Why We're Returning to Voluntary Tipping
In 2020, Local Ocean made a decision that was unusual for the restaurant industry. We replaced traditional tipping with a 20% service charge.
We believed, and still believe, that restaurants can do better when it comes to creating stable, equitable workplaces. Traditional tipping rewards some work generously while leaving many of the people who contribute to your meal largely invisible. Dishwashers. Prep cooks. Hosts. The people who clean, stock, organize, and prepare long before your entrée reaches the table.
Our goal was simple: build a compensation system that recognized the entire team.
In many ways, we succeeded.
The service charge allowed us to provide more predictable wages, invest in employee benefits, and reduce some of the uncertainty that comes with highly seasonal tourism on the Oregon coast. It supported a workplace that was less dependent on the luck of a particular shift.
But over time, the model became less effective than we intended.
Wages that were meant to keep growing became harder to move. The slow winter season continued to place pressure on the business and on our team. And while the service charge helped us support the whole restaurant, it also created confusion for guests and reduced some of the flexibility that both guests and service staff value in the dining experience.
Over the past several years, we listened carefully to our staff, our guests, and our managers. We watched how the system worked during busy summers and slower winters. We paid attention to what encouraged great hospitality, where the model created friction, and where it no longer matched the results we were trying to achieve.
We learned that while the goals were right, some aspects of the system could be improved.
Beginning this summer, we are returning to voluntary tipping. We are also retaining a modest 4.5% hospitality charge.
That charge allows us to continue supporting many of the things the original service charge helped make possible, like benefits and a compensation system that recognizes the entire restaurant team rather than only the employees who interact directly with guests.
Tips, meanwhile, once again become your opportunity to recognize exceptional hospitality. A portion of those tips is shared among eligible hourly team members who contributed to your dining experience, including many whose work happens behind the scenes.
At Local Ocean, we've never believed that "because that's how restaurants work" is a good enough reason to stop asking better questions. Whether it's buying directly from local fishing families, becoming employee owned through a Stewardship Trust, using more of every fish we purchase, or rethinking compensation, we've tried to build a restaurant that reflects our values, even when the answers aren't simple.
Sometimes stewardship means staying the course.
Sometimes stewardship means adjusting course when experience teaches you something new.
Our commitment remains the same: to serve exceptional seafood, support the people behind it, and keep improving the way we do business.
-Laura Anderson, Founder, Local Ocean Seafoods
About Local Ocean Seafoods
Founded in 2005 on the Newport Bayfront, Local Ocean was created to strengthen market opportunities for Oregon fishermen and to give diners a clear, transparent link to the people harvesting their seafood. Today, Local Ocean operates as an employee-centered perpetual purpose trust, aligning its long-term success with people who power the business and the coastal communities it serves. Learn more on our website.