Will dining out no longer require doing math?

The practice of tipping has been under siege, and a few high-profile restaurants are taking up the banner, implementing a more European-style system where menu prices are all-inclusive.

There is already a “service included” fee at top-tier prix fixe restaurants such as Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York and The French Laundry in Napa Valley. Tipping is allowed, but isn’t expected. Now other upscale “a la carte” restaurants are taking it a step further by ridding themselves of “tip culture” all together.

Top chef Tom Colicchio eliminated tipping during lunch service at his NYC restaurant Craft this year and hopes to eliminate tipping during dinner service by the end of 2015. “It’s time for a change,” says Colicchio. “It’s time to pay the servers a salary.” 

Danny Meyer (who co-founded Gramercy Tavern with Colicchio) is also doing away with tipping at the 13 restaurants in his Union Square Hospitality Group. Meyer will raise menu prices to more accurately reflect the “true cost” of fine dining.

Meyer has wanted to ban tipping since the ’90s, calling the system “awkward for all parties involved” over 20 years ago. He also believes tipping creates an unfair pay disparity in restaurants, where servers earn substantially more than those who prepare the food.

According to a recent profile on Meyer in Eater, servers in NYC’s top restaurants easily clear $100,000 annually while a mid-level line cook is more likely to make around $35,000 a year. But for all servers in greater New York, the average yearly income sits at just over $25,000. Executive chefs in NYC average closer to $80,000 while $65,000 per year is the average for sous chefs.

Not everyone is convinced that no-tipping is what workers, let alone diners, really want. “As the industry of hospitality, we’ve found the practice of tipping has traditionally attracted millions of employees to our industry,” says Christin Fernandez, the spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association. “And [it] still has strong support from American diners.” Some restaurants in San Francisco have given up on no-tip policies after losing front-of-house staff.

But fine dining restaurant Bar Marco in Pittsburgh found that a no-tip policy can work out well for everyone. Like Meyer’s restaurants, the restaurant did away with tips. In return, however, it offered all its employees a base salary of $35,000 plus bonuses based on profits, health insurance, paid vacation, and 500 shares in the business. It also reworked lots of costs and operations plans to make the model work.

Owner Bobby Fry said he wanted to create a workplace that put real value into the human element. “Google is the best company in the world for how much money they make per employee,” he said. “And that’s because they put all their time and energy into their employees. It pays off for them in fistfuls.”

It paid off for Bar Marco as well. After doing away with tips, the restaurant tripled its profits in two months.