#theroundup with Bryan Lee Weaver

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We're going to be joined with our co-host Caroline Galzin very shortly. We are powered by Gordon Food Service. Man, I love those guys over at Gordon Food Service. They are just amazing. I have to tell you, they're just, they're supportive in everything that we do over here and in the restaurant industry. They're just great people. Wow, what a big, what a big weekend we had here in Nashville. And I know it's Tuesday and we're getting this show out.

01:00Normally I have these out on Sundays for Monday, but it is Tuesday. That is how crazy it has been. This episode today is with Brian Lee Weaver. Brian Lee Weaver joins us for a in-depth conversation around tipping. Tipping is a hot topic and over at Nicky's Coal Fired, Caroline, my amazing co-host, has moved to a service model, service model tipping where they're just charging a service fee and they have got rid of tipping in their restaurant. So we talk about that. We talk about tip-flation and we talk about the tipping culture and is there tipping fatigue and should we even tip at all? What is a good tip? And just a healthy conversation around tipping. While I recognize that I'm not a tipped employee and neither is Caroline or Brian, we're really looking at this from the perspective of making decisions around your business and how you need to go forward with it. What's the best thing to do?

02:00Is it a tip pool? Is it, you know, like I said, standard tipping? Is it a service charge? So we get into all of that and we play a game called Should You Tip? This is a game where we go over a bunch of different things that are you're being asked to tip for and we ask our esteemed panel here of Caroline and Brian whether or not they feel like you should tip at these places. And I think it gets interesting. So maybe it's a new game that we play here on the show. But this is an episode of The Roundup and Brian Lee Weaver announces his new location, by the way. Yeah, not to bury the lead. We start off the show and Brian says, oh yeah, I've got a new location. This is where it is. This is what it's called. Nobody knows that yet. Breaking news, Brian Lee Weaver is going to announce his new location at the very beginning of this show. And we could have done a whole show on it, but we didn't. We talked about tipping. Man, what a weekend here in Nashville. This monologue is going to be a little long today because I got a lot to cover. Did anybody else go to that soccer game?

03:01Oh my gosh. Like Leo Messi in town, the League's Cup final. That was insane. What an event. I was so proud of our city and also discouraged at the same time. You know what? I'm sitting there. I go to the game. I have season tickets and I opted in for all of the tickets and I actually sold my tickets and upgraded to two really cool tickets and took my son. It was really an amazing moment as a dad, as everything, but I am a crazy person. And while Leo Messi's in town, greatest player in the world, all of this, I'm still a Nashvilleian. So I'm an SC fan. I go to a lot of the games. I'm wearing my black, you know, Renaissance Bank SC jersey and I'm proud. You know, I'm walking around. My son's got his jersey on. We're like Nashville SC fans. It's cool that Messi's there because you get to see this great player who's never been in Nashville before and you get to see him play live.

04:03There were so many people selling Messi jerseys like in the parking lot as you walked up and all these people that were kind of sitting around us wearing these pink inner Miami CF jerseys were Nashville fans, but they were wearing Messi jersey and you could see the creases in them. Like they just bought them like outside. And I don't know. I had like a couple of different emotions about this. One thought was get the fuck over yourself, dude. Who cares? Let people do what they do. Do your thing, man. It's a great time. Which is the healthy thought. Like who cares what people wear to a game? It's a sporting team that you have no control over and they can do whatever they want. Maybe Messi sees them in a pink jersey and gives them a high five. I don't know what the end game there is, but there are people around me that were like rooting for Nashville SC, but they were also rooting for Messi, but they're wearing a pink jersey and I was like, dude, this is your town. How can you show up to a game in your town, in your stadium, wearing the opponent's jersey? I don't care who's on that other team.

05:04I don't care if fucking Michael Jordan plays for that team. Like I'm still wearing the Nashville jersey. I'm still I'm still repping my hometown and I so for me, I'm like, what is going on? Why are you doing this? So like I said, the healthy thing to do is sit there and go do your thing. Who cares? And I really don't. But some part of me with my civic pride was just like, why are you wearing a Miami jersey? You can still root for Messi if he scores. And we had killer seats. And I think that my fandom was on display because you could see us when Messi scored the goal sitting right there. I got amazing seats. I got a good deal on them. And it was a whole thing. I can explain that. We'll do it on a roundup one time how I got those seats. But when Messi scored the goal, you can see me right there. And I was like, oh, my whole body was like sad when he scored the goal. It was cool to see. But then when we when Fafa Pico scored his goal, my arms were in the air and I was screaming. So I was like, OK, I'm there for the right reasons.

06:04Not that any of that matters in the grand scheme of things. I just thought I would I would touch on that. But man, the energy was electric in their celebrities felt like the Super Bowl. And it was really cool to see in Nashville. I just wish we would have won. But, man, it was a hell of a game. And I have to say, Messi was the difference. I mean, we would have beat him if Messi wasn't on the team, in my opinion, because he's the only the lone goal scorer and we would have done better. So there it is. Soccer game was amazing. And if you haven't been to a soccer game, I highly recommend you go because it's a lot of fun. Or if you call it football, I like soccer. But man, what a great experience. Hey, we're doing something fun here. I am on the engagement council for the Giving Kitchen. If you don't know what the Giving Kitchen is, they are an organization that helps restaurant workers. If you're injured and you can't go to work and you need to have surgery or you have a medical diagnosis and you have to have a surgery and you can't work and you're afraid that you're going to lose your home or you can't pay your light bill, they will come in and help you.

07:06The Giving Kitchen is really amazing. If you need to go to rehab, you know, I talk about this a lot. If you need to go get help, but you're afraid to go get help because what are you going to do? I have to work on paycheck to paycheck. They will cover your living expenses while you go to rehab. They're here to help. Giving Kitchen is amazing. So I thought, what can I do to make to raise some money for the Giving Kitchen? And I'll tell you, we're going to do a fantasy football league. We have a fantasy football league and I've got some pretty, some pretty big, some pretty amazing chefs and restaurant owners that are going to be in this league. I'm going to announce who's in the league next week. Our draft is this weekend and then we're going to have some amazing sponsors and you can sponsor a chef. So if you want to sponsor, you want to get involved. There's going to be links where you can donate to individual chefs. I want to keep everybody involved. And then I'm going to be putting out a show like a, you know, maybe a shorter 20, 30 minute fantasy football show where we talk about football, we talk about the league, kind of like a football roundup.

08:08And I'll have some of these chefs come on and we're going to talk football, talk Titans, talk some of this stuff because I love sports and it's going to be a different version of Nash Restaurant Radio is going to come out on Friday mornings throughout the season. And it's going to be a lot of fun. If you don't like football, you might find this interesting, but if you do like football or you do fantasy, then this should be very interesting because we're going to have different chefs talking about their teams and what's happening in our league and we want you to get involved. And we want to raise a bunch of money for the Giving Kitchen. So this is nothing, none of us are going to make money. And at the end of this thing, we're going to have some winners and you are going to have a chance to go to dinner with some of these chefs. We're going to have an all expenses paid dinner for some people who have donated some money. It's going to be kind of like a raffle where you get to go have a meal with, you know, some of the people in this league. And I will tell you, we've got Max Goldberg in the league. We've got Brian Baxter from the catbird seat in this league. We've got Pat Martin, we have Brian Lee Weaver, Hal Holden Bache. We've got some some names you might want to go have dinner with here.

09:10So some fun things coming up. Really excited about the Nashville Restaurant Radio's first annual fantasy football showdown benefiting the Giving Kitchen. Wow. OK, one, maybe two last things. I'm very hesitant on this one because this is something that I really feel like needs to be organic. And I just I just want to say something because it does mean something. Best of Nashville voting is happening now. You go to the Nashville scene dot com and under media and politics, you will see the category of best podcast. Do I think that we have the best podcast in town? I don't know. I don't I don't know if we do. I like what we do. I think it's a lot of fun. I think it builds community. And if you like what we do and you think it is the best podcast in town, then I would love for you to go vote and let other people know that. Obviously, we're trying to build how many people are listening, how many people are hearing these stories that we're sharing.

10:12And I think it's a it's a powerful thing and it's a fun thing. And I would love to share more of it. And this is massive exposure. So if we were to win best podcast and you think we are the best podcast, I want you just to vote for Best Podcast, if you think there's a better podcast in town that's better than ours, then vote for that one. But if you think that our podcast is the best podcast, then I would love for you to vote for it. It's under the media and politics tab. It's not under the food thing or anything like that. There's best radio personality. I'm there's no way in hell I'm the best radio personality. But maybe Caroline is she's somebody who would be really good at that. I'm putting together right now our annual influencers guide to the best of Nashville. And hopefully we can have that out next Friday. If I can get it recorded as I'm opening a restaurant, this is a lot going on. We are opening Chagos. It is happening on September the fourth is Labor Day. We're opening our brand new restaurant. So if you want to come out and try the brand new Chagos on a day off, if you work in the food service industry, come by, say hi, I'd love to meet you. Love to see you. I'll be there all day kind of hanging out.

11:15We're foregoing time at the pool to open a new restaurant, kind of a soft opening that we're not really announcing except for right here. Let's see, we've got Chagos, we've got football, best of Nashville. Oh, man, there's a lot of a lot of fun things. I do want to tell you also about my friends over at Cytex and then we're going to get into this episode with Brian Lee Weaver. Ross Chandler is an amazing dude. And if you're frustrated because your linen company comes by and they constantly have just anybody signed the invoice and you're like, why are we out of linens? Oh, well, they didn't have enough this morning and they said they're going to bring some back by and maybe they brought some back by, but we don't really know. Or if the servers are constantly rolling somewhere and you have to throw half of your stack away because there's stains, because there's tearing on the linens or they're discolored, these are issues. These are issues that you might not know are issues because that's just what you put up with and you don't have to put up with that because Cytex quality is second to none.

12:20They do amazing, amazing jobs and they have uniformed services as well. They do kitchen apparel, linen services. If you need chef coats, they can bring you chef coats all the time and they can do custom chef coats, restaurants and mat services, first aid services. They do all of this stuff on a regular basis and their service is second to none. I'm not kidding. They're really great people and they're a great company and Ross Chandler is the guy you need to call. If that scenario I just painted for you as part of your life, then this is what you need to do. You need to call Ross Chandler. His number is 270-823-2468. You just call him and say, Hey man, I heard you on Nashville restaurant radio and my linen company sucks and I'm frustrated with dealing with them. Can you help? And he'll be right out. He'll come out. He'll look at what you have. He'll tell you what they can do. It's very clean. It's very upfront. It's very transparent. They do all this stuff and they do what they say they're going to do. It's really amazing. They're great people and I love working with them and I just wanted to finish off the opening to this fun roundup with a conversation around why you should be using Cytex.

13:32So, that's it. That's all we got. We're going to jump right in right now with the roundup with Brian Lee Weaver. This is the fourth visit on the show. Number four. Hell yeah. Welcome to the roundup. We are starting today. We're just off like shot out of a cannon. We're welcoming in Brian Lee Weaver. Welcome to the studio. Thanks, Brandon. Again. This is so exciting. I've referenced your signature up here all the time where Bad Luck Burger Club wrote best burger in Nashville. Then you kind of wrote right next to it, best burger in Nashville. And I thought that was the best. It's my favorite sign up there. Welcome to an episode of the roundup. We are, we are so, so excited. It has been three and a half years in the making for this episode. Brandon, you are so excited. I am, I am, I am pumped today because we're going to talk about two things. Today, we're going to talk about tipping. This is the tipping episode.

14:34We're also going to jump into the bear because when we posted, which team are you, team Brandon, you team Caroline, Brian came on and said, I'm team Caroline. And I was like, he goes, I'm happy to talk about it. Well, we jumped on that. We said, well, let's talk about it. So we're going to get to that, but today we're going to talk about tipping. We're going to go over, I've read so many articles that there is a tipping fatigue in this world and there's tip flation. Are you familiar with this term tip flation? Tell us. Well, just that everything with inflation, everything that everybody's asking for a tip now, and there's just a whole thing. So we're going to get into all aspects of tipping, but first, um, how you doing man, everything going well with you? Yeah, everything's good. Um, just dealing with the ground dog day that is read at a stranger and, um, plugging away a little bit at the bee and working on a new spot. So very exciting. Can you spill the beans at all about the new spot? Um, yeah, I guess we could do a little exclusive stuff.

15:37Okay. This is exciting. We are. We're probably actually announcing everything pretty soon, um, officially, but, um, maybe give you guys a sneak peek, but, um, I'm opening a place, um, pretty close to stranger on Dickerson, um, and Cleveland more or less where old Piggly Wiggly was, um, there's going to be, I think four or five different concepts in there. Um, but we're kind of taking the front spot, uh, and we're doing like a vet, a vegetable focused, uh, tasty menu, uh, so it's not going to be like vegetarian, vegetarian, um, we might still use some elements of, you know, fish sauce and whatever. Um, but it's just derailed it, the roundup, but I want to know so much about this. Yeah. I mean, we could talk about it for a while, but the star of the show is going to be, you know, produce vegetables. We're going to sort of have nine dishes at a time, each one focused on something different, um, pickled vegetables. Um, there'll be pickles involved.

16:37Yeah, I'm sure. Um, and then like, you'll just kind of pick three and that builds your menu a little bit. And then we're going to sort of supplement it out with different snacks and dessert and, and things like that. And we're going to have fun with it. I mean, um, I think I've been on here enough or, you know, be well enough that I don't take anything too seriously, but I kind of do. Yeah, you do. So that'll be a little bit of the ethos behind it. Um, it's called fancy pants, which is pretty fun. Love that. Um, and, uh, the people I'm working with are really great. It's going to be dinner only four nights a week, dinner only four nights a week, fancy pants. You heard it here first. That's so exciting, right? And congratulations, congratulations, man. That is awesome. Real can't wait to try it. We're going to have some really cool neighbors in there. I know Phil from folk and Rolf is opening in there too. And, um, I think the flower shop people are opening in there who, um, used to have a shop in East, uh, before the tornado and I think they're out by you and bell me now.

17:41Oh, nice. Um, like the, like the actual flower shop. Yeah. Yeah. The one that was like on the earnest video or the earnest cover of his album, flower shops. Morgan wallen. I don't know if it was that like FLWR flower shop. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the pink, I don't know. I don't remember that much about them, but, um, they're good people. Um, it was over, it was, it was near five points was where their shop was. And yeah, they were like in an old house, right? Yeah. It was a beautiful space. Yeah. It's going to be a cool shop. Um, and then there's a bar going in there. Not like that one. No, that's the flower shop in Bell Mead. Okay. No, no, not that one. Okay. Yeah. They're a little, they're a little newer. Um, at least the one that opened by you is, uh, okay. Perfect. But yeah. Well, dude, that's really cool. What a fun update. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Now it's like a real roundup episode. Now. Yeah. Now we've got news out there. What's happening. Yeah. That's really fun. Okay. Well, I will. I'm like completely shook in right now because I want to talk about this for a long time, but I'm also like shot out of a cannon because I want to get into tipping.

18:47Are you going to have full service at the new place? Yeah. Yeah. And tipping is a big part of the conversation there. Tell us about the, tell her we're going to start off today. And I think that it's important that we all kind of give our original stance on tipping on the front end and then we can have a healthy discussion around it. And at the end, if we change our opinion, then cool. If we don't, then we don't. But I think before we have the conversation, what is your stance on tipping? I mean, I can't stand it, but it's sort of a part of our lives. And when you say you can't stand it, as a consumer, like as a guest, you can't stand it or you can't stand it as an operator, just as a, just as a human. Yeah. Just as a human being. Like I don't, I don't know. Like I I'm totally fine with just paying the price of something, you know, and like having that be worked into what it is. I mean, it's so arbitrary. And I'm also like, just being in the service industry, I'm like, Oh, I should probably tip really well to make up for it or whatever, you know?

19:48Um, I don't know. I just, it's never really struck me as, as. That it made sense. Yeah. Like, I don't know. I just, I, it's on me to like supplement income for people and I've never really like that, but it's just kind of how it is, you know, and it's grown and grown. I mean, um, you know, like my place is like a fast casual spot, so you aren't necessarily paying for service, but you are in a way, um, so, you know, I don't know, it's, it's just, it's never seemed ideal and now we don't really have an eye wait, ideal way to deal with it. So, yeah. What about tipping like at random places now after the pen? Oh, we'll get into that. We'll get into that. That's the question after the fact. I will say for me, tipping, um, was something that brought me when it, cause I was a server, I'm front of the house mostly, right? So when I was, when I was growing up in the industry, the level of service I provided helped like it was validation for me, right?

20:56So if I made somebody have a wonderful time and they left me a 35% gratuity, I think there was endorphins that happened that kind of kicked in for me that made me feel validation, like, wow, they really enjoyed it where you get that $500 tip and you're like, I'm hooked. It was almost like gambling, you know, like there's just this thing that happens inside of you that's really exciting. The negative aside happens the same thing. When you have a $500 tab, some of these are 10 bucks where you feel down and it's horrible and you don't feel good enough. And I think that's where some mental health issues kind of come in because you, it perpetuates a feeling. I think that tipping for extraordinary service, when people genuinely care, it's important. I think that it adds a little bit of that to the world, but I'm kind of with you. I charge 20% extra and I don't understand why in restaurants. I'm going to display later why it doesn't make sense. Like, why is it in the restaurant world, people balk at paying for just the total amount that covers, you don't do that at a lot of other places.

21:59They just include that in the price. How can we not do that in restaurants? Why is it this ambiguous? If you do this for me, I'll do this for you. And it's not standard. I think it's dangerous and I don't like it either. I think that if we just went to a standard, this is what it is. And then we provided a service and you hired people that wanted to give you service, then I think it would, would fix a lot of stuff. Caroline. I, I don't know that I can say I have one opinion on tipping. I feel like I have kind of different opinions on, on tipping in different scenarios. I am someone who, even though when I go to a coffee shop, I will always leave like, you know, a big, you know, whatever, when they flip the screen over, whatever is like $2 or 20% or whatever is the third option, right? Just because I don't know, I've been working in the service industry my whole life and it feels like the right thing to do for me. If I go to a place, well, yeah, I don't know. Maybe it is. If I go to a place where, you know, I go to a restaurant where you just kind of leave a traditional tip, the sub minimum wage thing, I always leave 25%, you know, maybe more if I'm like getting hooked up, whatever, um, I, on the one hand, you know, agree with you guys that sometimes it's easier to just have that service charge included, know that everything's taken care of, you don't have to think about it, but then on the other hand, I think about when I was a server and I worked in more high-end restaurants and I could, you know, make that money that I wouldn't have made if I was just getting paid a flat wage, like if I went back to waiting tables today, I wouldn't want to work at a place where there weren't tips.

23:33I would want to work at a place where you work for tips because I'm like, oh, well, I can go get a job at like, I don't know, if I was looking for a job in Nashville right now, I'd probably want to go work at like carne mare somewhere with, you know, a nicer place, a high check average where I think I could really, you know, upsell and make a lot of tips. Yolan, exactly. Something like that. But I also feel like a lot of places that are the more high-end places are starting to just automatically charge that service charge. I, I can't recall, but I think Yolan does add a, uh, just 20% to every bill. I believe Locust does as well, certainly Catbird seat, you know, places like this more high-end places, I think it's just expected that service is included. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I don't feel like I have really one answer. I think I kind of have different answers for, for different scenarios. Yeah. I think I could, I could get on that train too, for sure. Yeah. I, I agree with that a little bit. And it's like, you know, some of these restaurants that are higher end are just doing a service charge and it's, it's just so different, I think for like career servers now than it used to be.

24:36And I don't know if that puts them at an advantage or disadvantage if they're doing a service charge or if they're just accepting tips, but from what I've seen, it feels like that, that some of the nicer restaurants are probably losing staff because they can make more money somewhere else. So it's not just the restaurants consideration, you know, it's, it's also the people that work for them. Totally. Well, and then it's hard too, because there's always been this big disparity between like front of house and back of house. It's like, you know, I'm thinking, you know, 15, 20 years ago when I was really kind of in my, my days of, you know, being a server, being a bartender, you know, I would walk with $300, but cooks are getting paid like $11 an hour. Now, again, I know that's a shocking number considering what most cooks are getting paid now, but that's just how it was at the time in Chicago, you know, with that said, I mean, I worked with servers who would make close to $200,000 a year, you know, and if they were working in a place where there was a service charge or tipping eliminated and, you know, I think it, Danny Meyer tried it, you know, maybe 15 or so years ago to eliminate tipping all of his restaurants and they ultimately wound up walking it back because the staff was like, we are not making the money we should be making.

25:50So I don't know. I think it's very tricky. It's so ingrained in, in the culture of restaurants and, but, but I do feel like it's changing. There are changes being made. I think that's a huge part of this conversation too, is just the equality of pay with front of house and back of house. And we've tried to deal with that at both spots, honestly, cause like butcher and B are, it's pretty traditional. Like it's, there's no service charge. The, even the, it's not a tip pool. So everybody gets their own thing. The back house doesn't get tipped out. Um, if our opening that place now, it's not how I would do things, but we've been there for, you know, getting close to eight years now. And it's like, it's, it's hard to change once you, once you're already doing something that way. Um, and then strangers totally different. Like we tip out the kitchen, you know, it's just, it's, I do think it's a little bit different for, for different restaurants and different types of services, but sort of the basics are the same of how you want to treat it all. You know, I had actually reached out to you, Brian, maybe at the beginning of the year, we were kind of trying to figure out what are we going to do with our tipping at Nicky's?

26:58How are we going to, you know, are we going to change this to a service charge? Are we going to get rid of tipping? Are we going to do this? Are we going to do that? And I had reached out to you about redheaded stranger as I have, I feel like many times over the year, just because, you know, we do the counter service model, you guys do such a great job at it and always value your feedback. Um, and you, so what are you guys doing at redheaded stranger right now? Have you guys changed anything or we, we changed, um, it's probably been about two years. The originally the kitchen wasn't getting tipped out. It was just all front of house. Um, but there was still a pretty large disparity between what the front house would make and what the back house would make. Um, so we started adding all of the kitchen staff to the tip pool and it's still the front house probably makes a little bit more, but, um, it's pretty close to even, and then the, the, the burden as an owner is like, okay, like now I have to pay all of these people more or less an hour in hourly wages.

28:01And like figuring out how that works. And you know, do we want to have a service charge? Do we want to just raise prices, which I think is trickier at a place like stranger where it's a lower check average and stuff. So, um, yeah, but that, I mean, that's sort of where we ended up that I think it's pretty fair at stranger, but it's still our labor has gone up. Like as a operator significantly, um, just making that small change. All right. I'm going to switch gears a little bit because I want to open up a conversation around some things. I think this will bring us back to all of this pandemic happens, right? People are very empathetic to workers, to people that are deemed to be essential and they're ordering food to go and they're tipping to go people. And you know, Hey, look, dude, you came to work. You're putting yourself at risk. I'm going to give you 30%. I'm going to tip my delivery guy, massive amounts of money, right? And there's a lot of that. And the, the people of the world came so strong for the service industry and all over the place. Well, now we're not in that situation.

29:04Everybody's out, live in their best lives. And kind of that expectation is still there. People were like, Hey, you did this before. Let's keep this up. And I think that now there's new technology, right? So every single POS system and there's square, there's a million of them and they all have this incorporated gratuity option, right? So everybody in the world has been somewhere where they've paid for something. They've gone to a counter, they've paid for something. And I think that's how they do it at Redhead Stranger. You pay your card and then it says, would you like to leave a gratuity? Right. But you've gone somewhere and then they've flipped the thing around. They said, it's just going to ask you a few questions. And then the people sheepishly walk away and like, I was at great clips the other day and the woman goes, it's just going to ask you a few questions. And I go, as if you don't know what those questions are. Like they act like it's going to ask you if you want to leave a gratuity, just say that and then then walk away, but they have this ambiguous, uh, it's just going to ask you a few questions and I'll be right back. And it's like this real awkward kind of a moment.

30:04Like just that's what they're going to ask. If you like to leave a gratuity, what is it? So I've created a fun little game there with a game. I haven't got like 15 different places and I want to ask you whether or not you feel like you should leave a gratuity at these places. Are you guys ready to play? Yeah, let's go ready. It's called should you tip? Getting myself in there. Come on. That was a good intro. All right. Anyway, anyway, this is game is called. Should you tip? We're going to start at the convenience store. You go to twice daily. You go get a water, a coffee, you go to a counter, you pay. Should you tip Caroline? No, what, with the caveat when I'm, when you're in like New Jersey or somewhere and somebody actually pumps your gas, I would tip somebody for the gas station.

31:11Oh, so not a gas station, just the convenience store. Okay. Well, we can, that'd be the part B of that. If somebody pumps your gas for you, they're providing a service. And I think, yes, but a convenience store, you're just buying a soda. No, no. Okay. That's a consensus. No sporting event or concert. $18 beer. You stand in a long line. You order a beer or a bottle of water. They're going to flip it around. Should you tip? No, I would. I do. Okay. So you're saying you should tip there. I'm not saying you should. I'm just saying I do. I probably would, but in theory, no, I also agree in theory. Subway you stand in line. They make your sandwich. They hand it to you. You go sit at a table, you throw your own stuff away. You get your own beverage. Should you tip at Subway? So this is where it starts to get complicated. It's going to continue to get complicated. I would say yes. Okay. But that's what I was getting at with, with things are different for different.

32:14Okay. So you would say yes at Subway, Carolyn, there's no wrong answers here. I would say, first of all, no one should ever go to Subway because it's repulsive. Um, but God, no. Grocery store. Kroger, you go through, you put all your stuff on a thing and then the woman, man checks you out and they move all of your stuff through and they put it in a bag. Should you, should they flip the thing? Should you leave a gratuity at a grocery store? I do self checkout, but, uh, there are tip options at self checkouts. Now at grocery stores, if I were in a situation where I needed help to my car, maybe Publix, they do that. Yeah. They have a thing that says we do not accept tips. That's what I would say. If somebody helped me out to my car, I would tip, but just for checking out. No. How about a handyman? Somebody comes to your restaurant, comes to your house. They identify what's wrong with your HVAC system. They go into your house.

33:14They figure out that you have mold. They come to you, they give you a price. And then they figure out a solution for you to have your house be heated or cooled or your plumbing, or there's a bird's nest in your thing. Do you tip your handyman? Nope. Okay. I would say if, if I have like a guy who's like my super or something, I would do holiday tips, you know, like Christmas tips, it's a kind of a thing. Sometimes a gift because they're part of your life. Yeah. I'd be like, here's a hundred, but like, if they, you know, help me a lot throughout the year, I would give them a holiday tip, but not for each service. All right. Let's go say who's your favorite band, Brian. Oh, that's too big of a question. Name somebody who you really like. Um, I haven't listened to a lot of Lana Del Rey lately. Okay. So you're at a Lana Del Rey concert and you stand in line for 30 minutes and you get to the front of the merch tent and you buy a $45 t-shirt, a $75 hoodie and a 25, $50, you know, poster, $125. They flip it around. You want to leave 18, 25 or 30% gratuity.

34:17Do you tip there? At her show? No, but if it was a smaller show, I might. Okay. It's like a local artist. Yeah. Like if, okay. So that's a good caveat. You're probably, it seemed like you agree with that. I do agree with that. Yeah. Um, I haven't given my answers. I'm giving the test up. I will go through and say convenience store. No sporting event concert. I do, but I don't think so. Uh, subway. No grocery store. I do. If I go to the butcher and they make a special cut for me, I always leave cash because that's a thing for me. Uh, handyman. I think yes. I think yes. Uh, merch tenant concert. I agree with you on that one. Hot dog vendor. You're downtown. You're drunk. You're getting a hot dog on a street vendor. It's five bucks. You gotta make sure hot dog hands to you. Do you tip him? Her? I probably would. Yeah. Yes. Starbucks. I don't go there. Um, well, I was going to say, well, Starbucks, yes. Or like frothy monkey. Yeah. Coffee shops.

35:18Yes, I do. Okay. Coffee shops in general. But I don't think Starbucks asks for tips. Okay. Yeah. Um, you go to a bar, you sit down, you order a bottle of beer. They open the bottle of beer, set it in front of you. Do you tip? See, now you're trying to trick me. Cause that's the same as, as the baseball game or whatever. No, but it's now we're in, now we're in a restaurant and it's a $4 beer. It's not an $18 Bud Light, the $18 Bud Light where they're gouging you. Cause you're in the stadium is different at a bar. This is how they make their money. You set down a beer. Do you tip there? But that's, I'm going to trick you on the next one. That's what I want to get into because. All right. Um, yes, I would tip there. All right. So I don't drink alcohol. I sit next to you at the bar and I get a glass of ice water where they have to go get a glass, fill it with ice and put water in it. They said it next to me. I have zero tab. Do I tip? Yes. Yeah, you should. When I was a bartender, it was like the, I felt like the culture around bartending was if you asked a bartender to make change for you, you leave them a dollar.

36:22You're also, you're taking up a seat in real estate and not paying. All right. So, so this is all, this is all fantastic for later on conversations. I love this. Your dentist or your doctor? No way. No. Okay. Home Depot. What home Depot? Like you have a, you have a flange and you go in there, you find the guy working there and you go, Hey, what's the flange? Well, you have, okay. Let's say you have, he tells me what it is. I don't know. Okay. Perfect. You call somebody and they say you need a flange and you go in and you go, I'm fixing my sink and I need a flange. And the guy goes, okay. Do you have a, you show him a picture and then he walks you through the store. He finds a flange for you, figures the right size, gives it to you. Do you leave that guy a buck? No. Yeah. Some of this is tricky because I never have cash, but if they went above and beyond, let's go home Depot. You need a paint and you come in with a splotch of color and you go, Hey, look, I need this paint.

37:23He goes, what's, what kind of paint do you need? And you're like, I don't know what the, what are they called? And he says, we have eggshell, we have satin, we have high gloss. And then he walks you through all the different kinds. Then he comes over, he matches the paint. He figures out the paint for you, shakes it, puts it together, hands it to you and does all the work for you. And you're like, wow, that was really cool. I had this splotch of color and then you just created the perfect thing for my baby's nursery. And now I'm going to take this home and I'm going to complete my project. You don't tip the guy. Okay. Liquor store. Okay. Pharmacy. Well, what are we talking here? No, I'm just, no. Baskin Robbins. I probably would. I don't think so. Okay. I don't. Yeah. Mattress store. I'm reaching that my friends should you tip? All right. Here's the thing. A lot of those intersect because the way that I believe gratuity should work is when you go above and beyond because you genuinely care and you've taught me something or you help me above and beyond the scope of what is expected.

38:38That's to ensure the proper service. That's where I want to give you something extra. I think we should pay people a fair wage across the board and everything that we do and we should charge what we need to charge for things to pay people that I think tipping should be across the board and all areas and should never be expected. And I think that it is expected in restaurants because people for some reason balk at spending $80 on a filet. That seems like a lot of money, but if you buy a $60 filet and you leave a $20 tip or 20% tip, I mean, that's $72. That's what the play actually costs. We just, I feel like there's some smoke and mirrors with why we use gratuities and restaurants because we want to make it because people don't want to pay that much for food because McDonald's, you can go get a full, you can get a Big Mac meal with French fries and a Coke for $8.99 and they go, I'm going to spend $72 on a filet. So we get the opportunity to charge less and then charge the service on the outside and pay people $2.13 an hour.

39:40I think there's a double standard here where it's just not, it's this one industry because I feel like when you go to Home Depot and I'm in somewhere, I don't know, most people don't understand food. I understand food. I can come in, I can figure that out. It doesn't seem like some kind of mystery to me, but I go to Home Depot and I don't know how to do stuff and somebody takes their time to explain to me and teach me how to fix something in my home. That's way more valuable than somebody opening a beer and handing it to me. And with that, we're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. Hey guys, I want to take a quick moment to tell you about Corson Fire and Security. So we're opening a new restaurant and we're using Corson for a lot of our, you know, our, our fire suppression systems and fire extinguishers and security cameras, all of these things they are doing and they are top quality. Everything is great. Now I want, this is the part where I've never done this before. There was an area that we missed on communication. There was an email sent that I missed and there wasn't a phone call afterwards and I missed a deadline to get something done.

40:45Now whose fault is this? I don't know, but when I called Kevin Rose and I said, Hey man, I'm a little frustrated because I needed this to get done and this didn't get done. You know what? I didn't get from him. I didn't get excuses. I didn't get people blaming people. I got him saying, you know what? I could have communicated better. That's on me. Let's get it fixed immediately. And when you work with vendors, it's not always about I'm right. You do everything right. Sometimes it's okay. People are human. I make mistakes, they make mistakes. It's about how we own it. And I think when telling a story about a company that you work with, you can say how great they are and all of the wonderful things they do. And they do some amazing things. But I think that really the true character of a company comes in play when you identify when things aren't great and the accountability was amazing throughout this. And I just want to give a shout out to Kevin Rose and everybody at Course in Fire for helping us get through this and figuring out how to do this the best possible way. If you haven't had a conversation like this with somebody who you work with where one person has made a mistake with the other person, but we own it and we move past it.

41:51And that's why relationships are important in this industry. You need to call Kevin Rose today. His number is 615-974-2932. And he would love to help you with your fire suppression system. If you're opening a new restaurant, they do intrusion security. They're also doing cameras. They do so many amazing things in its top quality and they will take care of you. So there it is Course in Fire and Security. That's K-O-O-R-S-E-N. Fire and Security. Look them up online or give Kevin a call 615-974-2932. Are you a hospitality worker looking to purchase a new home? Don't settle for just any realtor. Use someone who understands your industry. A real estate partner, John Ho has a history in hospitality and is now able to help our industry through the home buying process. Along with his partner at Foundation Mortgage, they have the products and intimate knowledge of the hospitality industry to assist you in identifying properties to purchase and get you qualified for financing. Too often in our industry, we've been fed lies about the path to home ownership.

42:54The truth is you don't need great credit scores. You don't need tens of thousands of dollars for a down payment. And you certainly don't need two years of employment at one job. Don't take chances with the one of the most significant purchases of your life. Trust people who understand the needs of hospitality workers. A team who is non-judgmental and is flexible enough to accommodate any hospitality schedule. And for you managers and executives listening out there, reach out to them to inquire for free information you can pass along to your staff. Contact them today to start your home buying journey with the right team. John Ho at 615-483-0315, or you can follow him on Instagram at housepetality. Amanda Gardner with Foundation Mortgage is 865-230-1031. Find her on Instagram at mortgageamanda. Hey guys. Want to talk to you real quick about Robin's insurance and my guy, Matthew Clements. Insurance is such an important part of what we do and just getting standard insurance through somebody so that you can say you have it as never a good plan for your, the safety of your employees and your business.

44:03And Matthew Clements knows that what he wants to do is he wants to find a specific plan for you. They shop it over 15 different companies. They're out there working on the best price, but also finding you exactly what you need. Plus it's also nice to have a number for a guy you can call if you ever need anything. You have questions, you need to add insurance for whatever reason. I told the story of, you know, we had to get a truck from our broadliner and they signed off on the insurance. I had it in 20 minutes. It's so great to make one phone call to get the things you need. If you don't have that relationship with your insurance company, you need to call Matthew Clements at Robin's insurance. His number is 863-409-9372. He lives here in Nashville. He loves dining out at your restaurants and he is the guy who needs to be providing your insurance, local company, local guy, Matthew Clements. Again, that's 863-409-9372. And I'm in somewhere. I don't know. Most people don't understand food. I understand food. I can come in, I can figure that out. It doesn't seem like some kind of mystery to me, but I go to Home Depot and I don't know how to do stuff.

45:06And somebody takes their time to explain to me and teach me how to fix something in my home. That's way more valuable than somebody opening a beer and handing it to me. I agree with you. I think the issue is really like everybody would have to do it. I feel like, like, I think everybody would have to do it across the board for it to make sense. Cause like, you can go wherever and get, you know, a $3 taco or something. I mean, we charge four at stranger. I mean, I probably honestly need to charge seven for a lot of them, you know, but we don't because nobody's going to come pay $7 for a taco. I don't think, um, even if they knew why we were charging that, they still would be like, well, whatever. I can go to Lady Bird and get one for the same price or that they use a charge and leave a dollar tip and it all works out, you know, like it almost needs to be regulated, you know, it's kind of like, uh, it's kind of like AI or something like, how are we going to figure out how AI works? Like how Japan uses it, how China uses it, how we use it.

46:09Like everybody's going to use it differently and maybe for good reasons, maybe bad reasons, who knows, but like, there's no, like, there's no standard. There's no oversight. Yeah. Yeah. So anybody can do whatever they want, which is what I think that's what we're seeing right now with this new software is that any business who wants to incorporate tipping and I'll give you a tiny backstory and I don't want to cut your line, but this is relevant. It's a way I've interviewed a woman who owned eight subways, not here. I interviewed her parents owned them. She managed them and she wanted to come work at one of the restaurants and she's an amazing human being and I love her, but her, her, and I've known her. She goes, well, since we've incorporated tipping, it's been amazing. Our staff is so much happier. We can pay them so much more money. And I go, really? And she goes, we've actually lowered what we pay them by like 30% who used to pay everybody $17 to $18 an hour. And now we pay everybody a flat rate of 11. We incorporated tipping and now they make money they ever have. And to me, I look at that and I go, so you're a billion, multi-billion dollar company and you identified software where you can now ask people to pay your employees and instead of paying them a fair wage, which maybe $17 isn't a fair wage, but like instead of doing that, you guys took off $6 an hour.

47:29What you would pay people. And now you're taxing the guest. Now you're saying, no, you guys pay that. Everybody who owns a subway got a 20% spike and their, their shares of the company, when they incorporated tipping, it wasn't a thing, but then now they have software, they go, Oh no, when you put your credit card in, now we'll just ask them for a tip and now our people make more money, like, well, you just started taxing your guests because the software was available and that's where I start taking issue with this stuff because it's just a, you're already making a ton of money. Why are you doing this? And that's kind of my point with, are we getting out of control with how we're taxing the consumer? That's the tip flation that I was talking about is that everybody is now jumping in on that wherever they can, because they're seeing a mass increase in profits when they just ask for tips from their people. And I think the people are getting really tired of it. That's yeah, I think that there's a lot of fatigue around getting asked for tips from the average consumer.

48:32Where does it stop? That's why I said dentist, you're like, no, like when you go to the dentist and they ask you to pay your copay, believe you, me, there's going to be a tip on it before, you know, you're, you're going to laugh because you're the dentist, you're going to put your card in and they're going to go, they're just going to ask you a couple of questions and then you get, then we'll see you next week for a new appointment, wherever it is. And you're going to go, you want to go to it? We came in and identified all these issues and we cleaned and we did the stuff. Like that's a service. And she did, she was, was she smiled and you listened to really calming music and we had laughing gas. Like, what do you mean? This was a whole, we have Feng Shui in the building. Like you need to tip us for that. That's as a service we're providing for you. Why are you not tipping us for that? It's just so hard to like, where do you, where do you draw the line on stuff? You know, like when you're talking about going to the baseball game or whatever, you pay $18 for a beer or like the Titans game, whatever it is, like, you know that you can go get that beer at the store for $2 or whatever, that coke that you're paying 10 bucks for the movie or what, like, you know, you might tip on that, you might not, but like, you just accept that I'm going there and that's the cost of goods, you know?

49:40And I don't think that we're to that level with food for whatever reason, for the most part, which is part of the problem. It's just that you go to movie theater, you're, you're trapped. You go to the airport, you go to the airport and it's like, what is this coffee is $9, like where else are you going to get a coffee, dude? You're through at TSA. You have to buy it from me if you want coffee. And they know, they know that at a Titans game, I've always said, I don't like when a Titans game, cause I have an HD television and I can pause the thing. I can drink Dom for the price. I drink Bud Light at the stadium. I'm not doing that. And that's just the thing. And now they're asking you to tip them on top of that. Did they stop paying those, the workers there? The wages they were paying them. And now they've incorporated tipping because they're not making enough money on their $18 Bud Lights. Actually, this was a thing. I remember a couple of summers ago, we went to, um, a couple of games at Fenway in Boston and they don't tipping is not allowed for the vendors there for whatever reason. And, um, I remember Tony and I were chatting with the lady. We're like, Oh, can we leave you a tip?

50:41And she's like, no, we're not allowed to get tips. And we actually, their union was negotiating to, um, be allowed for the workers to be allowed to be left tips. They were like one of the only ballparks. I think, um, I, I always, because I go to Nashville SC games and I love going to those games, but every time I don't, I just get like a water and my kids like candy and we get like the little sodas, which are great cause they're free refill sodas and I don't mind the price of them, but every time I get the whole thing and it's like 18, 22 or 25% and then other. And I just go to other and I do like $1 or I go to other and I click $2, depending on how many things I guess they have to get drinks and fill them up. And I obviously these people are working. It's hot outside. I want to do a little something extra. I appreciate you, but I don't want to leave $12 for my three cokes that I got. I mean, that's just, that's like, uh, to me, that's it. That's just too much. Should there be a percentage standard for like, if you go to the dentist, like is 2% more standard for that service, but at a restaurant where I've helped you identify the perfect meal that is tailored made to you because I've studied a menu and I went through a wine class and I can tell you the soil from the left side of the Jironde versus the right.

51:55And I can tell you about the alluvial qualities of this particular wine. That's going to pair great with this quail. And the, you know, it's like, that's amazing. You just created that experience for me. I didn't know any of that. And then you curated an amazing experience for me where I, my taste buds, like, holy shit, this is out of control. Thank you so much. That's where that 25, 30% goes because you uniquely took the time and effort energy to study this food, to really be a, a curator of this craft, a tour guide of what in your, you created this experience for me, that's not entitlement. That is I've worked hard to provide this experience, to provide a service for you. And that's kind of where I feel like the handyman thing, if you're going to come into my house and do that stuff, you're a craft, like they charge for it. They don't really care. They're like, no, it's $17,000. You're like, holy shit. I'm not tipping you for that, but thank you. I think, I think what you're getting at is, is part of the problem. Like tipping in the way that you're describing sounds great.

52:56Like, yeah, like that's why we're tipping. Right. Um, but a lot of times it's obligatory. And then on top of that, like if we're doing service fees and all that stuff, who knows where that money's going? You know, I know there's a big thing in LA right now with like a few restaurants that they had a service charge and the money didn't go like people thought they were giving that to the servers or whatever. It wasn't going to them. It was going to the restaurant. You know, um, well, that's the best segue I've ever heard. So the transparency of it, I think is a big deal. Go. No, I, I, I would agree, but I would say, Oh, there's so many things I want to say. Which one do I start with? So I think that this conversation is, I think that whether, regardless of what our opinions are about this, as they relate to restaurants, I think that a change is coming and it's inevitable. So, you know, think about 10 years ago and you know, it, it doesn't sound like that long ago, but 10 years ago for $15 an hour to be the minimum wage, people are like, you got to be kidding me, that's crazy. I'll close my business. We can't afford that.

53:57And then local governments and municipalities started mandating it. Right. And now think about $15 an hour sounds like, well, that's not enough. Nobody's going to come work for $15 an hour. We figured it out. We made it work. Right. So here's what's coming down the pipeline next, I think is, um, in Chicago and maybe other cities are doing this and I don't know, but in Chicago, um, starting on January 1st, the whole city is eliminating the sub minimum wage, which means there is no more tip credit allowed and the minimum wage is $15 an hour for every position across the board, no matter what. So what I think is going to happen is I think that you're going to see basically everywhere implementing a service charge and getting rid of tipping is what I think is going to happen. Will the service charge go to the staff or would it go to the restaurant? So I think that this is a conversation that is kind of misleading. So a service charge is when you look at kind of your, and sorry, I'm sure I'm telling you guys something you already know, but maybe somebody's listening.

55:00Who's not familiar with this when a service charge is taken, that is a taxable revenue line item for a business. When you look at your PNL, when you, your accountant tells you how you should set everything up, a service charge is a taxable line item that is recorded as restaurant revenue. It's recorded as income and the restaurant has to pay tax on it. Just like income. A tip is not that a tip is something completely separate and legally all tips have to be given to employees. And there's all sorts of, you know, rules around who can have the tip and who can tip out and who can this and that a service charges, like I said, because it's an income line item that's taxed is up to a restaurant to do whatever they please with that service charge. So some people are saying, Oh, well, my restaurant charged a service charge, but I didn't get that service charge. Not all of that service charge came back to me. And in some cases that may or may not be true, but the service charge is.

56:02It doesn't have to go to them. It doesn't have to legally go to them. If you're paying them a wage above $15 an hour, restaurants who are charging service charges are not also taking a tip credit and paying the sub minimum wage. They're paying a wage that is above minimum wage. And theoretically the service charge is meant to supplement them being able to pay everyone a, you know, a living wage. That's not the sub minimum wage. So I think that there's a little bit of confusion where employees, I can understand why an employee might think, Oh, well, you're not giving me all my tips. But at the same time, you are making a stable wage on the slowest week of the year and the busiest week of the year. And sometimes the service charge is going to be more than you would pay everyone hourly. But I really think in most cases, it's going to break even, or even in some cases, take a loss because restaurants, labor line items have gone up so much. There are so few, there's so few restaurants that are hitting their labor numbers that they were hitting before the pandemic.

57:06What are you doing at Nicky's? So, so we are changing how we're, you know, we've talked about this a lot on the show and, um, you know, when I reached out to you at the beginning of the year, Brian, it was because we were considering getting rid of tipping and starting a service charge. Um, the way that we've been paying our employees is that we pay everyone a high hourly that's well over minimum wage. And then whatever tips we take in are pulled across the entire house. And the theory is, Hey, you are going to make this much plus plus every week. Well, because of probably tipping fatigue is what's happening. We've seen those tips go down over the last year. And what started out is, Hey, this is really great for you because you're going to make so much more money over your guarantee every week is consistently week after week, everybody's just hitting their minimum guarantee, which sucks. It sucks. These guys work really hard. They do a great job. I want everybody to be able to make more money.

58:08However, from an operational standpoint, the way that we're doing it right now, we can't afford to go up anymore on labor. We just don't have the resources to pay everybody more across the board. But you guys also provide a service. So when people come in, they order the food kind of at a counter, but then they can go have a seat and they get brought drinks that you order your drinks. They bring you the drinks, they clean the table, they'll refill your waters. And then there's also team members on the floor with iPads that can take additional orders. It's not like get up, go get your own thing. You know, you're providing a service. So a gratuity for to ensure that proper service is a thing, right? Like something not tipping is like, well, there's people that are serving you. So there is, I feel like the gratuity in the world we live in makes sense there. Well, and so it's not exactly a gratuity. We are actually launching this on Monday. We are going to eliminate tipping. We are going to charge a service charge of 18% on all dine-in orders.

59:08And we're going to charge 10% on all to go orders. And that is intended to supplement our staff's wages so that we can afford to give some people some raises, make some adjustments to how we're paying people and just, you know, without going into all the details that are, you know, really not that interesting. It just is going to allow us to pay people more and also ensure that our staff is never wondering how much am I going to make this week? Everybody is going to make a consistent stable wage. You will always know what your paycheck is going to be. So you can do that by knowing what your sales are and then figuring into what your sales are, what 18% or 10% together would make. And then being able to make an educated decision as to what you want to pay people by the hour. So the service charge isn't a gratuity that will be going directly to the staff. You're going to identify a pre-agreed, if I paid you X amount, you will do this job to the best of your ability in perpetuity until you reach a different level and I have to give you a raise or want to give you a raise, but we agree that I'm going to give you $22 an hour and hypothetical number.

01:00:11And they say, yes, I'll do a great job for $22 an hour. Exactly. But it's not this 18% at the end of the day, we're going to have a number that you see that is $375. And then you work three hours, you get this, there's no shares of that. There's, there's no shares of that. Everybody is going to make the same wage. We, you know, if it's the busiest day or if it's the slowest day. Now, with that said, we are also being very transparent about who qualifies for raises and who qualifies for additional pay and trying to make that very fair. We don't want it to be an arbitrary thing where it's like, you know what? I really like Brian. He's a really hard worker. I think I'm going to give him a raise, whereas, you know, maybe there's someone else who also does a great job and is, you know, deserves a raise, but isn't as well liked by a manager. Now, I don't think that that's a scenario that's happening in my restaurant currently, but just, you know, as a hypothetical, I don't ever want those types of issues to come up. It's very scheduled. If you, everybody starts at this rate.

01:01:12If you've worked after six months, it goes up a dollar after a year. It goes up a dollar, 18 months. It goes up a dollar. If you learn the, if you are, for example, in the kitchen, prep shifts starts at a certain hourly. If you are also willing to pick up PM shifts and learn a PM station, you get a dollar raise. If you are a PM cook and you can work every station, you get a $3 raise. And you know, that's all written out on schedule. So everyone has an equal opportunity to learn additional skills in the front of house. You know, everybody starts at the same rate. If you're a bartender, you get an extra $2 an hour. Brian, what do you think about this? Sorry, that was a lot of talking. No, I, I know I, I'm fascinated and I'm, and I'm proud of you for trying to figure out a different way. You've definitely thought about this a lot. I'm proud of you for figuring out a different way to do this to where people, I, I, I, I'm going to tell him, I say, well, Brian, what is your take on this? Let me just, let me just wrap that up really quick too, by saying back to, you know, when we saw that places are changing the minimum wage to $15 an hour during the pandemic, I said, Hey, $15 an hour minimum wage is coming.

01:02:20It's coming. We have to figure out how to make this work before we are mandated to make it work. We need, we have the time to figure it out now. And we did. And so that's kind of where I'm at with the service charge as well. I think that it's coming sooner than later, that this is going to be the way of doing business. And I want to figure it out when I can figure it out in my own way before I feel required to, if that makes sense. Yeah. Um, I think that's great. Like, uh, and I think it goes back to a little bit of what I was saying about transparency and like, I think that's going to be the hardest part about this is like, you know, I think working for Nicky's or working for a place like us, we're pretty honest about caring for our employees. And I think, I don't know how much a consumer actually cares about that in like the end and they might not understand where the money's going or even care to to know that. So I think that's a little bit of a tricky part. And then I think that there's going to be plenty of people who aren't that honest and like, we'll figure out ways around it and still not give a shit about their employees.

01:03:29You know, um, so it worries me a little bit on how that would be regulated. But the fact that like, Caroline's already thinking ahead of time about that is, is good. And I mean, we all should be, you know, we, I mean, we have, um, we have a, uh, we call it a health, healthy hospitality charge at Butcher and B and it's, it's at the end of every check and it basically offsets us, um, paying our employees health insurance, you know, um, and it doesn't happen all the time, but we get people who are like, I don't want to pay this and, you know, we'll take it off, you know, but it's like written on the bill. Like this is what this is for. And, you know, there's a lot of, of gibberish at the end of receipts, you know, um, but if I think of this, I think we have to find a way to be transparent about people want to know. Um, but yeah, I just, I, I do worry that like, once it starts to expand, it just won't be as good for everybody, you know, as it could be very interesting.

01:04:31Um, we do a tip pool at our restaurants and I think that what I was going to say is the mental health aspect and, you know, I was younger and I waited tables. You had rent due the first or the, you know, you had to the fifth to pay rent. And on the first I went, oh shit, I got to pay rent. And so that's the first of the month's really easy to get people to pick up shifts. Right. So I would hustle and I would be like, I'm working five doubles in a row. I'm going to knock this thing out because I drank all my money for the last several weeks. That's what I did. And then I'm like, I'll just hustle and I'll do this. I'll eat rice and beans for the next five days and I'll work doubles and I'll make rent and then I'll have the rest of the month to fuck off again. Right. And so I would show up to work and if it's slow and you're a double, you get cut first and you have the two old women that have the, you know, I'm going to split the soup and salad with a bowl of, with a bowl of lemons and waters and make sure you get extra sugar, you know, and they make their own lemonade. That's a $12 check and they split it and it's like, they leave you 75 cents and you're like, fuck, that was your only table for the day.

01:05:36And so you'd come in or you'd get like two tables and they're like, Hey, we're not going to, Hey, you're cut. You're double go ahead and get out of here. You're like, so I got up at nine. I had a dry clean uniform. I showed up. I did my open dues. I cut three pans of lemons. I cleaned my section. It was there all day. I ran everybody else's food. I only had two tables. I didn't do much. I made $9 and I was there for five hours. That's not going to cut rent. So then that night, now pressure starts building. I got to make money tonight. And your focus now isn't on serving the guests. Now your focus is on, I need to get bigger tips. And this is another aspect. I thought, do you think tipping increases theft? You made a comment. If I get hooked up earlier, you go out of 10 cent, if I get hooked up. So you go to a bar and there's, there's, there's bars. I used to love to go to, cause I knew I drink whatever I want to. I had a $15 tab at the end of the night. Does tipping encourage theft? Because if you're a bartender and you give people drinks and you don't ring it up, you don't put on a spill sheet, you don't tell anybody that's just, Hey man, that's on me. I'm just going to give it to you.

01:06:38That is not yours to give away. So you go to the gas stations, like, Hey man, just take that six pack. Don't worry about it. I mean, you're a good dude, but give me $5 for that. Like, so you're letting me steal this. You're giving me something for free and hopes that I now give you cash that you can take home. That's embezzlement. Like that is theft. That is a definition of theft. And I feel like tipping encourages that. And we all like it. I love this bar because they hook me up. And as an owner, you recognize, look, I need, there's a, there's a real fine dance that you do there because you want to take care of people. You want to give people a value. You come here three times a week, you sit here, you spend money. I can buy you a beer every once in a while. I want to make sure that I account for that beer, but bartenders who get their own tips are like, shit, I know this guy's going to leave me 50% tip if I give him three drinks or he'll leave me cash or here's a 50 for you. Here's a 20 like that encourages theft. But in a tip pool scenario where it's based around all of the tips and I have an app that is a website that does is everybody can see how much they contributed, where all the money was distributed.

01:07:47And it's based upon how many hours you work. It's a big mathematic problem. Here's the grand total of tips. Here's the total amount of hours. This, how many hours dividing all the tips by all the hours creates an hourly wage of X amount. You work 3.2 hours. You get 3.2%. You know, it's really easy. There's no question. I'm not taking any money. It's just redistributed throughout everybody. And we pay the credit card fees on the tips, right? So we pay a 3.2% credit card fee for everything. Servers for all of their tips. I still pay 3.2% of the credit card fees on their tips too. I don't ask for that back. A lot of people do that. And servers don't like that. Like, why are you taking 3% of my tips? Like that's the credit card fees. And they're like, well, you're just taking my money and putting your pocket. Well, it does go to the bottom line, but why am I paying 3% of your tips? And clearly this is, if you look at this as a small business and I'm giving you a hair salon and this is your counter, you get to go these four tables is your section, go make your money. Part of owning a business is you have fees that go with that. I don't, that's a whole separate conversation. What I was getting at was there's a mental health side of not knowing how much money you're going to make every day based upon how busy you are and how generous people are.

01:08:55And I know that's a bad budgeting on my side when it comes to that. But also that creates stress and a lot of scary things in people that manifest themselves in a bunch of different ways. And it could create unscrupulous behavior because I need to make money tonight and I'm going to, Hey, I'll hook you up. Hey, this guy, there's birthday, give him a free dessert. Hey, I bought you free dessert tonight. Whatever it is, it creates a, a bad thing. And we do a tip pool because I want to eliminate that you come to work. You're going to make money. If you're the top breadwinner for the day, chances are you're not going to make all of that money, but you had a bunch of support from other people who helped you do that. See, I will say though, when I was a server, I hate, I would never work in a typical place. I hated working at a typical place because I knew how to sell and I'm turning in $300 and my coworkers turning in a hundred and that sucks for me. We're going to talk more about this right after these words. Hey guys, we are supported by Sharpies bakery and we've been supported by Sharpies bakery for the last year.

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01:13:10Want to learn more? Give David Perry a call at 615-306-7455 or email him at dperryatvolunteerwelding.com. That's a thing. That's a thing. So those, and that's the problem is that everybody is you. Everybody that works there is you. Everybody works harder than everybody else. And I'm like, well, if everybody works harder than everybody else, how can this work? But I also think that you could work somewhere else. Just go work somewhere else that doesn't do that. I see turnover because of it. Sorry, Brian. Yeah, no, you're good. Uh, I mean, I see both sides of that argument. I mean, my wife waited tables forever. She just worked for Caroline. Um, but she hated Tipple. So it was like, but she was also, I mean, I, I'm biased, but she was better at her job. No, she was absolutely. She's very knowledgeable, hard worker, great with guests. And she would sell more than the average person would. And so she felt like when she worked at places with the typical, she wouldn't make as much money as other places. So it was on her to find the right place to work.

01:14:11Um, but we'll imagine, imagine being in a place where everybody was that bad ass for everybody. And like every night you had full trust in everybody around you that they were doing the same things you were. And there's a bit of humility that has to come with that because everybody's not better than everybody else. We all have different unique strategies. Like take the Tipple and go, I'm really good at selling wine. Pull me over a time. You want me to sell wine at your table? Yeah. Because let me do that. Maybe you do the initial great and sell the specials. Cause you talk about food with such passion. Bring be out, step outside the box, use different people at different tables. It's okay. Cause every table is your table. I will say when I worked at typical places, I'm so sorry to my former employers, but I did not work as hard. I absolutely did not work as hard. I, I do think a little bit on you as a manager to like hire the staff that can lead them out. Right. Um, and, and you, in that scenario, you do have to look at it a little bit more like sort of, you know, like a team or like an athletic team or something. This person's good at this. This person's good at that and figure out how to make it work.

01:15:14But in the end, like you're still going to have like your LeBron on the team or whatever, you know, like. Maybe not. Maybe, maybe you don't have LeBron on the team because LeBron gets paid more than everybody else. But that's, I guess that's what I'm getting at is, uh, is you might be losing out on, uh, some of the, some of the top tier talent it's, it's a, it's you know, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to, I want every, I want the bounce pass. I want full hands in full hands out. I want everybody fundamentally executing on a really high level and genuinely caring. I don't need LeBron on my team. If I've got a great cohesive unit. And that's the thing. I think that individual tips are, is that this is my section. I'm doing great. You suck over there. Well, that till might be your table tomorrow. Like, how do we, when I walked through a restaurant, I don't look at the restaurant as this is my section of the restaurant. I walked to the restaurant and my eyes are up heads on a swivel. I'm just looking for somebody who goes like this and I go, yes, sir. What can I do for you? What do you need? And I look for service.

01:16:14And as a server, if I can train every server to do that and everybody gets it. And it's a lead, you have to lead them to that. It doesn't happen organically, but you have to lead them to that. But when that happens, pretty damn special, because then you've got a cohesive unit of people who all trust each other. And that's where training and extended training and, you know, team building things need to happen. It's a little different, but you also don't have, that's not my section. That doesn't happen. I'm not running that food. That's not my table. It doesn't matter. Every table is your table. And when you, when it works is pretty special, but when it doesn't work, it's tough and it's a tough thing to manage. It is. And it's, and there are people that don't get it and don't want it. And I understand that I get it. We have a lot of turnover. We had a lot of turnover initially because LeBron didn't want to play for that team. And I understand that Gonzaga never won a title. You know, it just depends on what you're damn. Hold on. I got that. We got that. Is that a rim shot? Is that no, that's a applause is good.

01:17:15Yeah. Define the applause. All right. We can drop the mic on that one. That was awesome. Thank you for that. They haven't won a title, but they always make it to the final. They always make it to the tournament. They're always in the tournament. So speaking of the tournament, we have like nine minutes left and we got, we got to get rolling, right? The bear, we don't have to go into too much conversation about it. Brian, we've, we've talked it nauseam about it. You said I'm team Caroline. Tell me your team Caroline status. Why did you not like the bear? Okay. So let me just back up a little bit, right? Um, maybe 2008, 2009, somewhere around there. I was a goal of mine to write like a gritty HBO restaurant show. Um, so some of this might be jealousy, you know, um, I never went. I I'm not a good writer, so I never went through with it. Right. But at the time this was like, you know, uh, before me too, it was like, uh, when chef still threw shit at you and stuff like that.

01:18:23Um, so it was a little bit more of like the shitty side of working in a restaurant. Um, so I had a little bit different idea, but anyway, um, I will also say I've only watched three episodes of the bear. So, uh, I can't fully be like, I'm just going to tell you. That's all you need to know. You, you, listen, you got it all. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I, I feel like everyone's like, Oh, it's so cool that they drink water out of a cork container or like whatever, but they also don't notice that like, there's 12 cooks running a fucking sandwich shop, you know, like there's just, there's so much about it that it's like, they, they harp on like, Oh, they did a really good job about nailing the details and then they missed like the biggest details of all. Absolutely. I just don't. Oh, you're just pandering. Stop it. No, I'm not. I just so fucking. Okay. It's true. Keep going. Keep going. I mean, that's a big part of it for me. So I have my boy, Brian shout out to Brickman. He gives me shit all the time because he's like, you're just too close to it. And I am.

01:19:24So like, I'm not really the target audience for this show. I don't think like, I know there are a ton of cooks who love it. I know there's a ton of restaurant people who love it, but for me, I watch it. I feel like I'm working. Like I hate it. And then I just, that's the thing you're triggered by it. Yeah, I am triggered by it, but I just think a lot of this stuff is dumb. Like a family meal chef and an Italian, a shelf and an Italian beef restaurant. Yes, chef. Yeah. Um, and thank you, chef. Just, I don't know. It just, uh, I think, I think maybe you brought up like the buying meat from the mob or whatever, so ridiculous. Listen, I'm not arguing any of that. That is that it is a, it is a television drama. Well, it's actually by the Emmys. It's a comedy, which is ridiculous. I mean, it was a comedy to me, but I don't think in the way they intended. So my guy says like, like, do you, do you watch good fellows? Like if you watch that with the mob boss, are they going to like nitpick all the stupid stuff? Yeah. It's a drug. They have to make some of the stuff up for TV and the general public has to kind of go, Oh, like they're not people that are in the middle of it.

01:20:29I liked the subtle nuances of little like storylines that they pulled out. And I'll say it a hundred times where they have people who work in an Italian beef place and that don't give a shit. And then all of a sudden they add structure to them and you see people blossom, you see them go, they start caring. But that's not what an Italian beef place is supposed to be. It's supposed to be fast food. You're kind of not supposed to give a shit. It's on a steam table with a role. And that's kind of like part of it. Like if you actually go to an Italian beef place at lunchtime in Chicago, it's like, what do you want? What do you want? What do you want? What do you want? Like, it's just, you know what I mean? It's not part of the charm. It's not supposed to be that. And it's idiotic to try to make an Italian beef stand anything other than a fucking Italian beef stand. Unless you're like a James Beard nominated chef, who's the best restaurant in the world, but he inherited it. He's got to come in and he's there's a storyline with his brother dying. He wants to continue this legacy and his brother would never let him work there. So he wanted to put his own spin on what his brother did. I kind of get that. And it shows how broken he is and not getting it and wanting more in his dream of owning the bear.

01:21:33And like, uh, I guess the story just doesn't, you got to watch. Okay. I watched the first three episodes and I did the same thing. I never watched another one. She watched the whole thing. I did not watch the whole thing. You've never watched the whole thing show? No, no. Uh, I watched like the first two episodes of the first season. And then I watched like, I watched more episodes of the second season, but I watched like five episodes of the second season. I just, I can't get through the whole thing. It's so, okay. Nevermind. Then never, nevermind. You got to watch the, you can't watch half the movie and be like, ah, it's a bad movie. I sure can. Okay. I've walked out on stuff. Apparently both of you have, uh, I watched the entire entirety and maybe it made more sense to me cause I watched the entirety of it and I suspended disbelief for a minute. You watched the last episode where the woman was sitting at the table.

01:22:36I did watch the last episode. I mean that, I get that. Listen, I got it. I did. I promise you, I didn't miss anything. I got it all. Did you watch the episode forks? Where he polished forks. Richie polished the forks. What'd you think about that one? I can't say. I don't, I can't, I can't say I, I, I thought, God, the thing with the pizza was so stupid. Like don't, why do you need to like plate it? Like you're like, just give them a pizza the way it's intended to be eaten. If they wanted a deep dish pizza, give them a deep dish pizza. You don't need to like put it in a ring mold and like it's. Well, that was directly from the book on reasonable hospitality. That whole scene. No, I know. But I'm saying directly from his story in the book where he took the hot dog and he made it all fancy because that's what they did. And, and, and the reason that's what Will Gaidera did is he got a hot dog. And then the chef, he says, he put a smear of this here and he put a little bit of ketchup and a little mustard and a little bit of relish and like made it super fancy cause they were 11 Madison park.

01:23:39And they took that straight from the book. I think there's something cool about somebody doing that. Who's never done it before. And you've never heard of it before. But I feel like at this point in our restaurant society, it's like a little. We do. Cause we've know that book and we know that story, but the general public doesn't. I think he's bringing it to a larger audience. We're supposed to be the target audience for that. Are we? I feel like, I think so too. I think they made it for us and it's like, no, no, no, this is not for us. It's my intelligence. I feel like it's, it's like every asshole chef. I don't want to work for wrote that show. It's like, she's like, well, these are my friends. It's like the TV show. No, no, no. It's, it's like the TV show equivalent of a guy who just finished his first semester of culinary school and is like, I read Favikin and now I'm going to roast beets and dirt. Like it's that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But doesn't know how to make like a salad dressing properly.

01:24:41The discussion should be over now. Yes. Do we continue talking about the bear? We're done. All right. Um, any changes in your thoughts on tipping Caroline? Um, I mean, we're going to start this on Monday. I am a little apprehensive because today, uh, yeah, it's, it's a big change because today is Monday when this comes out, I am debating about if we send out an email blast to our email audience, announcing the change. I think we might just give people a heads up. Um, but we are really leaning into, from the customer's perspective, we're really leaning into having an awareness of tipping fatigue and our language in the restaurant is you don't need to tip. We're adding a service charge and there's a QR code that people can scan to go to a webpage that is like a longer explanation of what it is. You're very brave. Thanks. You're a, you're a leader in the industry. I appreciate you. I do want to give a shout out to Michael Hannah at St Vito, who is really kind of what inspired us to pull the trigger on this is seeing that they were doing a service charge and that he was very bold and outspoken about like, Hey, here's what we're doing and if you don't like it and you don't think that our people deserve to be paid, then I can't help you.

01:25:55So I really want to give Michael a lot of credit for kind of helping push me over the edge and also your partner, Michael, who I spoke with, um, and had a lot of really great insight for me to think about as well. So thank you to my restaurant community who helped me with this decision. And I'll check back in in a couple of weeks and let you guys know how it's going. Brian, any final thoughts? Uh, no, no final thoughts. I'm, we're still struggling a little bit with kind of what we want to do. Tip wise at the new spot, you know, we haven't totally figured that out. So hopefully this conversation helped a little bit with it. And hopefully if you're out there wondering what you should do with your tip situation or how you should tip at restaurants, maybe we've confused you more. Maybe we've helped you continue the conversation. You can go to this episode on Spotify and you can make notes. You can let us know what you think. Uh, or you can go to Instagram where we've posted about this and let us know your thoughts. Uh, you guys have been doing really good at giving feedback recently and I love it. So Brian Lee Weaver, thank you for joining us today. Caroline is always, it's a pleasure to have you here.

01:26:57Thank you to the listeners. We'll talk to you soon. All right. Big thanks again to Brian Lee Weaver for joining us in having a vulnerable conversation around tipping. I tell you, I feel like some of my stances throughout that I want to say that trying as a leading this conversation, I had to play devil's advocate and son of it, some of it. And I think there's one comment where I said the guy at Home Depot or the HVAC guy, that's way more valuable than somebody handing me a beer. That wasn't because I don't think you should tip for handing me a beer. I think that there's a, that's, that's what we do in restaurants. And it's a whole thing. I think the whole conversation is based around, is that a thing? Should that be a thing? And I think that we talked about it. So, uh, if you have opinions again, please let us know what they are. You can go to Spotify. You can leave your opinion and, um, yeah, it's just a fun conversation. So thank you guys for listening today. Please stay tuned for our fantasy football contest, the show.

01:28:01If you are somebody out there and you run a company and you would like to sponsor this event, if you want to help the giving kitchen, please send me a direct message at Brandon underscore N RR on Instagram, where you can send me an email, Brandon at Nashville restaurant radio.com. I am happy to entertain anybody that wants to come in and be a sponsor of that Friday show or anybody that wants to, this money is going to go directly to the giving kitchen. So we are raising money to help restaurant workers, or you can sponsor a chef throughout the course of this whole thing, but we'll have more information up at Nashville restaurant radio.com. But for now, if you're a company that wants to be a part of this and you want to support restaurant workers, we want you to be a part of this. Any dollar amount is helpful because again, we're just trying to raise money for restaurant workers. Let's do this. Anybody out there who has a company again, message me. Thank you guys for listening. Hope that you are being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.