The Seward Cafe in Minneapolis has running successfully as a "cooperatively owned, collectively operated restaurant and community-oriented venue" for 49 years.
I always enjoy these kinds of articles - "Could this radical new way of doing things ever succeed?" where the "radical new way" has a history going back to before the Reagan revolution. We're a really kind of unimaginative people when it comes to talking about how one arranges things in society.
I also really enjoyed “Against the Grain” and “Seeing Like a State” by James C Scott - both really dig into social narratives and the ways we talk about history and society.
I used to love cheeseboard. After covid, it's like they hate being there. They cut the days open down to 4 a week, short hours, and basically act like they're doing you a favor serving you. But not in a smug way, more like they're an unhappy slave. Ruined some of the charm of the place.
Sort of. They shut down during the pandemic and have only recently rebooted, but apparently with a totally new staff, and they're still figuring out food service. I'm pretty sure they had a lot of financial issues over the years. I used to go there all the time but I always thought there prices were too low.
"All dine-in checks include a 15% service charge, and all to-go, delivery and curbside pick-up orders include a 20% service charge. 100% of these charges are distributed to our employees in order to keep compensation as fair as possible to everyone"
I guess this is mentioned on the page to signal that menu price is the final, no need to tip? US' tipping culture is so strange. Normally you don't need to mention anything, people would pay the menu price and you'd include whatever you'd need for paying the staff. That's how it is in the rest of the world.
A built-in "service charge" is a scam: it just lets the restaurant advertise lower prices than what the meal truly costs. Same goes for not showing the after-tax prices. If they really wanted to "keep compensation as fair as possible to everyone", they'd simply pay them a proper hourly wage, and adjust their prices to suit, instead of making their pay dependent on that day's sales.
A lot of US business practices are all about scamming people with deception, and restaurants are the epitome of this.
I've been to restaurants that do this, and the menu price typically does not cover service charges, unfortunately. You just expect to see it tacked on the check.
That list is not correct for Europe/Southern Europe at least.
Nobody expects anything. The most tipping is done by rounding up. You have a 1.8 euro bill for coffee, you leave 2 euro.
The biggest difference between NA and Europe is that in NA a lot of people work for tips, as in, they're going to try to service you to get them. This is not the way it works in Europe, waiters do appreciate tips especially in places that have lower purchasing power, they will take your order, bring your food, bring your bill, and be on disposal if you want to call them anytime, but they're not going to try to look outgoing and approachable and hassle you with "is everything ok" questions for better tip.
Their 2012 page (https://web.archive.org/web/20120411013004/http://www.seward...) is significantly more better organized (For instance, address is right in the top right, as is opening hours), and easier to read in general. It also has features like embedding a google map into the page.
The new one doesn't tell me an obvious address -- the only one appears to be the handwritten pixelated background image, which is partially blocked on every single page by a foreground photo.
I dig retro and minimalistic pages. This is just bad design.
https://www.sewardcafe.com