{"id":46309,"date":"2014-08-11T07:55:55","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T12:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=46309"},"modified":"2014-09-03T13:57:52","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T18:57:52","slug":"breaking-some-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=46309","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Some Eggs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I had a great pleasure of meeting seven or eight of my closest friends at the River Oasis Caf\u00e9 in Stillwater Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

We talked about the cafe last week; they aroused the ire of the entire Minnesota Left – few of whom would ever seem to have been at the River Oasis – by putting their “minimum wage fee” on their receipts:<\/p>\n

\"20140811-065434-24874747.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First things first: It’s a classic American diner – like Mickey’s on West Seventh, or Keys, and not a whole lot of others out there anymore. The food was excellent.<\/p>\n

I had the pleasure of talking with Craig Beemer, the owner, on my show on Saturday afternoon (and his wife on Saturday morning). And we learned a couple of things about the place, and the “controversy”.<\/p>\n

Money<\/strong>:\u00a0 One of the left’s main whining points about the public “minimum wage fee” is that it’s “disrespectful to the employees”.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s a stupid point.\u00a0 Unlike most restaurants, the Beemers already pay the back of the house staff – the line cooks, dishwashers and the like – better than minimum wage, and (according to Beemer) very competitively with the similar places in Stillwater.\u00a0 That’s the kind of “respect” I actually cared about when I was a low-wage employee.<\/p>\n

The only people making\u00a0minimum wage are the waitstaff – and when you add on tips, they’re making closer to $25 an hour, often more, and the minimum wage is not an issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Except for the Beemers, for whom the wage hike was a $10,000\/year hit on the bottom line.\u00a0\u00a0 Remember – restaurants across the river in Wisconsin have a minimum wage of $3-and-change per hour.<\/p>\n

Because they have a tip credit.<\/p>\n

Power<\/strong>:\u00a0 Which is what Governor Dayton’s sons asked for earlier this summer<\/a>.\u00a0 Andrew and Eric Dayton, owners of “The Bachelor Farmer”, a chi-chi restaurant in Minneapolis, complained to Dadders because the new, higher minimum wage hike was harshing their fiscal mellow.\u00a0 They asked for…<\/p>\n

…a tip credit.<\/p>\n

Bonus Explanation For Leftybloggers<\/strong>, none of whom apparently have ever worked for tips:\u00a0 you don’t work for minimum wage.\u00a0 Even when there’s a “tip credit” in effect and your “wage” is $3-and-change\/hour, like in most surrounding states, you’re still making more.\u00a0 How much more?\u00a0 If you work at a crummy place with lousy food, maybe not enough more.\u00a0 If you work at Manny’s Steakhouse and tend to tables\u00a0 that rack up $400-$1000 for a meal, you can make well\u00a0into six digits.\u00a0 In between?\u00a0\u00a0It’s a complex\u00a0set of dependencies; waiting skill, clientele, season, even the weather.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But for all the crap that Tom Emmer took for his “waitstaff making over $100,000” “gaffe” four years ago, you might be amazed at the number of waitstaff that take home solid middle-class “living wages”; $50,000, $75,000 and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which isn’t bad for a trade that requires no education, licensing or anything but talent and hard work.<\/p>\n

Which may be what bothers liberals about all of this.<\/p>\n

“If Ifs, Ands And Buts Were Candy And Nuts, We’d All Have A Wonderful Unbedankfest”:\u00a0 <\/strong>Here’s another note for ignorant leftybloggers; a “tip credit” acknowledges the fact that for a good waiter at a good establishment with a good clientele, the minimum wage is the fringe of their income; the owner can apply some of the waitstaff’s tips to the wage, in effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think tipping is just wrong”, whined a massive clot of liberals last week, “and I think we should do away with it; it’s unfair.\u00a0 They should all just be paid”, they say, reflecting the “progressive” desire to oversimplify the free market (and working for tips is the ultimate meritocracy).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, it’s been tried.\u00a0 Not a few restaurants have tried to abolish tipping – paying their waitstaff more, and jacking up the prices accordingly, to a brief flurry of adoring media attention.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then they quietly vanish.\u00a0 And a few years later, the cycle repeats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s So Tacky!”<\/strong>:\u00a0 Tackier than jamming down a minimum wage increase with the barest possible minimum of debate, and then reconsidering when the governor’s kids get into a jam?\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Why don’t they publicize all <\/em>the costs that hit their bottom line?”:\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Because if they use too much electricity, they can unscrew the lightbulbs in the bathrooms.\u00a0 If the price of tomatoes goes up, they can use fewer of them in their recipes.\u00a0 If Ecolab cleaning products are too expensive, they can switch to Servicemaster.\u00a0\u00a0 In other words – as with everything in the free market (including restaurant choices), they, the consumer, can say “no” and pick a better option.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But they can’t switch states.\u00a0 Tempting as it is for many businesspeople.\u00a0 Government is the one thing you can’t say “no” to, without having men in uniforms with guns busting down your door eventually.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And the hypocrisy of a “progressive” movement that twisted itself into knots to try to legitimize the “Occupy” movement turning around and attacking an actual working business for using its right to free speech is enough to put me off my breakfast, were it less delicious.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“What are you going to do, Berg?\u00a0 Hang out there all the time?”<\/strong>:\u00a0 It’s not really about me.\u00a0 But when in Stillwater – a place I may get to annually – sure why not?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The “point” they’re shooting for is that conservatives\u00a0won’t be going there forever, and the liberals among the Oasis’ clientele will stay gone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’m going to guess that most of the people doing the “protesting” have never been there, and would never have gone\u00a0– and if they did, they were, like most liberals, lousy tippers anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyway\u00a0–\u00a0kudos to the Beemers.\u00a0 And thanks for a fantastic breakfast, a great discussion, and for fighting a battle that a lot more people need to fight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a great pleasure of meeting seven or eight of my closest friends at the River Oasis Caf\u00e9 in Stillwater Saturday morning. We talked about the cafe last week; they aroused the ire of the entire Minnesota Left – few of whom would ever seem to have been at the River Oasis – by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,117,308,63,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economy-and-the-market","category-dayton-dustbowl","category-entitled-america","category-lefty-alt-media","category-minnesota-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46309"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46309\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46928,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46309\/revisions\/46928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}