Originally Posted by
Moderator2
The minimum wage in the state in question is actually $7.25/hour. However the restaurant can pay servers as low as $2.13/hour directly, but have to make up the difference if their tips do not bring them to the $7.25 rate. My guess is that Sonic has calculated that $4.25 is the proper base wage for that particular role. There may even be some sort of tip pooling going on for people working the windows.
Fact is the federal minimum wage is $7.25. The "make-up" rule applies in any state where a server is paid less than the benchmark.
http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/002.htm
I looked at the same Dept. Of Labor site you did. However, I wonder if the $4.25 rate is being calculated or "calculated" by Sonic. Are the window staff really making up the rest of minimum wage in tips? I have my doubts.
Tipping at the drive-thru seems completely bizarre to me. However, I'm not everyone, so I poked around to see if there's been some sort of cultural shift I missed (tip-twerking?). What I learned was:
- most people think tipping at the drive-thru is weird. Exceptions: Starbucks (reasons usually cited: making the coffee can be complex so there's a value-add, already used to it), and Tim Horton's. (Note that OP did not experience this in Canada or a northern border state.)
- some people go to Sonic drive-thrus to avoid having to tip car-hops--so presumably they aren't tipping window staff
- there's some question about whether even carhops should get tips, which makes a tip pool with them seem like a lousy deal, too
My arm-chair lawyering verdict: seems pretty sketchy to me. I would love to see Sonic's actual numbers justifying this.