Their tip-sharing system, in which servers were paid an hourly wage from pooled gratuities, gave way to a policy allowing individual servers to take home tips left specifically for them. Servers responded positively, according to Kirsch. Legal is just one in a long line of restaurants to wrestle with the question of pooling tips. And while Legal finally abandoned equality for individualism, the socialistic system of tip sharing is still alive and well. There's a much less cut-throat attitude among the servers, says Cliff Palmore, assistant manager of Grace's Trattoria, a tip pooling operation in Manhattan.
People are more willing to help each other when they share tips.
In pooling systems, all of the servers' gratuities are collected and distributed evenly as an hourly wage at the end of the shift. Usually bussers and service bartenders are also paid a lesser wage from that pot. But it works great because servers have a much greater reason to work hard for every table because they are making money on every single table. But T.J. Callahan, senior consultant with Technomic, a Chicago-based research firm, says there's a flip side to pooling. While it may create community, he says it can serve as a disincentive to perform beyond the norm.