Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1547305
7:45 pm pushes back the original 9:15 pm reservation behind it and creates a smaller window for us to seat someone in between. We have to hope we'll have a walk-in ready and willing to eat within that time constraint. That is a dice roll, not a guarantee. On valet parking. Ben Berg: Houston has some draconian parking regulations. The city requires a certain number of parking spaces per square foot. We don't like charging for parking, but it's so expensive that you have to charge to valet. I rent a parking lot outside Trattoria Sofia that costs me another $7,000 to $8,000 a month. Those are real costs. The point of it all. Chris Williams: This is what I haven't liked about restaurants for a while: They've moved away from any kind of substantive experience. It's more about what can the phone eat, what can the phone look at? And they're built for that. They're built for the imagery exclusively, and I can't compete with that because I don't have investors. I can't put $150,000 into a bathroom for people to take pictures in. That's not feasible. I'm a purist; I want the food. I want the service. I want the wine. I want something new, or I want something old, but I want it to be genuine. Now it's much more expensive because you can't just stand on the strength of whatever your menu is, or your skill. You have to create a full-on experience that is not just for the guests but for the guest's followers, or the followers they hope to obtain. Tipping culture. Ben Berg: I'll be honest, the tipping culture is a little weird. I'm in the business, and I probably overtip, but I don't want to tip if you just give me a coffee. Come on … That drives me crazy. I think the counter-service tipping idea is ridiculous. There are some things my servers would scream at me about, like I don't see the point. If you buy a $5,000 bottle of wine versus a $200 bottle, do you really deserve to get a full tip on $5,000? You're doing the same thing, and your service style shouldn't change. Every person should get treated the same, whether they want a $5,000 or a $200 bottle. Trust me, there are plenty of people that tip on it, and that's great, but I don't think waiters should be upset if they don't get 20 percent tipped on $5,000. Bryan Caswell: When I was coming up in the business, you tipped 15 percent. If you paid 20 percent, you were the greatest customer of all time. Back then, if you went for an ice cream cone, you didn't have to tip the guy. It wasn't even an option. At Little Bigs, we had a jar, but there wasn't a line item on your bill for a tip. Those guys at the register often earned an extra $2 to $3 an hour some days, just adding that tip jar. But the transition from cash to credit and the addition of a screen at checkout changed everything. Counter service is a lot different than full service. Why am I spending 20 percent for counter service? I don't have a problem giving 5 percent, maybe even 10 percent. But, like, 20 percent from a guy that just took the order? Let's say you've run a very busy upscale fast-casual place, and you have two people at the register ringing 150 to 200 orders per service. And they're getting 20 percent? That guy is making more money than my waitstaff on top of minimum wage. Ryan Pera: There's been more of a change in tip "suggestions" than actual tip percentages. Coltivare encourages guests to pay tableside on handheld tablets for a myriad reasons: fewer fraudulent chargebacks with tap-to- pay and quicker service than waiting for a server to bring a check, present it, pick it up when the card is ready, run back to pay the bill at a computer, and bring it back to the table. Now, a server can come to the guest and pay them out immediately, with a suggested 20 percent or 22 percent button to push. With this technology, we've found that tip percentage has risen about 3 percent. The GLP-1 effect. Ben Berg: I have a couple of theories. The GLP-1 effect we see is guests sharing dishes — we're not seeing the shellfish towers on the table followed by appetizers and desserts. That's where GLPs have really hurt us. They probably affect wine sales more than anything, but there's a trade-off; people are leveling up for bourbon, scotch, and tequila. Wine is really getting killed, because you can't drink two glasses and eat something when you're on that stuff. There's another factor nobody talks about: The biggest wine drinkers in the U.S. are the baby boomers, and they're not spending money on wine anymore. You have this perfect storm where the baby boomers are done, they don't eat as much, and they're not drinking anymore. Bryan Caswell: Margins keep getting thinner. There's only one thing you can make any money on, and that's booze, and now nobody's drinking. But there's something every year, whether it was the 2009 financial crisis, Ike or Harvey, the BP oil spill, or the Atkins diet — it can all affect your business. Now it's the GLPs, the celiac and no-gluten preferences, but what's funny is that we 78