A clump of Chapter-11s or near Chapter-11 restructurings in 2009-2011 and 2012 to date, of larger, older brands, particularly those acquired in the 2005-2008 era, is an indicator that PE doesn’t work in every situation.

However, at the recent, ICRXchange Conference, we did see several smaller, younger companies that were PE sponsored that looked attractive for later IPO. Call us for our perspective.

John A. Gordon
Pacific Management Consulting Group
restaurant analysis and advisory
http://www.pacificmanagementconsultinggroup.com

Now tip sharing, that is a different story. The reason it is so despicable, is because they are cutting the busser/bartender’s pay and substituting it with gifts left by guests to the server. If you owned a moving company, you wouldn’t take tips left to the movers and use it to pay your receptionist… would you? Servers already share their tips. And, believe it or not, they do a much better job of sharing than Darden does. Servers in Darden restaurants usually share on average, 15 percent of what they make. They give 10 percent of it to the busser, and 5 percent to the bartender (and that’s regardless of what alcohol they sold). Tonight, I figured out how much I would have normally given my bartender and busser, and I compared it to how much Darden requires me to tip. I would have (based on what I earned in tips) given the busser and bartender a combined tip of 18 dollars. Darden only required that I give 12 dollars. Plus, the bartender tonight went from 11 dollars an hour to 5.50 an hour, and the busser went from 9 dollars an hour to only 5. That is a slap in the face to any emplyee, who works in an industry that never gives raises based upon the (theoretical) fact that when prices increase, tips increase. They think that, that is a good enough raise. Does anyone else see how illogical that is.

But you know what? Tonight, I tipped my busser and bartender the difference. Why? Because they deserve it! Because they have been treated unfairly. I know that my extra tip may not make up for the money they have lost hourly, but it’s the principal that matters! If a lowly server can figure that out, then why can’t a corporation. Darden even had managers sit down with each busser and bartender and show them percentages and graphs, to explain how they would benefit from this program, but it was all a lie. They led them to believe that they were doing them a favor. All the while concealing the real reason… That they wanted to cut costs to have a bigger profit. Not once did they mention that the company was cutting costs. They made it out to be a benefit for them. How shady! How pathetic! How un-human!

You know, in our branch of the company, one of the principals of our branch is…”When seeking to make a change, we seek the opinions of those closest to the aciton, listen, and value their ideas.” Yeah, right! It was all a sham! They asked no one.

As mentioned in the article, those who are weak and/or lazy team members are going to end up making the same money as those who work hard. What incentive is there to ever work hard now?

I agree 100% that standardized tipping methods create mediocre service. I’ll take it one step further and say that auto-gratuity lowers performance. Gratuity is something that should and can be added when exceptional service has been delivered. It’s extra.