Who is the real victim in the waitron issue?

Restaurant owners have their backs against the wall in current climate, writes Denis.

No Sir/Ma’am, don’t be fooled into thinking the waitron is a victim here regarding the charging of breakages, and that Cosatu’s little angels have nothing to answer for.

The simple reason is that staff do not take responsibility, work negligently and, out of that, break things mostly intentionally because they don’t care and think the owner of the restaurant is coining it.

Tips: the tips do not belong to the waitron. In the past it was a gentleman’s agreement that waitrons would get a basic plus tip as a motive to upsell products and that the non-waitron staff would get a higher salary.

That was all fine until the stores started declining in turnover due to very stiff competition and other debilitating factors, so now the store owner is just as poor as the waitron except that all the risk is still upon the owner.

What happens in a case where the waitron is complimented for the great food that the waitron did not make. Shouldn’t he/she share the tip with the chef?

So let’s see, fierce competition because of a saturated market has diminished once profitable establishments, extremely greedy landlords have added to the burden, and let’s not forget franchise fees that average at least 10% of turnover, high labour costs as well as escalating food costs.

To cover all the exorbitant costs ie. labour, rent, franchise fee, breakages, etc, the selling price of a cappuccino needs to be at R60.

So who is the real victim here? Only by growth of markets to absorb the above can one comply 100% with all legislation. In the meantime, it will be a struggle.