PITTSBURGH — Bar Marco in Pittsburgh is the latest restaurant to nix tips, offering its employees salaries of $35,000 and benefits instead.
The Bar Marco owner announced on its Facebook page that, starting in April, the restaurant will no longer accept gratuities. Instead, employees will be paid a salary and offered health-care benefits and shares in the company. In Pennsylvania, the minimum wage for servers is $2.83. “All of our current employees have seen and approved the contract,” owner Robert Fry told Next Pittsburgh. “They will have a lot of responsibilities, too — like being present at bi-monthly finance meetings. We want complete transparency. We want people who want to be part of what we are doing and who want to grow with us.”
A similar business model was briefly implemented at Smoke ‘N’ Water restaurant in Nanoose Bay, B.C., last summer; it lasted for three months before the owner pulled the plug on the program and reverted to accepting gratuities.
