Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Today's Specials:
STAFF: Do You Have One of These Bad Top 10 Bad Boss Traits?
No one likes a bad boss, but I guarantee we've all had one at some point in our careers -- be it in the restaurant industry or elsewhere. Question is: are you that bad boss to your restaurant's staff?
DID YOU KNOWS…
Grande Heat
An Arianna Grande fan has gone viral with his hot-pepper contest. In the video, he eats a hot pepper every time the pop star says “um” in her VMA acceptance speech. And fair warning: there are a lot of ums.
Cold Hard Coffee
A Texas-based coffee company is voluntarily recalling its new coffee brew because of undisclosed ingredients that have “striking similarities to Viagra.” The FDA issued a warning for the chemical last year that it may interact with other prescription drugs to cause some perky side effects. Talk about a pick me up.
Instagrammers Love Soccer
Soccer is the most popular sport on Instagram. Roughly 146 million of Instagram’s 700 million-plus users consider themselves “world football fans.” This chart shows the distribution of Instagrammers and sports fans, and soccer is way in the lead. Double tap that.
ONE DRINK POLICY
Why it matters to you: A NY restaurant limits parents to one drink when dining with kids.
A restaurant in New York has introduced a new rule to crack down on drunk drivers from their establishment. Peddlers Bar in Clifton Park, NY has created a one drink policy to any guests dining with children to limit the parents’ alcohol intake. Many of the bar’s seasoned staff has explained that the one drink policy is easy to enforce and rarely gets anyone that opposes the rule. Those who do disagree, are asked to leave. Legally, the restaurant has the right to enforce their own rules regulating alcohol consumption according to the state of New York.
General Manager Melisa Gravelle, says “I could never live with myself knowing that I killed somebody driving. I could never do that so and it’s a choice that you can avoid.” When restaurants make bold policies such as this one from Peddlers, it will be interpreted different ways. There will likely be some customers who feel that the restaurant is trying micro manage their guests while others applaud taking the initiative. If drunk driving has been a problem in the area, the restaurant is only trying to protect their customers. The managers stressed that they are only looking out for children’s best interests without trying to embarrass or berate their parents. The one drink policy has been in effect at Peddlers for seven years now and has no plans to change.
TO POOL OR NOT TO POOL
Why it matters to you: The Labor Department to rescind the tip-pooling restrictions.
Tip pooling has been a controversial business practice for quite some time now. In the latest developments over tip pooling, last week the US Department of Labor published a notice intending to rescind the tip-pooling rule in restaurants. The tip pooling policy was put in place by the Obama administration back in 2011 forbidding restaurants to require employees to pool their tips. Fast forward to this week, and the federal government is planning to rescind the controversial regulation preventing restaurants from pooling tips among wait staff.
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, restaurants are able to pay wait staff a lower wage as long as their tips make up the difference, which is known as a “tip credit.” The National Restaurant Association has repeatedly fought the efforts to block this policy in court as the process is designed to make pay more equitable throughout the restaurant. One of the more controversial aspects of the tip pooling method involves distributing tips evenly among staff, which may or may not have put forth the same effort to earn them. Overall, restaurants will have staff members that pull more weight than others, and what remains controversial is whether those tips are ethically reasonable to distribute evenly.
