American seafood chain Joe's Crab Shack will eliminate tipping from restaurants, the brand announced Wednesday.
Starting with 18 of its restaurants, Joe's Crab Shack will test a policy that incorporates tips into workers' salaries. Customers will no longer add tips of their choosing to their bills at the meal's end.
The tides continue to turn against traditional tipping. Joe's is the latest and most major casual chain to experiment. Danny Meyer's restaurant empire and other smaller institutions have recently gone the non-tipping route, too.
Servers now start at $14 per hour.
Ignite restaurant group, Joe's Crab Shack's parent company, began testing the policy in August.
Ignite's CEO Raymond Blanchette revealed on an earnings call that the new policy is "expected to result in an improved team atmosphere, a significant reduction in turnover and greater financial security for the employees," reports CNBC.
Restaurants included in the tip-free experiment include those in Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Salt Lake City.
The raise in wages will be recouped by increasing menu prices instead of implementing a service charge.
With the tip-inclusive system now reaching a casual, national chain restaurant, America is no longer on the precipice of a change to the restaurant system. We're in the middle of it.