Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.Floor supervisor Sarah Lemley, right, works the dining room at Split-Rail on April 20, 2023, in Chicago. The restaurant charges a 20% service fee for every dine-in check order to cover operational costs and provide better wages for the staff.
“I’ve always been a person where I’ve needed two jobs to just balance out between one restaurant being slow and the other one being busy,” said Gonzalez, who works as a server and expediter, a liaison between the kitchen and service staff. The new pay structure at Topolobampo has allowed him to focus on just the one job, he said.
In Chicago, the standard minimum wage is $15.40 per hour and the subminimum wage is $9.24. The subminimum wage is $7.80 in Illinois and $2.13 on the federal level.Some restaurant owners cited business reasons for reducing their reliance on tipping. The service fee model helps Daisies, a Logan Square pasta restaurant with a 25% fee, retain employees at a time when restaurant workers have, said Joe Frillman, chef and owner.
Split-Rail now has a 20% service fee, which goes toward paying employees higher base wages — the lowest-paid employees at the restaurant make $18 an hour — and benefits including health care for full-time employees and paid vacation time. The restaurant also offers a 401 program with a match for employees who have worked there for at least a year.
The service fee system is not for everyone, Schor tells prospective candidates interviewing for front-of-house positions. People who thrive in competitive, sales-oriented environments might want a job at a restaurant where they work for tips, she said. “We chose this to provide a steady and fair income for employees,” Hammel said. “And if that’s a value that you know you want to center, you’re willing to pay the price.”Many of the restaurant owners who have moved to service fee models said they hadn’t received significant pushback from diners since they implemented the fees. “At the beginning, I would have people confused about it, not necessarily complaining,” said Gonzalez, about fielding questions from diners at Topolobampo.
“If they eliminate the tipped minimum wage, it would give us the impetus to explain it to our guests in a way that would make sense to them,” he said.