click to enlarge - Courtesy of Mason Lamb
- The collection jar at Red Hen Baking in Middlesex
If you go to
Red Hen Baking in Middlesex on Tuesday, February 14, to buy a sweet for your sweetheart, you’ll notice a change when you pay for the pastry. The electronic point-of-sale system will no longer present a tipping option.
This is a nuanced change because Red Hen has never accepted standard tips, but that hasn't stopped customers from dropping money in a jar or adding it to their electronic payments. Instead of divvying up this money among staffers, Red Hen donates it to a nonprofit, as a sign on the counter informs customers. This month's recipient is Planned Parenthood. Last year, the bakery-café received $240,000 in non-tip “tips,” according to owner Randy George.
Red Hen’s decision to eliminate the electronic option coincides with raising its prices by 5 percent, George said. The hike will fund a 7.5 percent pay raise for the company’s roughly 60 employees. With this increase, the business will pay a starting-wage minimum of $16 an hour; the wage will increase by more than 30 percent — to $21 an hour — when an employee becomes “proficient” at their job, usually in four to six months, George said. Red Hen also provides health benefits for employees who work at least 30 hours a week. (This benefit is worth about $4 an hour, according to George.)
“We believe in compensating [employees] and giving people benefits,” George said. “We’re not relying on customers to kick in the extra bit.”
A physical jar will remain on the counter for customers who choose to make a donation to the charitable organization. Yet despite signs that notify patrons what the collection is for, many don’t get the message, according to George.
“Even the tip jar is not a tip jar,” George said. “The perception, of course, is that it is.”
The jar brings in about 10 percent of customers’ "tip" contributions, with 90 percent coming in electronically. Donations started to "skyrocket" five years ago, when Red Hen's electronic payment system first presented a tipping option, according to George.
“There’s all this money coming in that people don’t even know what they’re doing with it,” he said.
Starting on Tuesday, Red Hen will shut off that flow of money and raise wages through the price increase. The 5 percent price hike is about half the amount of money that people have been giving through add-on electronic payments, George said.
Red Hen started as a bread bakery 23 years ago. Its café, which serves soups, sandwiches, baked goods and more, opened in 2008. The counter-service eatery was established as a tip-free business.
“In our mind, everybody here is doing an essential job,” George said, “whether they’re washing dishes, driving a truck, baking bread or ringing you up at the cash register. They’re all part of the same team.”
A person who serves a customer one day could do a different job the next, George explained. He believes compensation shouldn’t depend on the shift a person works or be at the discretion of the customer.
“When people are relying on the tip, they’re working for the tip,” George said. “They encourage people to spend more money on something they don’t want or need.”
The decision to eliminate tipping is “definitely swimming upstream,” George said. “We’ve all discussed it, and we feel pretty strongly about wanting to do it this way … There’s an element of
Trust us, we’re doing the right thing.”