(R-L) Patrick Whalen, Chef Jamie Lynch, and Alejandro Torio
The 5th Street Group today announced that its initiative, “Tip the Kitchen,” has just generated over one million dollars for its back-of-house staff. The program, which was established in April of 2021, was created in response to helping address the wage gap between the front-of-house employees and the culinary team. 5th Street Group ownership (right) matches collective kitchen tips up to $500 a day per restaurant.
The “Tip the Kitchen” initiative adds a second line on each receipt to give patrons at 5th Street Group restaurants the opportunity to tip (or not to tip) back-of-house-staff, including the chefs, line cooks, dishwashers, and prep cooks who are essential to the restaurant's success. 5th Street Group guests are responsible for contributing $550,000 to the initiative and 5th Street Group ownership matched $450,000. Additionally, 5th Street Group ownership contributed $183,000 to supplement the server's tips for any tips that were split between the server and the back-of-house tip, known as the ‘backstop.'
“While we do not have a year's worth of data, we estimate that the Tip the Kitchen initiative has raised our operational costs by roughly 1.5%,” said Patrick Whalen, owner and CEO of 5th Street Group. “However, this is a very small price to pay to move all 400 of our employees into the middle class or beyond. We are grateful to both our guests and our employees for successfully partnering on such a worthy enterprise.”
5th Street Group restaurants include Church and Union (formerly 5Church) and Tempest.
For more information about Tip the Kitchen, click here.
