St. Louis will drop minimum wage from $10 to $7.70.

[outlawauron]

SpokenTruth said:

outlawauron said:

You're aware that waiters aren't expected to make their money from wages, but from tips? I know there's plenty of complain about in the culture or expectations of tipping for service, but that's the current climate for resturants in the US. It's an expectation that you tip 15-20% every time you go out.

In fact, most waiters I know make $2-3/hr from their employers, but with tips they make very good money.

Yes, I am aware of this.  I do live in the US.  That said, I'm not certain what that has to do with my post.  The wait staff are obviously exempt from both the increase to $10 per hour minimum wage and the reduction back to $7.70 minium wage.  In fact, that shines further scrutiny upon the owner.  The minimum wage increase to $10 likely only impacted a few employees and, as I stated previously, it's only a $92 per week increase.   That 50% reduction in revenue is by far more of a problem than a few employees getting $92 per week more.

A small, independantly owned restaurant will likely pull in ~$80,000 per month in revenue.  This place being mid-tier means you can move that to ~$100,000 per month.  That 50% revenue reduction dropped him to about $50,000 per month.  That's huge.  If 5 full-time employees went from $7.70 to $10.00 per hour, that's just $1,840 per month.  

I misread your first comment then, because I read it as "they should be paid far more than minimum wage". 

As for the profitability of resturants, they aren't. It's the most violatile industry in more than half of resturants are expected to fail in their first year. It's the ultimate business of slim margins to somehow remain profitable. I'd be shocked if even a tiny resturants only had 5 employees though. Any place over 50 seats will require 3-4 hosts along on the payroll. Likely more with the expectation of turnover.