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“Restaurant operators, tipped servers, and local dining scenes will suffer any time the tip credit is eliminated. We are already seeing this play out in Washington, D.C., and Chicago restaurant owners and diners should prepare for similar challenges. Tipping works for owners, servers, and customers, and the National Restaurant Association remains committed to preserving the tip credit system in every community."

Chicago restaurateur T.J. Callahan ran an experiment in April when he opened his newest restaurant in a neighboring suburb: In place of tipping, he added a 20% service charge to all checks to boost employees’ hourly pay. It didn’t go well — Servers’ overall pay declined and sales fell. Some diners blasted the move as “socialist.” He switched back to relying on customers to tip his servers after five months

Sean Kennedy, the National Restaurant Assn.’s executive vice president of public affairs, said the agreement “protects local restaurant owners from significant threats that would have made it difficult to continue to operate in California. It provides a more predictable and stable future for restaurants, workers and consumers.”

To preserve margins, nearly every eating place in town (96%) has raised menu prices...The canvass by the national group also found that about a third (32%) of restaurant customers are trekking across D.C.’s borders more frequently to dine in Virginia and Maryland, where employers can still count a portion of servers’ tips as the wages those workers are due.

On Saturday, the District of Columbia sees its second wage hike for tipped restaurant workers this year — going up to $8 per hour after rising to $6 per hour just two months ago. Yet even in its early stages, the city’s restaurants and employees are already feeling harsh consequences.

Montgomery County, Maryland: For starters, the push to eliminate the tip credit misunderstands how tipped workers earn a living. County law allows restaurants to pay tipped employees a $4 base hourly wage as long as their tip earnings put them at or above the regular minimum wage rate, currently $16.70 per hour for larger employers. In practice, tipped employees have the potential to earn far more than that, with many making as high as $50 per hour.

“This is how I was able to pay my college tuition. This is how I was able to get my first car. This is how I was able to get my first apartment,” said Pablina Kamara, a mother of three who told the crowd she’s been waiting tables for eight years

“Don’t let them do us like this, y’all,” she said