… WHILE THE BACK OF HOUSE STAFF MAKES LESS THAN HALF AS MUCH

A cook generally works longer hours than a server. Plus, unlike most servers, a cook may have some industry-specific education such as a certificate from a culinary school. Despite all this, cooks are generally taking home $15 an hour to the server’s $30 an hour, said McAdams. “Servers are making twice as much as the cooks and our argument is they’re not creating twice as much value,” he said. Many restaurants try to spread the wealth with tipout policies in which a server passes a portion of their tips to the kitchen. But even this generally only results in an extra dollar or two per hour going to line and prep cooks (tipout policies are also notoriously rife for exploitation by crooked managers). And this is where talk of tipping reform gets dicey. Servers are currently benefiting from a system in which they receive a disproportionate share