PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - A couple of restaurants in Maine are abandoning their no tipping policy.
The Portland Press Herald (https://bit.ly/2pDO7VB ) reports chef Cara Stadler of BaoBao Dumpling House in Portland and Tao Yuan in Brunswick abandoned the experiment because of declining restaurant revenue.
Stadler announced the no tipping policy in October. Her restaurants paid servers on an hourly rate and increased pay for cooks and other kitchen staff.
Restaurant operations director Chris Peterman says both restaurants raised prices by 18 percent to cover the wage increases. The policy helped servers during the slower winter months. But Peterman says customers were ordering less at meals and spending less money overall.
Server pay will return to a tipped minimum wage, which last year increased from $3.75 an hour to $5 an hour. Kitchen workers will keep their raises.
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This story has been corrected to show the wage increased to $5 an hour, not by $5.
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Information from: Portland Press Herald, https://www.pressherald.com
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