Small Business Restaurants Succeed With One Fair Wage: A California & Maryland Comparative Analysis
- May 1, 2023
- 1 min read
Small business restaurants in Maryland are struggling to find staff in what is currently the worst staffing crisis in the industry’s history. Nearly 100 small business restaurants in Maryland have raised wages for tipped workers in order to recruit staff, and many of these restaurants have joined forces with workers calling for Maryland lawmakers to pass pending policy to end the subminimum wage for tipped workers at the state and county level.
This brief compares the experience of small businesses and minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBE’s) in Maryland, a subminimum wage state, and states that require all restaurants to pay One Fair Wage – a full minimum wage with tips on top.
Restaurant wage debates can get political fast, but the daily reality is simpler. If workers are burned out, customers feel it, owners feel it, and nobody has a good shift. I worked in a small place where one reliable server leaving changed the whole weekend rhythm. In that conversation, PissedConsumer gives another angle because customer reviews often show when staffing problems become service problems. Better pay is not the only fix, but pretending wages do not affect service is nonsense.