Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Cafe Gratitude Sued for Labor-Code Violations
Business Ellen Cushing — Tue, Aug 9, 2011 at 5:46 PM
Better start working on your "I am [allegedly violating labor law/gettin' sued]" witticisms now, guys. That's right: Local raw-vegan chain/alleged cult Cafe Gratitude is being sued by a former employee for a host of labor-law violations.
In the suit, which was filed in San Francisco superior court, Sarah Stevens alleges that in her time working at various CafGraf locations, she was deprived of legally-mandated breaks, and received only a fraction of the tips she rightfully earned. Per a statement from her legal team, Kumin Sommers LLP:
In addition to not receiving her rest and meal periods, Stevens alleges that she is required to participate in an unreasonable and uncustomary tip pooling scheme that leaves her with a very small percentage of the tips she earns as a server. Specifically, Stevens alleges that after tipping out 20% of her daily tips to the “central kitchen” — an offsite kitchen on 14th street — Stevens must then split the remaining 80% of her tips equally with all of the Café Gratitude staff, including the “shift leaders” and retail employees.
Cafe Gratitude, you may remember, has also drawn ire from current and former staff for its relationship to the self-help program Landmark Forum, which some employees allege they were forced into by threat of losing their jobs. And it appears the company's no stranger to lawsuits, either: In 2007, the restaurant chain was sued by for breach of contract by its napkin supplier, and the statement from Stevens' law firm also alludes to possible litigation surrounding an Americans with Disabilities Act violation. (Alas, if only it were illegal to charge $13 for plate of hummus.)
We'll keep you posted.
Update, 5:38: Lookie here. Our homies at SF Weekly spoke to a rep from Cafe Gratitude, who more or less called BS on the suit. Director of Operations Chandra Gilbert said that the tip-pooling policy, which seems to be the crux of Stevens' lawsuit, was approved by an employee vote, and that new hires also sign an agreement letting them know about the system. Meanwhile, the Weekly also reports that Stevens will be seeking at least $75,000.
Comments (69)
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the law is so messed up! People want a job, take one, read and sign an agreement about tip pooling... and then find some starving lawyers to take on a completely immoral case to bankrupt the best restaurant / community that ever existed. Shame on you, Ms. Stevens
yoyo_guru
Do we americans not have along standing well known tradition of frivolous law suits for personal profit against each other? Anything for a buck? What about all the examples of baseless opportunistic lawsuits, would you be posting links to a few of those to bring some fairness, balance and critical thinking to your posting here? I should sue you for not agreeing with me actually, I am lawyering-up as we speak. Your lawyer will be hearing from mine shortly. See you in internet court. :-)
"some businesses ARE dishonest and don't treat their employees well."
Yoyo_guru
As far as i have seen, most humans display dishonesty at one time or another and don't treat other people well. Such is life on earth where humans are involved. It is not a restauraunt or Cafe Gratitude issue. I have stolen things in my life have you yoyo_guru? I have also lied in my life, some lies very recent. You above all that ? You a "good" person yoyo_guru? You think you are better then the evil scheming untrustworthy tip stealing employee conning heartless rich restaurant owners?
It is the ones who present themselves as the "good" people, that I steer clear of.
Yoyo_guru
it is your freedom to not trust anyone and view company owners as a threat to you and as a threat to others even though you don't have one shred of evidence or facts to base it on.
I ask you to consider that you are talking of things you know nothing about, and that you are speaking with a bias that is quite distorted and ignores current reality. Where is the critical thinking on your part? Why ignore the staff that have posted here and none complaining that they though the owners were stealing their tips? You dreamed all that up based on your world view. Thats crazy talk man.
You have never worked as a server, nor in a restaurant and you can go anytime you wish to and visit Cafe Gratitude and speak to the severs and staff there in person and see if in fact they agree with you even in part but my guess is that you have 100% no interest in what is really going on at Cafe Gratitude, beyond posting your random thoughts and opinions on an internet message board just because you can.
Not that there is anything wrong anonymous phantom opinionating on the www :-) , it is what it is, but besides you and me, who really cares about our random opinions and arguing on line? I is not part of reality.
waygonow,
I actually did not concoct that theory myself. It came from an email from the plaintiff's lawyer to me in one of the cases. I can't legally reproduce it but the gist of it was that in banquets, as opposed to single tables, there are typically multiple servers and the individual servers have no way of knowing how much total came in for the tips.
Your trusting nature is admirable. But, unfortunately, some businesses ARE dishonest and don't treat their employees well.
Knowing what I know about Cafe Gratitude's other practices, I wouldn't be surprised if they fall into that category.
I've never been a server in a restaurant.
Correction: it does not HAVE TO do with choice. I look at it from that point of view, choice is where i see the most power for an adult. People can, and do look at this story from whatever point of view suits them, and if they do not look at as being about choice, that is ok to, as far as I am concerned. A rabbi, a grandmother, a police officer, an employee of the restaurant, a business owner, a union supporter, a rich black person, a poor white person, etc etc might all have a different way of looking at this story and none of them might look at it as being about choice.
And yes it does have do do with "choice" yoyo_guru, and nothing but "choice".
Employees and workers all around the world choose to trust their employers and bosses with their lives every single day. That some humans abuse the trust granted to them by other humans is indeed a baffling story of life on earth and a story about our species, but not a restaurant story or a Cafe Gratitude story. As ADULTS, we all get to choose who we are going to trust or not. We are talking about adults making choices not children right yoyo_guru?
Might people betray trust grated to them, I expect yes. Who reading this has not at least once betrayed the trust another person granted to them? We don't haves to trust anyone, that is another choice. Live with 10 billion people and trust none of them. Enjoy.
Yoyo_guru
is any of this based on your personal experience? Have you ever been a server in a restaurant and had your employer pool/collect the tips and and steal from your tips? Or is this just a convenient yoyo_concoction to cast doubt on those you want to cast doubt on?
yoyo-g
if you can prove that your boss/employer is lying to you + stealing from you, that is a whole other matter. But yoyo I have not heard anybody but you suggesting that on this article, certainly not the actual employees who have posted here. Is it lost on you that none of the employees that have posted here have remarked that that was a concern?
Spreading contrived paranoia and fear and drama yoyo? Your 'what ifs' , 'could be's', 'speculations' and 'youneverknows' and any other imaginings of yours are silly, ignorable, BS and quiet standard internet noise on any subject. Facts and reality appear to be of no interest to you, your own theories and thoughts are what fascinate you most, so you stray into these baseless conspiracy theories that no one can prove or disprove. Blah blah blah internet moaning same as it ever was.
And if it is a fact that ANY employer is lying to you + stealing from you, then it is a legal mater and the police will no doubt become involved quick fast and in a hurry.
This has little do to with "choice," unless the choice is to put your tips in the hands of the restaurant's management and trust them that, say, $400, instead of $500, came in for tips on a given day. And trust them that, say, 30 out of 50, and not just 20 out of 60, voted for the pooling.
The process is inherently open to problems like this. The employees vote (if management can be trusted to tell them the true voting numbers) to give management control over the entire tips process. The employees cannot possibly get the information about how much they are actually owed in tips.
When, on the other hand, a server simply gets the tip left to him or her on the bill he or she handles, s/he knows exactly how much s/he should get.
It's really not a matter of "employee choice" or any of those feel-good things. There are election monitors in third-world countries for good reasons. There's nobody watching over Cafe Gratitude management, or any restaurant that does this. Employees just have to trust them. Some may be trustworthy. Some may be trustworthy part of the time, like when business is doing well, and the rest of the time skim money off the tip pool. Some may never be trustworthy.
yours,
the omnipresent yoyo-g
This is more a debate about restaurant and cafe' gratuity and tipping in general than about Cafe' Gratitude.
Cafe' Gratitude's approach is no doubt somewhere on the spectrum of approaches to tipping along with thousands if not millions of other restaurants. There may be cafe's and restaurants with more attractive practices and ones with less.
The bottom line is that servers and employees always have a choice. God Bless America. I have a very savvy and dear friend who has mad tip earning skillz and she recently went for a job interview and did not take the job because she found out the establishment pooled the tips. She desperately needed the work, BUT was not comfortable having others be rewarded from what she viewed as her efforts and years of experience.THAT IS HER CHOICE. She did not blame or harbour ill will towards the restaurant, she said "no thanks" and moved on with her job search.
yoyo_guru
Your brilliant omnipresent opinions on how other people should do things and how other people should not do things is noted.
yoyo_guru
Your brilliant omnipresent opinions on how other people should do things anyhow other people should not do things is noted.
waygonow,
1. As in the case posted, "pooling tips" requires that the management, and not the employees, add up the tips and distribute them. As in the posted case, the employees at Cafe Gratitude have no way of knowing how much they actually are owed, because they can't see the amounts of all the other servers' tips. Cafe Gratitude could be cheating them left and right - and probably is, IMO.
2. With employees voting on whether or not to pool tips, you'd need to have a unanimous vote for the process to be fair. If even one employee would rather not do it, that employee is cheated out of his or her rightful tips.
3. Even if you accept that a vote need not be unanimous (and I don't), you'd need to have another vote each time an employee quit or another one came on board. So what if the vote was "for" pooling tips 6, or even 3 months ago? Who's to say that current personnel would vote for it today?
4. With voting to pool tips, employees - as with the amount of tips - have to take management's word on the vote.
NOW I'm done here.
yoyo_guru,
you are off and there is no comparison between the two "stories" and you know it , and call a spade a spade, you are "done here" because you have nothing and you know that to.
This is a silly story with no basis. Drama and stupidity os what passes for news these days. So they post this nonsense about a frivolous law suit. As if the world needs crap like this stupid story.
waygonow, Yes, that case is not completely on point. But it's damn close. And the principle is the same. I'm done here.
yoyo_guru,
Did you even read that article? In that case the restaurant did not disclose to paying customers that the service fees they were being charged were being used to pay costs and expenses of the hotel rather than tips and wages for employees.
In this Cafe' Gratitude story, all the tips are going to employees and in a way that the employees voted for.
Your "opinions" and biased skewed "hopes" do appear to be clouding your critical thinking skills and reading skills.
@waygonow, The employees in the link I posted won their suit, to the tune of $800,000. That's not "my opinion." I hope the Cafe Gratitude employees win their suit as well.
yoyo_guru,
There are many great things all people everywhere should and could do. Every single restaurant could post how their gratuities and tips are dispersed among their staff and if it was voted on by the staff or not and if it was disclosed at the time of entering employment there or not. Sure thing why not, post a huge board that takes half an hour to read.
World peace is another thing everybody should do. And while we are at it nobody should smoke. Fast food? that should be illegal to and serving fast food it should be punishable with very large fines, and of course cars that run on gasoline should also be illegal. The list of opinions goes on and on.
Many people have a "brilliant opinion" about how other's should and should not operate their business or restaurant and what is the proper moral good right way to handle "tips" and gratuities.
Employees and especially new employees usually know every single thing that is wrong with their employer or "the boss" and what the business owner should do and not do differently. They are geniuses when it comes to such things.
But very few people have what it takes to not just blabber at the mouth and blabber on line but actually go open their own business or restaurant and risk failure and risk loss of everything.
The public and junior employees will blabber on with their genius brilliant opinions, that is for sure.
Robert Gammon said:
"That's misleading. At minimum, Cafe Gratitude should make it clear to its customers that when they tip a food server that most of the money is actually going to other people."
So Robert, should each and EVERY single restaurant and cafe' and eatery in the United states also post and make it clear exactly where tips go and how tips and gratuity are handled or just Cafe' Gratitude?
When I visit a restaurant as a customer, if I am concerned about where tips go , I just ask: "how are tips handled here at your restaurant" and then i tip accordingly. If I want to reward a particular person I ask if I am able to do that and tip accordingly. Restaurants can do whatever the hell they want with their tips, I manage what I need to manage to feel ok with how tips are handled and enjoy my meal. Each establishment does it a bit differently. To single out one place is silliness. If you are uncomfortable with how a restaurant handles tips, don't eat there or don't tip or ask if you can tip a particular person, be an adult about it.
As a server applying for a job at any restaurant, if you are not comfortable with the gratuity arrangement or tip set up, DON'T TAKE A JOB THERE! Is that complicated?
This message board has been targeted by 2 or three full time internet spammers on the Rick Ross message board where said small group of individuals work on making as much noise as possible on the www and comb the internet for anything related to Landmark Education and the three of them gang spam the page no matter what the topic.
Most of the posts attacking Cafe Gratitude come from there.
Rick Ross has no credentials and makes his living ($) by self appointing and promoting himself as the watchdog against "groups" and the more "groups" he portrays as villains the more he is needed the more $ Rick Ross makes. Rick Ross views most "groups" as malignant and advocates a loner approach to life.
Being forced to attend the Landmark Forum culty weekends is common in companies where the leadership have been indoctrinated.
actually, they may have "chosen" the tipping policy, but they were only given 3 options to choose from. None of the three is anywhere close to what a normal restaurant does. AND there would only be about a $9 increase on an average day, in what you could make as a server from the option that could have offered the most money.
so really, i don't call that "choosing" at all. The kitchen staff SHOULD be paid more. But they should be paid by the OWNERS (who obviously have money as every new restaurant they open is more and more extravagent), and NOT BY THE SERVERS who all struggle to pay their rent each month.
ps. these are facts. i worked there.
@Tb-Lay, Yes, Cafe Gratitude is far from above reproach. The have cult-like aspects (most egregiously, making their employees take Landmark Forum) and because of that, they need to be watched like a hawk. Everything they do with regard to their employees needs to be seen in the light of the fact that they're a cult, or at the very least, cult-like. Anything they do that can possibly be interpreted as employee coercion, in light of their past coercions and the cult-speak being promulgated here by these employees, should be looked at in that light.
If "15 out of 103 people voted against it. And that means 88 people voted for it," then those 15 did not "choose" to give away part of their tips. 66th Street noticed and mentioned this subtlety awhile ago. Yet all the Cafe Gratitude drones seem to shove it aside.
Also, Cafe Gratitude is not above reproach. They do other things that I have problems with. But the tip pooling is not one of them.
Wow, a lot of you people are very very upset by the idea that people may choose, yes CHOOSE, to share their tips with the workers in the kitchen. I know a lot of people who work at cafe gratitude. I have heard from them in the times when they're voting on whether or not to keep pooling tips. From what my friends have said, there have been healthy debates as to whether they're gonna keep the policy or not. Some employees like it, others don't. And they have voted, yes VOTED, on whether to keep the pooling policy or go to the usual ol' front-of-house-makes-all-the-good-money-while-back-of-house-does-just-as-much-or-more-work policy that the rest of the world operates under. There is real discussion and real uncertainty as to the outcome of the vote. As quoted, 15 out of 103 people voted against it. And that means 88 people voted for it. Can you give those people voting the credit to make their own damn decisions, please?
It's not like this voting is rigged, these people are adults here; what are you, some kinda conspiracy theorist? Jesus...
If you think that spreading out the tips between the largely white crew in the front and the largely latino crew in the back is such a horrible scam and an affront to the very idea of tipping and what you are paying that lovely sweet waiter for, then you probably aren't eating at cafe gratitude anyway. They are hippies over there. And from what I've heard, hippies used to have something to do with politics, and not just yoga and renewable lightbulbs and driving hybrids. Don't like it? Cool, you don't have to. Just go and eat at every other restaurant out there. As I said, you probably don't eat there anyway, you're just whining on the internet about another thing you know nothing about.
I remember the first night I worked as a dishwasher in a fine dining restaurant. I worked my ass off all night, it was opening night of the restaurant and packed all night, and at the end I got tipped out $5.00. Combined, from all the waiters. How much do you think the waiters made that night? You know what that says to me? It says, fuck you. It says the only reason I'm tipping you out is that it's expected of me, I don't actually care about you at all.
I haven't worked in restaurants for many years, so I don't have a vested interest. I've worked front and back of house positions. It doesn't take any more skill to tell someone what's available to eat than it does to prepare it, but you don't want to tip the line cooks, do you? Do you think they're getting paid more than the servers? They're not, at least in California. There's no 'waiter wage' here like they have in other states ( where waiters get paid about half of the minimum wage with the understanding they'll make up the rest or more than the rest in tips ).
No, you want to reward the person who kisses your ass and pretends they like dealing with you when you whine and complain and generally act like an entitled first world asshole with first world problems. It's called service. They are serving you. They are your servants. You are the generous benefactor, you bestow the largesse based on the quality of their service, you should get to give that 20% tip to them and only them!
This is a class and race issue. Anyone who's so adamantly opposed to tip pooling should ask themselves why.
And PS, I don't even particularly care for the restaurant's food, but I love the Grateful Bowl, where you can pay what you want, a penny if you like, for a filling meal of local organic food. Cafe Gratitude is doing things differently, and some people on the internet don't like it. Boo hoo.
I am a Cafe Gratitude employee as well. As a server, I have enjoyed over four-and-a-half years of sharing my tips. Our food is served with love. It is also made with love. If you enjoy your experience, you can thank your server, the bar tender, the one who put the food on the plate, the one who made the food, the one who washed the dishes, etc. Many times customers thank me in beautiful ways - verbally. I often share those kind words with my co-workers. Every day customers thank me with tips. These, too, I gladly share with my co-workers. We are a team of people who are in service to our wonderful customers. We agree to share tips when we get hired. And we have voted to keep this policy. Just last week a very healthy majority voted to keep this policy. And only the people who earn tips got to vote, making it a fair and legal vote. Our version of tip-sharing is completely legal and in utmost integrity. It's one of the things I love about working there.
I am honored to work for such an amazing company. I am saddened that some folks are unhappy with any situation at Cafe Gratitude (either as a customer or as an employee). It is my/our intention to be of service, in love, all the time.
If you haven't been to Cafe Gratitude in a while, please come check us out again. A couple months ago we decreased all of our prices by an average of 24% (!) and added more fabulous menu items. We are as committed as ever to serving 100% vegan, 100% ORGANIC food, with love. This serves the planet, and it serves our bodies. And beyond all of that, it serves our souls.
Thanks for listening. And thank you for your kind support.
Tina
Those of you who dare criticize tip sharing are not of the Body. Tip sharing is the will of Landru. Get over it.
I also ate at CG last night and had such a joyful journey. It was so joyous to eat at CG. I felt the joy, ate the joy and smelled the joy. This morning, I expelled the joy! Be joy!
what yoyo said.
Clearly one of the paradigms Cafe Gratitude is attempting to shift is the English language, to its considerable detriment.
"be joy!"
By the twenty-four testicles of the Apostles of Jesus, what has the English language come to.
last night, i ate at the cafe gratitude in berkeley -first cg experience. sat the bar and spoke at length with server, may (sp?), who has worked there for six years. she seemed to enjoy her work, the company and the food. she possesses a swell spirit and energy. working as a server for six years in the restaurant biz makes a strong statement about the establishment. i thoroughly enjoyed the meal, the service and overall experience. definitely plan to return.
fail to understand what makes this such as big deal. we don't really know the motives for this suit or the circumstances surrounding the other incidents mentioned. from the gm's comments elsewhere here, sounds like the employees chose the tip pooling policy -don't really know. also, encouraging employees to attend landmark forum -if true, seems to come from a place benevolence. many who landmark achieve significant personal growth and breakthroughs -no endorsement. several friends attended landmark and swear by it.
so, what's all the fuss really? media likes drama.
be joy!
"literally shifting the paradigm"
An activity interesting only if done by Pippa Middleton or Serena Williams.
Then they should post a sign saying they price their goods and services such that they can pay everybody such and such a wage and pay them health benefits, and thus make the customers informed participants in the scheme, not con them into thinking they're rewarding their server and in fact have them subsidizing what amounts to a belief system. If you want to support a belief system, that's fine. If you want to buy lunch and reward good service, you should be able to do that in a straightforward fashion without all this undisclosed baggage. They should just say No Tips Please, We've Got It Covered With Our $13 Hummus, and let people know just exactly what they're paying for.
Think about it- When the tips are pooled, even the dishwashers are making up to $20 an hour total. I think it could potentially be sleazy, but Cafe Gratitude generally pays their employees above minimum wage and often provide healthcare. It seems like a great set-up to me. All of their employees are equally valued within the company.
"Smarmy" doesn't begin to describe the comments. I've got the heebee-jeebees from these Cafe Gratitude people now.
"We have served countless people who ate literally striving to LIVE."
Were they good tippers?
Great, now that we've got that cleared up, many of us will probably take our business to where they charge a straightforward fair price for the food, we pay it, we tip for good service, and the server gets to keep it, with a minimum of extraneous side trips...
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