Higher wages a success in Seattle

At one restaurant, overall revenue up for staff, owner.

SEATTLE — Menu prices are up 21 percent and you don’t have to tip at Ivar’s Salmon House on Seattle’s Lake Union after the restaurant decided to institute the city’s $15-anhour minimum wage two years ahead of schedule.

It is staff, not diners, who feel the real difference, with wages as much as 60 percent higher than before. One waitress is saving for accounting classes and finding it easier to take weekend vacations, while another server is using the added pay to cover increased rent.

Seattle’s law, adopted last year after a strong push from labor and grass-roots activists, bumped the city’s minimum wage to $11 an hour beginning April 1, above Washington state’s highest-in-the-nation $9.47. Scheduled increases that depend on business size and benefits will bring the minimum to $15 within four years for large businesses and seven years for smaller ones.

There’s little data yet on how the law is working. “To the extent that we can look at macro patterns, we’re not seeing a problem,” Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said.

As Washington, D.C., and other cities consider phasing in a $15-an-hour minimum wage, Ivar’s approach, adopted in April, offers lessons in how some businesses might adapt. Ivar’s Seafood Restaurants President Bob Donegan decided to raise prices, tell customers that they don’t need to tip and parcel the added revenue among the hourly staff.

For some of the restaurant’s lesser-paid workers — including bussers and dishwashers — that’s meant as much as 60 percent more. Revenue has soared, supportive customers are leaving additional tips even though they don’t need to, and servers and bartenders are on pace to increase their annual pay by thousands, with wages for a few of the best compensated approaching $80,000 a year.

“It’s been a surprise,” Donegan said.

Rochelle Hann, 25, is a second-generation worker at Ivar’s. If she keeps working 30 hours a week, her annual pay will jump about $12,000. “Before, I felt like it was maybe not quite paycheck-to-paycheck, but now I don’t even have to worry about it,” she said.