Waiters feel jab of LongHorn’s labor costs-Changes made to tip-share plan

[Omaha Steve]

Story below.

Please note I have not been in a Darden restaurant in 3 years. Once I learned about the seal hunt and Darden, Marta and I have stayed out. We love Red Lobster and the Olive Garden BTW.

http://www.harpseals.org/boycott/redlobdemolist.html



RED LOBSTER buys more Canadian seafood than any other corporation on earth. These purchases DIRECTLY SUPPORT the annual massacre of baby seals.

It is for this reason that they may hold a golden key to ending the seal slaughter once and for all...

The first step to our success is to pressure them to STOP BUYING CANADIAN SEAFOOD!




http://www.telegram.com/article/20080727/NEWS/807270611/1002/BUSINESS

By Ellen Simon THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK— With the cost of everything from air conditioning to whipped cream rising, many restaurants have been raising prices. LongHorn Steakhouse is passing on part of the tab to its servers.

LongHorn has instituted what its parent company Darden Restaurants Inc. calls “a more disciplined” tip-sharing plan — a policy servers say is cutting their earnings.

Under the program, waiters must give up a greater percentage of their total sales each shift to hosts and bartenders — 2.25 percent, up from 1 percent. So a server who sells $1,000 worth of food and drinks on a Friday night must “tip out” $22.50 to the hosts and bartenders.

The tip outs, which allow the company to pay bartenders and hosts a lower wage, were one factor helping Darden, one of the nation’s largest restaurant companies, shave labor expenses as a percentage of sales by 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter, the company said in its latest earnings call.

The policy helped “offset wage pressure inside the restaurant,” Darden President Drew Madsen said on the call. “It’s a more disciplined tip share program than they’ve had in the past and as that progresses and we see results of that more broadly in more restaurants, that’s something we can look at in all of our restaurants.”

Darden has 1,702 restaurants; its chains include Olive Garden and Red Lobster.

The company’s focus on tip sharing comes as restaurants scramble to trim expenses as customers eat out less and food prices climb. Adding to costs was the increase in the federal minimum wage, from $5.85 an hour to $6.55, on Thursday.

“A lot of employers are asking how they can get their hands on part of their waiters’ tips to offset labor costs,” said Paul Paz, an Oregon waiter who runs the Web site waitersworld.com.

FULL story at link.

[juajen]

1. So, even though legislated, we cannot possibly give our poor a

raise in the minimum wage. This is just sick. Notice their increase in sales of over l and a half billion dollars. They care not for their workers, and I will not eat there again. All of my daughters waited tables while getting their degrees. They worked excruciatingly hard, and got stiffed regularly by cheap people, some of them you would know they're so famous. All of them made around 2 dollars per hour, and sometimes that's all they got that day. Not even worth going to work for; but, they had to have flexible hours. Restaurants really take advantage of these hard workers.

America should shout out for automatic tips added on to tickets. In return, restaurants could actually keep better watch for inefficient wait staff.

[WriteDown]

2. Totally disagree....

on one point. Go to somewhere like the bahamas where gratuity is included. The worst service anywhere. Last time I was there, I had a waiter literally keep us waiting fof over an hour and then THREW food onto the table. I was surprised the porcelain didn't break.

[Angleae]

3. Actually, I've seen this at Red Lobster

At a table next to me. Those people were pissed.