Do you think the Federal minimum wage should be $15 per hour?

[Algernon Moncrieff]

76. Realistically, it would take years to change the culture in America -- if it could be done.

In the short run, I'd like to see an increasing number of restaurants on the Panera/Chipotle models of providing quality food without table servers.

I'm not against a sub minimum (I've served and done a little bartending) to encourage good service and promote tips, but only if the realistic expectation is that the servers will take home no less than minimum wage.

If everyone wanted to be honest and above board, and report tips scrupulously, one solution could be sub-minimum with a minimum guarantee. You report your tips for a given shift (say 4 hours) and add that figure to whatever sub minimum ends up being. If you make minimum wage or any figure above that, you keep your tips; anything under minimum -- the employer makes up the difference. However, I suspect strongly that servers would push back. If a server works in a setting in which they make a lot of their tips in cash (which is less and less the case), they are going to report as little as they can get away with and keep the balance as untaxed income.

Yes.. I know they don't tip like we do in Europe and Japan. I've never heard anything bad about service in Japan. Europe......well, I've heard mixed things.