My brother has been in the food industry for about 20 years now. He's mentioned multiple times that all tips go into a common shift pool and are shared between the servers, cooks, and cleaners. He's worked in many different mid to upper tier restaurants across two different states (one in the southeast, one in the midwest). So I assume this is a standard arrangement.

His first complaint with this particular approach has been that when he's gotten a good tip as a server, he has to share it (i.e. the customer gave "him" a large tip because of "his" service). The other is that when he's been a good cook or good cleaner, but there's a bad server, he's penalized because the server is given bad tips.

Ironically, we've never directly discussed whether he would prefer tips or a more traditional wage. Based on the conversations we have had, he would definitely like the ability to earn more while working in the industry (he loves cooking and he loves serving). He's hit pay ceilings in multiple restaurants, which has been a huge problem. It's such a big problem that he's transitioning to work in nurseries, because he can make more money with much less effort, and he hopes to save enough to open his own farm-to-table restaurant with some friends.

Mandating the pooling of tips is, as far as I know, illegal. I've heard of many lawsuits about it. You're free to volunteer to pool your tips, but it can't be policy.

But then shouldn't we tip 20% to the chef and not the person who brought the plate from the kitchen. I can see paying a flat fee for it for the server then.

Unfortunately, that's not the social norm. Yes, you can specify this money you left is for the back of house, but from what I've seen if you just leave money on the table/recipt the courts say you've implied that you left that for the "service" (the wait staff).

Tips that servers get are generally shared with the staff that don't interact directly with customers, but are part of providing the service that's being tipped.

In the case of fast food restaurants there were never any tips to begin with. That proves that it is possible to get rid of tipping altogether at low-end restaurants.

No, its proof that there is a distinct class of restaurants where tipping was never a convention; it doesn't say anything about the ease or difficulty of getting rid of it where it has been a convention.

Culture is path-dependent.

> No, its proof that there is a distinct class of restaurants where tipping was never a convention

The existence of such a class of (low end) restaurants without tipping proves that it is possible to get rid of tipping altogether at low-end restaurants. Which is exactly what I said.

> it doesn't say anything about the ease or difficulty of getting rid of it where it has been a convention.

This is besides the point. I didn't say anything about the ease or difficulty of getting rid of tipping.

> The existence of such a class of (low end) restaurants without tipping proves that it is possible to get rid of tipping altogether at low-end restaurants.

No, it proves that there is a class of low-end restaurants (and "fast food" is not coextensive with "low end" restaurants, its a subset of them) where there is no tipping to get rid of, not that it is possible to get rid of tipping in any of the places where it exists.

No, I said it is possible to get rid of tipping at low-end restaurants, i.e. it's possible to have low end restaurants without tipping. Do such low-end restaurants exists? Yes they do. Fast food restaurants are examples of such restaurants.