After going out to dinner last night, it got me thinking about the whole restaurant business model. It was a fine restaurant, in a pleasant location, replete with overpriced food and drinks. When I go out for a meal, I understand that I am paying for the privilege of not cooking, the talent of the chef, perhaps a romantic ambiance, and some share of the general overhead of the establishment. I am also paying the salary of my server. The restaurant gets off the hook for $2.13 an hour. I cover the rest at a socially accepted percentage of the cost of the overpriced food and drink I just consumed.
The more expensive the item I choose from the menu, the pricier the drinks in which I indulge, the higher the salary of the person I am temporarily employing to serve me. Who came up with this system? If I am going to be responsible for my server’s salary, I think it should be based on how much of that person’s time I take up, say on a per table basis. The restaurant could post its hourly rate, such as table for two, five dollars an hour, table for four, ten dollars and hour, and so on. In that manner, dining in a restaurant with an inflated, overpriced menu wouldn’t mandate that I pay my server as if he were an employee of Goldman Sachs.
Now, I’ll drink to that.
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