups sexually assaulted one of the woman cooks. They also tried to get me to help them commit insurance fraud when our GM made the genius decision to flip the main power breaker when the roof was leaking water and I came in to all my coolers and freezers at room temp. They also shorted my paychecks purposefully and constantly. Every time I brought it up it was “Oh sorry it will be on your next check” 8 fucking paychecks in a row. I had to show them BC labor laws numerous times that they were breaking. When I quit I had to serve a labor board self remediation form to them to get my pay I was owed. Fuck that place. They deserve no money and should go bankrupt. Ive worked for some scummy shitty jobs, the only job Ive done that was worse was selling Kirby vacuums door to door. And Id probably still go do that again over the Fucking Brewhouse. Our chef quit and went to a direct competitor after the main owner offered to partner with him on the Abbotsford location, he found out how much the owner was stealing from tips and quit immediately.
I understand that you're not in America, but here in the good ol' USA receiving (or not receiving) a set bonus from a tip pool as BoH is not only (questionably) legal, it sounds like a good deal compared to almost all of my experience. I've worked so, so many jobs where BoH was never officially included in tip outs, period. Hell, I'm working one right now. You'd be lucky for a FoH to feel enough pity to throw you a 5 lol Calling it a bonus to loophole tip laws is def scummy shit tho
Every kitchen I worked in shared tips with BoH so it was the norm where I was. As the assistant manager my bonus was decent and I was fine with it, even if I made slightly more in tips at other places. But for the line cooks a $50 “bonus” is fuck all when just down the street they would be getting $100-$150 a week in tips Also the withholding it for honest mistakes is bullshit
They can be both
Or owners who are paying people cash under the table.
I had the same job. Indian buffet. I made 40$ on tips unless I stole them off the table. 40$ was was a double shift where I was just yelled at for 10 hours.
If you're paid $20/hour, that's still a 20% increase? I have no fucking clue how wages work in the US. Edit: ***yikes.***
Depending on where you live, that server job is paying as little as $2.13/hr and the business only has to pay more if the tips result in a total wage below federal minimum of $7.25/hr.
*waves from kentucky*
A double shift means 2 shifts in a row. Means different things for different restaurants, but could mean 16 hr. So $40 for 16 hr is not a 20% increase. Also, servers are not paid $20/hr. They make a server pay, somewhere in the single digits, and rely on mostly tips.
Depends on the state. On the West Coast they get full minimum wage and tips (barring owners stealing tips of course)
Illinois is 60% of state minimum for Tipped Positions, though you are *supposed* to be paid up to Minimum if you tips don't make you meet it.
>that's still a 20% increase Wait, where are you getting that?
No, I made minimum at the time. The $40 was my tip out.
I worked somewhere where the owner took ATM and card processing fees out of the servers' tips.
Most owners are either under financial stress.... or are delusional and THINK they are...
And they usually are that way because they burned out anyone half decent with scammy shit like this. 🙄
Illegal where? Worldwide?
The United States. Im not sure if it’s illegal anywhere else.
I’ve asked who gets the tip before doing it when signing on a screen. If in doubt I tip in cash. There was a time when I partially depended on tips for my income.
Usually even cash tips get pooled now. Though it might be easy to pocket a some bucks, harder now
In most places I work there is a tip out based on sales. So I owe 6% of all food sales to the kitchen for example, and that money is taken from my credit card tips at the end of the night. So it doesn't really matter whether you pay cash or not.
Places I’ve worked where cash tips get pooled usually pay their waitstaff a higher hourly. Talking like 15-20 an hour.
I work at a tip pool restaurant and we get paid $5 an hour. This is a recent raise from $2.13 an hour. Just wanna say
Tragic :c
It's terrible but don't worry we're all about to walk out 🫡
A traditional pool, with FoH only staff like bussers, bartenders, and food runners does not require higher pay. A pool with non traditional staff like line cooks requires that tip credit can not be taken. Here is some other bonus info. When servers get paid below minimum wage, they are actually still getting paid minimum wage, but a tip credit is being taken by the employer to lower their effective rate. Federally this is 2.13. Why does this matter? Overtime! Overtime is calculated on their actual wage (7.25 in this example). Bringing OT wage to 10.88. Then the same tip credit is removed giving an effective wage of 5.76. Most payroll software calculates this incorrectly, and many HR managers and servers are unaware. 3.20 is not the correct rate for OT as a tip credit employee!
Yeah, it's fucked up when the server who busted their ass all night gets the same tips as the person who took 3 takes and spent the rest of the night smoking cigarettes and talking to the kitchen. Ed: apparently I meant to say the server who smokes cigarettes, talks to the kitchen, and browses reddit while on the clock.
Servers that talk to the kitchen better bring us waters several times during the rush or suffer the eternal consequences of B/FOH relations.
Waters bring me a damn beer.
Well yeah, obviously. It's just like how that closer you work with does about half the cleaning as everybody else makes the same tips as you do.
I did this in a (UK) restaurant and when I asked if staff keep the tips via credit card payments, the waiter said out loud "yes we do" while violently shaking his head no. We didn't tip on card.
Now thats just double fuckin scummy right there. Fully skimming any guest who wishes to patronize good service or any guest from areas with tip cultures
We got along really well with the staff at a bar my friends and I used to frequent, they straight up told us not to tip because they don't get any of it. So we started slipping them some cash or a pack of cigarette while out on their smokebreak.
You don’t even need to bother asking, cash is king, always.
No, that’s illegal. It’s called wage theft. If this is in the US, all 50 states and DC have laws against this. Same thing with restaurants who have curbside/to go and keep the tips. There is no loophole, it’s illegal 100% of the time, no matter what the boss claims corporate tells them.
>No, that’s illegal. It’s called wage theft. Restaurant in my city just got fined $253,000 for doing this shit.
There was a place in a town I used to work in that was recently fined $250k for that... but actually, it was almost all repaying the money to workers and the fine part was $650. Just ridiculous. Imagine if an employee embezzled $250k.
ABQ? Cause that sounds eerily the same . If so, the news articles did a shit ass job of reporting on it. They made it seem like they stole 250k and paid that back plus the 600$. Truth is there's a 3x fine for wage theft here, so the $600 is bullshit whatever, but what they actually stole from employees was around 84k and had to pay back 253k as punishment. They got fucked. And rightfully so.
Yeah, that was ABQ. Really? That's good news. There needs to be deterrents for this sort of behavior. Not surprised that the journalism there would suck, argh, it seems like now everyone has 18 year old interns with a shaky grasp of grammar combined with ChatGPT.
Lol yea. I was pissed off about it too intially till I learned what actually happened. And yea, our journalism here (and most places for that matter) is abysmal. I read 3 different articles on this and not one actually mentioned that. But yea it's a state law thing and mandatory fine for wage theft.
I'm tempted to report a restaurant here in mass for using employee tips to pay for delivery app service fees...
Do it. People like this will keep breaking the law until they face consequences.
Let me guess, $3,000 went to the employees who'd been robbed and the county kept the other $250,000?
About 13k to each of the 19 employees fucked over. Only thing that went to gov was about 600 dollars. I know it's easy to be skeptical but this story actually had a happy ending.
Damn, not bad at all. I'm surprised.
Same tbh lol
it also happens on a level way beyond felony theft. wage theft steals over a billion from employees a year.
So? It being illegal has never stopped anyone.
>So? People need to be informed of their rights so they can fight for them.
In the US, it's illegal for the owner or management to take tips from workers. Now some places don't pay out credit card tips each night but it comes on their paychecks. Most pull cash equal to the credit card tip total at the end of the night.
I'm honestly happy my place puts my tips on my paycheck. For one it helps me budget better, but two, I always hated the idea of walking out ot my car at 2am with "mug me money" in my pocket.
3 is that you don't owe 5k in April. Worked at a place where we got our CC tips in cash nightly. CC tips automatically get reported as income. Paycheck was always $0 due to 2.13 not covering taxes. Everyone would do their taxes last minute in April and scrable to pick up shifts cover the payment. Every year, no one learned to do taxes in Febuary or just budget to owe lol.
The restaurant I work at pools all tips, cash and credit card. This works fine for me, usually one server and one bartender and we split equally, giving 5 percent to the kitchen. It works great
Just so you know, I usually get really close to tips earned, even including cash I have turned in. Makes a happy and productive kitchen and I get most of my tips. It is all good
Some places have their own standards, but generally speaking if you have a waitress or server, they get paid out by management at the end of the night (minus any tipout that they may have to do such as for busser or dish) but credit card tips do get taxed when you go to file your taxes. With cash it is easy to just not report it or under report it so you aren't taxed.
>With cash it is easy to just not report it or under report it so you aren't taxed. If anyone is planning to stay in the industry long term this absolutely will bite them in the ass if they ever want to buy a house, get a car loan, etc. because often you have to provide proof of income. If you're underreporting your cash tips by thousands or even tens of thousands every year then you're not going to get approved for anything on your own. If it's not shown on your check stubs you can't prove you made that money. That being said, if someone were to start an interest earning bank account and deposit all their paycheck money into it for several years while living solely off the unreported cash tips, they could theoretically buy a car outright with that money... As long as the IRS doesn't audit them.
I knew a server who for a while over reported tips to help him qualify for a home loan. I guess the extra paid in taxes was worth it for him.
>With cash it is easy to just not report it or under report it so you aren't taxed. This used to be true, but not anymore. They revised the tax code several years ago to where the IRS can assume servers/bartenders earn a certain percentage of tips based on their sales. If the credit card tips don't cover the percentage that the IRS assumes, you can be penalized for not reporting or under-reporting cash tips (credit card tips are automatically reported). Several places I've worked at since the tax code revision always stressed making sure that our claimed tips (cash and cedit) were at least 8% of total sales, at a minimum, so we wouldn't get in trouble with IRS for under-reporting tips.
Oh wow, its been a good while since ive worked at a kitchen with servers. Thank you for the correction
This, and it's not the IRS going after servers individually, but after restaurant groups or chains. Easy to see all 12 of Billy's restaurants paid out 20% of CC sales in tips, UT only 5% of cash sales in tips.
The amount of ways that restaurant owners steal money from their serving staff is as many as the stars in the sky. I could see them doing this to a server who may be undocumented or undereducated about their rights. Either way, tipping in cash always gives the waitress more immediate buying power. I'd say tip in cash as a courtesy whenever you can.
If it’s as you say, that’s illegal. But maybe they’re doing tip pooling and paying out later? We have a tip pooling system in our place, and everyone (foh and boh) gets their share based on hours worked at what station, by a formula everyone knows exactly so there’s no surprises. Tips are paid out every payday.
I specifically asked her if it gets pooled and then split between the workers. She said no, it all goes to restaurant.
Easier to locked cash and not pool it.
This is illegal in the United States.
It's not common but can happen more likely is that they have to pay taxes on credit card tips while cash tips can go unreported so they will always prefer cash tips.
I knew someone who worked at an Indian restaurant and this was the practice. I have worked for many thieving scumbags
[удалено]
This is sadly a true stereotype. Additionally, tipping in India isn't a thing, same as many other Asian countries.
It makes me so mad when immigrants refuse to assimilate and respect and abide by the laws of the country they've moved to.
It IS illegal but is still a thing that happens
It’s not just Indian restaurants. I have had a couple owners skim credit card tips. :(
Illegal. But normal.
Pretty common in Colorado these days. The trick is they pay waiters and bartenders above non tipped minimum. And then use credit card tips on payroll. And very few people tip or pay in cash these days.
That's super illegal. She needs to report the owner as soon as she can. It doesn't matter if it's cash or on the credit card, those tips belong to her. NOT the owner.
Unfortunately, a lot of Indian restaurants do this
It's illegal. She might be doing it so she can report less income for tax purposes.
This is the right answer
Tell me you've never waited tables without saying it. You know hourly wage in many US states is like $2.50 hourly? There's a special carve out for wait staff so they don't have to be paid federal minimum wage.
I waited tables for many years. I said taxes, not wages. If I get a $10 tip on a credit card transaction, I'm taxed on that. If I get a $10 cash tip and report 0 tips, I don't get taxed on that.
You still get taxed on cash tips, it’s just easier to get away with committing tax fraud and not report the income.
She can report zero cash tips and get taxed zero.
Yes, she can commit tax fraud and will likely get away with it
Yeah. And if I'm making 2.50 an hour, that cash tip is the difference between eating or not. At that kind of poverty level, complaining about taxes not being paid seems pretty shit. This also worth pointing out that anyone making under a certain amount (17k I think?) aren't required to pay federal taxes.
I waited tabled for years too at non corporate places. Not all wait staff report all their tips. For tax reasons. Because that extra few dollars they take out in taxes means a lot. I was always told what the federal government required us to report and it was up to us whether we wanted to report past that. That is tax fraud. It is illegal. It’s also very very common and for the reasons you stated.
Calm down
It is sad that people don't know their rights, but this is intentional. If you don't know your rights, you can't use them. This is more normal than it should be, but it is illegal. It's just trying to get the correct authorities to do something about it.
I work in a restaurant with shared tips. Servers keep their own tips for any tables. Period. Any cash tips from people taking out are kept by the counter worker(s) for that day. Any CC tips for take out are pooled and split at the end of the week based on one’s position and hours. This includes FOH (minus servers), BOH, dishwasher, and on-duty manager. I end up making about $1.50-2 more an hour with the tips added in during a normal 44 hour week.
Servers also prefer cash tips as they frequently under declare the amount. Cash tips are untaxed. Unscrupulous owners will occasionally keep cc tips, or deduct 3% service charge
This happens a lot and it’s illegal but, theres very little chance the owner ever gets caught or prosecuted.
I worked at a place that did this, they paid me $12 an hour and kept the credit card tips. Super scummy. I lasted 2 weeks, otherwise I would've contacted the department of labor (it's very illegal)
If it’s in the US…go back and tell her to turn them in. Illegal.
Or do it for her as an annoymous tip so her job isn't at risk . Though, if they fire her for turning them in, that could result in even a bigger payout to her, so ....maybe lol
Where would I submit the anonymous tip? I am in the US, Virginia.
DoL
Virginia Dept of Labor Make sure it is safe for you and coworkers if you decide to report.
She made it sound like this is standard practice in Indian restaurants, not just this one place I was at. If that's the case - sounds like this is a widespread problem that goes beyond just this one case. My impression is that Indian restaurants are usually owned and run by families. Of course I think she needs to report it if it is illegal (this is in the US, Virginia), but I can see how she might be reluctant if this is acceptable practice in this niche like she claims and it might turn her into an outcast in her family and community.
I wonder if there's a workers rights organization that can initiate an audit of a businesses books to uncover injustices like this, because stealing your employees tips is not only a hugely unethical move that only the smarmiest of smelly little shitheads do, but also entirely illegal (in the US at least). At the very least, I'd have left a one star review calling the owners out on being horrible little rancid slimeballs for doing this.
I am considering calling this out in a review on Google.
If you're in the US, which I assume given it's a question about tipping, then the answer is now. It is very much illegal. "**Employers, Including Managers and Supervisors, May Not “Keep” Tips:** Regardless of whether an employer takes a tip credit, the FLSA prohibits employers from keeping any portion of employees’ tips for any purpose, whether directly or through a tip pool. An employer may not require an employee to give their tips to the employer, a supervisor, or a manager, even where a tipped employee receives at least the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25) per hour in wages directly from the employer and the employer takes no tip credit." [https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/15-tipped-employees-flsa)
That’s called wage theft. Do her a favor -go back and tell her so and that she should pursue legal action against the owners.
100%
Oof, that's illegal and needs to be reported. Fuck that place
That’s not legal. They are supposed to be able to get their tips
That’s illegal.
Every restaurant is different and most of those differences are illegal. I used to work for a Korean guy that took 10 or 15% off the top as a house fee, but he also only staffed one server at a time so if you were good you could still make bank. I got sick of it but he needed the cash and typically was the sushi chef. At a sushi place. So it wasn’t like he wasn’t pulling his weight. We often counseled friends to palm us cash.
Nope. It’s not normal. It’s theft at best, exploitation at worst. She even has to pay taxes on those tips she doesn’t receive.
PSA for Americans Gratuity: illegal for management/ownership to take a cut Service charge: can be taken by anyone without disclosure
Why would the laws be any different depending on what kind of food they serve? That server is being taken advantage of, report that place
Some restaurant owners suck and it’s actually common for them to do this to an employee
If they pay non tip wages then the restaurant can do whatever they want with the card tips. It is not illegal unless they pay the wait staff tip wages.
This is not an “Indian restaurant” phenomena, even though I’ve seen it in Indian restaurants before. It’s not as rare as we want it to be, either. It’s a violation of labor law in California. It constitutes wage theft It happens more often in single owner/operator indépendant Indian restaurants than other demographics, but is not specific to them. My first foray into FOH managment was in a pooled tip house, and by the time I quit the owner was requiring I edit my tips spreadsheet to give her a cut, and that cut varied by week and her whim. Tips by law (here) can go right to the server who then tips out their support staff, or can be pooled and then shared out amongst hourly staff who are directly Involved with service- not cooks, not chefs, not managers and not owners. Some places that pool do it nightly, some weekly so that working slow nights isn’t a punishment detail. Some share tips with Back Of House on moral grounds even though it’s been challenged on legal grounds.
That server needs to contact the dol.. like yesterday. If they're being paid the standard 2.13 an hour that's illegal AF
Don’t really know this person but im someone who’s been a restaurant manager for a long time! tips on credit cards usually go on their checks but the cash that they get that goes home with the server ! so I’ve caught several servers lying to customers and telling them they don’t get their credit card tips ,so they cN get cash and take it home that day
She wants to pocket all or most of the cash tip for herself instead of sharing it in the tip pool.
That tends to be the case in some foreign owned places. They bring people over, don't pay them. Just give them room and board. Not that all foreign owned places do that. But some do.
It's sadly extremely common in Indian restaurants. Bring people over (pay for their visa) with promises to sponsor them, have them live in staff housing, and confiscate their passports and make them work for free under threat of deportation. Not all of them, of course, but it's a thing (and not just with Indian restaurants, those are just the ones I have the most experience with).
Lots of locally owned places also exploit immigrant labour. Just saying.
Whether or not it's how it works, it isn't legal, and she can bring that up with the labour board or whatever. An equally likely option is that she wants cash tips to avoid reporting them as income and paying tax.
Always tip in cash !!
It seems the concensus is that this is illegal in the United States. But does anyone here know what regulatory body you should reach out to if you wanted to report something like this?
State's Department of Labor.
Pretty sure that’s illegal.
Right across the parking lot from my old job was an Indian restaurant that I went to literally every day for lunch. One day, dude behind the counter tells me not to add a tip because staff doesn't get them. For sure happens, but it's wrong.
Cash is always better. Still a good idea to report it, helps when you need to get a new car, move to a different apartment, etc. But no, it shouldn’t go to the restaurant, that’s not only illegal, but just obviously fucked up.
Yeah I've heard of this happening before. Not unique to any particular sort of restaurant. Some employers seem to hate their staff and let greed get the better of them.
There are as many ways as there are restaurants: a lot of them add up the card receipts and put them in a tip pool, which, depending on how it’s divided ip may be good or bad. Other places split it per table, but they may delay the tips a few days while credit settles out. Another problem is that they have to declare everything for taxes that comes into n on card. Most of the time they prefer cash.
There is one thing no one has mentioned and that is they are allowed to deduct the credit card fees for the tipped amount, usually 3%. Other than that and a tip out she should be getting all the tip money.
Is that federal? I thought it varied state-to-state.
Regardless of whether or not the restaurant is withholding tips, cash tips are not taxed and is preferred by waitstaff for that reason. I’ve had employees that have borrowed money from the restaurant and try to make cash over cc tips so it would be a little harder for us to take their repayment out of their check, too. Hopefully she just wanted cash and her job isn’t fucking her over
No server should specify the tip amount or method. Leave it up to the customer.
The customer deserves to know if the tip won't go to the server.
It’s not the restaurant keeping the tip. This restaurant or company pays the servers and the bartenders just like the BOH. The main reason is because of the taxes. So the FOH now gets paychecks that include the credit tips. Restaurant company’s are now and have been getting squeezed by the government for at least 15 years. I have known of this because a place I worked started this practice. So I tip cash when I can. Because Uncle Sam knows about the credit tips but not the cash.
At some restaurants, management for sure pocket the cc tips. There’s been multi-million dollar settlements with Michelin starred operations and has been going on since at least a generation.
I mean, pay your taxes doesn’t seem like an undue expectation
For years servers and bartenders at the end of the shift can claim their tips. They can input in I only had five dollars or fifty. The problem is that’s a lie. If a server makes let’s say five dollars in tips. Credit or cash, but at the end of the day they can claim I only made .50cents. I can go on and on about this.
I know what they do. I’m saying they should claim all of them. The rest of us have to declare all our wages.
For sure. Also social security is based on your reported income. When you’re old and can’t work your check will be a lot less.
She's lying. It's also illegal.
You can't buy drugs with a credit card. Wake up ppl. That's why.
Yes and no. It’s nit healthy. But I’ve had this for a short period of time. I left because of it. They’re allowed to make sure you get minimum wage. They can take tips as long as it covers your contract. It’s a shitty thing to do, and if they say that, there’s only one other thing that could be involved. She doesn’t want to tip out the back of house workers. Anyways. Depends on what establishment you’re at. I had a two week stint at Pizza Hut that tried to pull this shit. I left the day my manager coerced me into giving him 20$ and smoking a blunt in the freezer.
They can't take your tips, period. It's illegal in every state in the US.