The Failed Doctrine of Trickle-Down Economics ©2016 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved

The other night at my job, Chez Swanky™, it was just two of us on the floor, my good work-friend Mikey B and me. Things were pretty slow. Mikey B loves the biz and he's pretty knowledgeable. With little to keep us busy except ogling the tumbleweeds roll through the dining rooms and watching the hostess stand (Chez Swanky usually doesn't have an official door whore on weeknights), Mikey B and I commenced to chatting. The subject was tip-outs.
     We often don't have to tip out anyone but a bartender. They get 1½ %. We also have to kick back 1% of our credit card (not cash) tips. I don't like the latter but it's pretty much standard policy at a lot of your higher end eateries like Chez Swanky. I have no problem whatsoever tipping out the bar and 1½ %'s pretty reasonable. If more than one bartender's on, they still just get 1½ % and divvy it. But here's the thing: Chez Swanky being a small, independently owned fine-dining restaurant, it's not that unusual for owner Donny J to be the evening's booze-slinger. He still gets the tip-out.
     I mentioned to Mikey B that I didn't think that was right and it might even be illegal. Mikey B disagreed, although he conceded that I had a pretty good argument.
     It's not that big a deal to me, though. I make pretty good money at Chez Swanky and for the most part respect Donny J. I know he's not getting rich and it won't surprise me any if Chez Swanky closes down sometime in 2016 when the lease is up (although I think it's more likely that a new lease will be signed and we'll keep rocking). I don't at all begrudge him the tips he gets from patrons who actually sit at the bar. If I owned a bar (which I have no ambition toward), I could easily see myself picking up a little extra cheese (but not from my employees) behind the taps occasionally.
     Anyway, not a big deal to me and I'd probably never mention it to Donny J▬or anyone else unless I was asked▬except that a day or two after my convo with Mikey B, Donny J brought it up himself.
     He didn't actually ask me about how I felt about him getting tip-outs, of course. He asked me how I felt about having more bus help more often, which would naturally lead to me tipping out more. I'm all for it! He told me about a couple of ways it might be done and then asked me for my input. I shared it and, while we were on the subject and he'd kind of brought it up, told him that I was wondering if his being the owner and receiving tip-outs from the waitstaff might be borderline unethical and maybe illegal.
     Donny J stammered something about our tip-outs being pretty reasonable for that type of restaurant by industry norms (true) and a weak defense of his little bit of extra income that sounded a lot like the failed doctrine of trickle-down economics. Then he changed the subject and shortly after, our discussion ended, without rancor.

Gotta Speech These Folks ©2015 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved

     Hello and welcome to The Endangered Species Grill. They call me Joe and I'm delighted to be your waiter this evening. May I begin by telling you about our features tonight? Great. We have a terrific appetizer for you: Buffalo tenders. Please be aware that, of course, our buffalo tenders are made from the flesh of real buffalos. They have just a hint of spice and go nicely with a cold beer, perhaps a Falstaff® or Pete's Wicked Ale®. Our featured entrees tonight are tenderloin filet of Northern White Rhinoceros atop Tibetan Faro in an Iberian Lynx cream gravy with Thylacine bordelaise. If that appeals to you, I recommend you order it immediately; the Northern White Rhino is critically endangered and we expect to run out this evening. We also have our split Passenger Pigeon breast pot pie with heirloom Poke Sallet and a gravy made from Bald (like me!) Eagle entrails. You might feel that $250.00 is expensive for a pot pie, even one as good as ours, but it's actually quite a bargain considering how difficult it is for our chef to obtain quality passenger pigeon breasts these days. And it pairs wonderfully with a nice, chilled bottle of Bourgogne Aligoté...
     Maybe you work in a nice, upscale, fine-dining kind of restaurant and you have to spiel like I just did to every table all night. It's not a problem; it's part of the job and we're glad to do it. But if I ran a classy, upmarket kind of dining establishment I'd make it mandatory that the hosting professionals would be able to speech the features, et cetera, just as well as the waitstaff is expected to. Especially the good-looking, 19-year-old Junior College co-ed that just double-sat you fourtops on the busy night where the food runner called in sick, the dishwasher is crazy backed up and the kitchen is in peril of going down in flames at any minute.

Long Ago When Cash was King ©2015 by Joe Sixtop all rights reserved

     Ok, this episode of These American Servers™ is going to start with a couple of jokes that I hope you'll find somewhat amusing. The first one is included strictly for SEO purposes and it's filthy. The second one is more family-friendly and, for a clean joke that's probably 90 years old (even though it was new to me), pretty funny.
     These three guys, Adrian Peterson, Goran Dragic, and Stevie Wonder walk into a bar. The bar is called Champions League and it's famous for excellent  Pączki. But these guys just wanted to get their drink on, and so they did. For some reason, after awhile the conversation turned to who had the largest genitalia, everybody bragging and making claims. Eventually a way to settle the dispute was arrived at: Everyone would whip their junk out and set it on the bar for visual inspection (I guess Stevie'd just have to take someone's word for it).. At the exact moment the johnsons were arrayed on the counter, who should walk in but German Chancellor Angela Merkel? "Would you care for a menu this evening?" asked the hostess.
     "No thanks," replied the leader of unified, democratic Germany, in perfect English, "I'll just have that delicious-looking buffet!"
     Have you Amber Heard this one? An arial and an antenna got married. The ceremony itself was merely Ok, but the reception was amazing!

     I have this co-worker I like a lot. Her name's Merrie. Last night we both closed. After most of the crew was gone, Merrie and I each got two tables. My fourtop's bill was $216.00. We don't have to close out our credit cards immediately, so I merely glanced at the tip line on the voucher. The amount I saw was 30 dollars, which is not a disaster but I felt a little chintzy from people who were nice and seemed to have a really good dining experience but oh well. Plus I had a deuce that left me $20. Merrie didn't fare quite as well, getting about $37.00 total on her couple of tables she got during our late mini-pop. I told her I'd gotten a total of $50. Then when it was time to check out, I realized that the tip I had thought was $30 was actually $50. So instead of the 50 bucks I'd told Merrie I'd gotten, I actually harvested $70! But I kept my mouth shut about that realization.

     Are you familiar with a "fast-food" concept called Sonic®? Their servers are called car-hops. You park next to an intercom and place your order through it. A car-hop brings it out to you and asks if they can do anything else and negotiates payment. I rarely visit Sonic, but when I do, I always pay and tip in cash. One time I received a Sonic gift card for my birthday. There was nowhere on the voucher to leave a rip. I always have cash, so this was no problem to me. But last night the afore-mentioned Merrie told me that she'd taken her daughter to Sonic and paid with her Visa® debit card. For a good waitress who makes decent money, I'm often surprised by how Merrie never has any actual, you know, money with her. Merrie scrounged up some change from the floorboard and maybe got some jingle from her daughter  in order to leave something. But Sonic needs to put a tip line and place to total up the payment on their vouchers. I only go to Sonic once or twice a year (awesome banana splits!) so no big loss to them, but until they rectify the situation, I won't go there at all.

     I hope you had a happy Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras, and wish you a Happy Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year if you're like in Taiwan or something). Cheers!