A new eatery in Montreal's Petite-Patrie district is operating with a different approach than just about every other full-service restaurant in town: it has a strict no-tipping policy.
Leaving a 15 or an 18 per cent tip for good restaurant service is a well-established custom in North America, and the new policy at Bistro Rosie, a neighborhood dinner spot on Belanger St., may be a little difficult for customers to grasp at first.
Co-owner Sophie Duchastel de Montrouge says the idea is to make sure their wait staff and their kitchen staff equally — since waiters and waitresses are always the ones who receive tips.
"The idea was to find a balance between the kitchen salaries and the waiting salaries," she says. "We found that over the years, having working in all sorts of different restaurants, it's still very unbalanced — cooks are still getting paid half of the salaries of the wait staff. So we decided to take a stand."
There's a disclaimer written on a blackboard inside the restaurant, as well as one printed on the bill, to inform customers of the no-tipping policy, and offering up a quick rundown of the reasoning behind it.
So far, Duchastel de Montrouge says the response she's been getting from her customers about the policy has been overwhelmingly positive.
"We're such a small team, we all work together. If my waiter is too much in the juice, well, my cooks will come out and take plates out. they're doing all the dishes. You know, it's really a team effort, so I don't see why waiters would be earning so much more than the back of the house. And we have an open kitchen...it's really a show when people come and sit at the bar and watch the chefs cook.
"It's something really important to us, and I hope that other people will maybe think this is a good idea. So far, our clients have been extremely positive about it."