It Begins. Woke Minnesota Restaurant Adds 15% “Equity Charge” to All Bills – Accuses Its Customers of Being Racist Tippers

Broders’ Pasta Bar in Minnesota announced it is adding a 15% “equity charge” to all bills because its customers are racist tippers.

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Here is their announcement.

WHAT IS THE BENEFITS & EQUITY CHARGE?

Historically, restaurants have relied on customer tipping to supplement the wages of its customer-facing service staff. It is part of a traditional restaurant economic model and many states have allowed reduced minimum wages for service staff in the form of a tip credit. Studies have also shown that there is inequity and built-in bias in the way consumers give tips. In general, Black or Brown servers receive less tips than Caucasian servers. There is gender bias as well. In restaurants, immigrants and people of color work mostly in the kitchens and have no access to gratuities to supplement their hourly wage.

Because Minnesota state law does not allow a tip credit and does not allow restaurants to pool tips, only the direct-facing service employee can decide if there should be sharing of tips among other service workers. Increased menu prices constitute higher tips which, along with increased minimum wages, adds to the disparity between the front customer-facing service staff and back of house kitchen staff.

In the wake of racial injustice protests and the closures due to Covid, now is the time for Broders’ to reimagine its economics and provide fair pay across the company. Minnesota does not allow restaurants to impose an automatic gratuity and pool tips. What we can do is impose a Benefits & Equity Charge on our sales that is not a gratuity. Our Benefits & Equity Charge is applied entirely to employee compensation. This supplement helps us to set a $16 minimum hourly wage for customer facing employees, $18 minimum hourly wage for kitchen employees (more with increased responsibility) above all government standards, to provide benefits of paid time off & health insurance, and to distribute 5% of daily revenue to all employees based on hours worked. Altogether this allows everyone in our company to earn a real living wage.

The 15% Benefits & Equity Charge is not a gratuity. This means any small gratuities left on top are completely discretionary, but if you choose to tip it will be distributed to only the customer-facing service staff.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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