AUSTIN — It's well known that restaurant servers and staff rely on customers' tips to get by, but more restaurants around the nation have decided to skip tips altogether -- including some in Austin.
Jam Sanitchat is the owner and chef at Thai Fresh in South Austin -- but her interest in cooking started when she was a kid in Thailand.
"I was just cooking by my grandmother and helping her since I was 5," Sanitchat said. "I was always in the kitchen kind of involved as a little helper here and there."
She eventually moved to Austin for a graduate study program -- not to create a restaurant.
"I didn't really plan to have a restaurant," Sanitchat said. "I was just kind of cooking for friends at home and throwing parties. I eventually started teaching cooking classes and opened a farmers' market stand. Then four years later, I opened a restaurant."
That opening happened in 2008. Around this time, Sanitchat had an interesting experience at Black Star Co-op in North Austin.
She couldn't tip her server.
"At first I really didn't know that it could be possible," Sanitchat said.
Black Star Co-op hasn't allowed tipping since it opened in 2010. Owned by a community of more than 3,000 people and organizations, the company has a much different structure than most restaurants.
Christopher Byram, the assistant brewer for Black Star, has held many different positions in the restaurant industry. He said deciding to work for Black Star about seven years ago was a move he's glad he made.
"Black Star is built on that concept of not wanting to take advantage of workers and really wanting to kind of shine a spotlight on how the industry, in general, treats its workers," Byram said. "It's very, very different."
Byram also said that tipping can become arbitrary and be impacted by things unrelated to the service being provided.
"It's not an equitable system," Byram said. "It's also an incredibly complicated issue, but at the end of the day, tips or not, the customer is making the money for everybody or putting in the money for everybody."
Once Sanitchat had a more stable business in 2016, she decided to join Black Star as one of the handful of Austin restaurant that does not accept tips. She made the change at the same time she moved from counter service to table service.
"I might as well switch to no tipping at the same time," Sanitchat said. "I just have felt for so long that there's a flaw in this system because it brings so much stress to everyone."
Seth Bailey worked for Sanitchat under that system as a walk cook.
"I wanted to feel like I'm doing more with my life than just basing it on a whim," Bailey said. "I feel like there was a lot of struggle in my month-to-month."
The tips Bailey would receive trickled down from the front of the restaurant and were never that consistent.
"People call out orders and you just make whatever you make," Bailey said.
Now under the new system, Bailey stayed with Thai Fresh and is currently the lead barista.
"I have too many things I need to take care of in my life to be basing it on the what if rather than the what is," Bailey said. "Every single person here is one aspect of what makes up the entire success, so you can't let anybody feel that they're not making or benefiting as much as the next person."
Former president of the Texas Restaurant Association and current restaurant owner Tom Kenney doesn't necessarily see it that way.
"I think the restaurant industry is misunderstood," Kenney said. "They think that people are low-wage workers. They don't understand how tipping really works."
At his restaurant -- Napa Flats Wood-Fired Kitchen near Lake Travis -- tipping is still on the table.
"You have to take the long run if you're a server," Kenney said. "It's a very accommodating industry where people can make money over a short period of time."
From a business perspective, Kenney said being forced to raise prices to compensate for the higher wages in a hyper-competitive industry with a lot of options is not a viable option.
"Have you ever heard of a restaurant going, 'I'm having a raise my prices sale, and I'm going to drive in more customers'?" Kenney said. "It doesn't work that way."
Kenney also said from a employee's perspective, tipping allows servers to earn more.
"If you're a great server, I have a chance to make more or I get a guaranteed wage," Kenney said. "It's the servers who want to get tips, so anyone that thinks otherwise is ill-informed."
Kenney said if there is an issue of paying the employees more, that is on the shoulders of restaurant owners rather than the structure of how customers pay for meals.
"I challenge my fellow restaurateurs, if they think there's inequity and they're not paying their people in the back of the house, then pay your people more in the back of the house," Kenney said. "I think it's great to have these conversations about how we can make our industry better, but to automatically jump on board with the first shiny penny and say this is the answer, I think we're foolish to do that."
For Sanitchat and Thai Fresh, though, she said there are other factors at play that have justified this change. Since the change, the time and effort she had to put into crafting her staff has changed for the better.
"The first year I had zero turnover in the kitchen," Sanitchat said. "Generally, over a year, I was always training and stressing. The kitchen staff turnover was drastically just dropped."
Sanitchat said the overall feel of the restaurant has also improved.
"I think we are all -- from managers to staff -- in a better state of mind," Sanitchat said." The stress just went away."
Sanitchat said during the first year of no tipping, she experienced a dip in profit -- which she expected to happen. So far this year, though, she said it has bounced back. And she believes it will continue improving with time.