South Park creators eliminate tipping from Casa Bonita with servers being paid $30 an hour
Topics: US News, South Park, Food and Drink, Money
Joe Harker
Featured Image Credit: Sam Tabone / Contributor / Hyoung Chang / Contributor
Topics: US News, South Park, Food and Drink, Money
The creators of South Park own a restaurant where tipping is banned and of course, it's not an idea everyone can get behind.
In the city of Lakewood, Colorado there's a restaurant you might have heard of called the Casa Bonita, which has just reopened after a lengthy renovation.
The Mexican restaurant is owned by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, who even featured the place on their show before they bought it in 2021 when it filed for bankruptcy.
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One of the main policies of Parker and Stone's restaurant is that customers can't tip their servers, as according to Insider, a few days before opening staff were offered new contracts which said servers and bartenders would be paid $30 an hour but couldn't take tips.
That's more than double Colorado's minimum wage of $13.65 and would appear to tackle one of the root issues with tipping that servers just aren't paid enough but not everyone is a fan of this approach.
Axios Denver reported that the Casa Bonita restaurant initially offered jobs to servers and bartenders with hourly wages ranging from $14.27 to $15.27 as well as any tips they could collect.
Employees who were hired through those contracts were then recently called into a meeting where they were told they could either sign the new $30 an hour contracts but not take tips, or quit.
The outlet says they spoke to employees who asked to remain anonymous who said the new contracts would provide more stability at times when the restaurant wasn't full but would represent a decrease in total wages if the Casa Bonita was packed with paying customers leaving tips.
What would happen if a customer decided to leave a tip is unclear, and spokesperson for the restaurant Stefanie Jones told Axios the new system had been devised after some testing as they thought it would provide 'efficiency and fairness'.
Casa Bonita is using a prepaid ticket system to come in and eat rather than letting people in and handing them the bill at the end of the meal.
Tipping has long been a contentious issue as part of the dining out experience in the US, and indeed it's spread to plenty of other roles as well.
Working out how much the socially acceptable level of tipping is can be tricky, while there's been pushback from some over certain services they've found themselves expected to tip for.
A lot of servers aren't paid enough to reasonably afford to live without tips, better pay has often been touted as the solution and while it offers a more guaranteed income the loss of income from tips can also be unwelcome.