Bar Marco opened about three years ago, on Penn Avenue, in Pittsburgh. It's a fancy-casual type place known for forward thinking in its food, drinks and design. Now it's stepping forward on a novel idea—get rid of tipping and pay a
true living wage to your employees.
With this move, Bar Marco leads with a handful of restaurants in the country—including Thomas Keller’s and Daniel Patterson’s restaurant groups—opting to eschew tipping in favor of offering their staff not only a living wage but the stability that is hard to come by when your take home pay depends on tips.
What makes this great is the flawless logic. If the business continues to do well—which is the fundamental desire of all business owners—everybody should share in the success.
We’ve been watching the data all year. I put together what we have to do to pay the front and back equally and pay them well and give them a share of the upsides,” says Bar Marco co-owner, Bobby Fry.
Considering that Pennsylvania's minimum wage for tip industry employees is
$2.83, this fledgling movement could mean great things for Americans. Especially restaurant workers,
40 percent of whom live in poverty across our fair nation.