From 2022-2023, the kitchen staff at Easy Tiger was receiving tips from the bakery's tip pool program.
AUSTIN, Texas — The Austin-based bakery and restaurant Easy Tiger has taken some heat recently for withholding tips from some of its employees.
In August 2023, the restaurant was notified by the Department of Labor (DOL) that the tip pool program it had been using at its South Lamar location was incorrect. From August 2022 through August 2023, they included back-of-the-house employees like cooks, prep cooks and dishwashers in their tip pool program.
Easy Tiger took to social media to apologize to its workers, saying that they never intended to pay their employees less than what they were entitled to. In their apology, they said that they mistakenly thought including back-of-the-house staff in the tip pool was allowed.
After the DOL reviewed the company’s payroll records from 2022-2023, Easy Tiger said discrepancies the records showed were caused by paying current and past front-of-house employees like servers and bartenders. They won’t try to reclaim the overpayment of tips from the back-of-house staff.
KVUE talked to a former Easy Tiger employee who said over the years she’s worked there, even before this specific issue, herself and other employees were frustrated over the restaurant’s tipping protocols.
“I never really understood how we were getting paid to be quite fair, and there was actually a lot of like little things where they would cut corners, I think to like, make it easier on them,” said Peaches Rose, a former Easy Tiger employee.
Easy Tiger said it's now conducting audits of their LINC and East 7th Street locations to make sure there were no other misallocations of tips there too.
In their social media apology, the restaurant addressed their team:
“To our team – we are sincerely sorry, and we are implementing new policies to make sure this never happens again. Please know, we never intended to pay our employees less than they were entitled to from their hard work and commitment to you, our customers.”
The restaurant says its tip pool program now complies with the Department of Labor’s policies and only includes eligible employees. KVUE also asked Easy Tiger what new policies they would be implementing to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and they said they would be recommitting to quarterly all-hands meetings to make sure they address any issues that may arise.
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