02 13 25 Colo Restaurant Association's Sonia Riggs on the Restaurant Relief Act

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A coalition is introducing the Restaurant Relief Act at our
state Capitol, which will help keep Colorado restaurants open for
business and also fix the pay gap for non tipped
workers in the industry. Joining us now on the KWA
Common Spirit Health Hotline to talk more about it.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
From the Colorado Restaurant Association.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
It's president and CEO, Sonya Riggs, Sonia, thank you so
much for your time this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Good morning, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Give us a little bit of the bullet points of
what we can expect with this Restaurant Relief Act and
what it hopes to achieve.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
Well, basically, it resets Colorado's tip offset laws for those
food and beverage workers where the local government has raised
the full minimum wage beyond that of the state. And
what it essentially does is it is more flexibility to
restaurants in those areas to keep the traditional tipping model,
which we know workers all around the country have shown

(00:52):
time and time again that they love, and allows restaurants
to give more money to their back of the house workers,
which are those dishwashers and cooks.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
So, Sonya, when we look at this, can you explain
a little bit of what this tipped offset means I
was a server myself, so I think, I I think
I understand it. But I think what you're saying is,
when it comes to this, there's sometimes when tipped workers
are not making the minimum wage requirements just because they
have a tipped wage on top of their tips. And
that's that's not breaking even Is that correct?

Speaker 3 (01:23):
No, it's actually a misnomer there. It is not. It's
not legal actually for any employer to ever let to
any employer, excuse me, to ever let any employee you
walk home with less than the full minimum wage. So
this bill is not impacting this full minimum wage in
any way, shape or form. What the tip offset is
is it's an amount that lets employers make up the

(01:45):
difference between that tipped minimum wage and the full minimum
wage through tipping. And what we see instead is the
average tipped worker in Colorado makes closer to thirty nine
to forty two dollars an hour, whereas those back of
the house folks right like your dishwashers and your cooks,
are tending to make closer to that twenty or twenty
two dollars an hour payage.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
So we're looking more to help some of the back
of the house workers also meet a higher than minimum wage.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Correct, absolutely, and while keep restaurants open, right, So if
people don't have a job at all because their restaurant closed,
which sadly, four hundred and twenty five restaurants have closed
in Denver since twenty twenty two, which is more than
twenty thousand jobs, we're trying to keep those restaurants open.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
I think that we need to highlight that number four
hundred and twenty five restaurants in our state since twenty
twenty two. Is can we pinpoint anything here that really
is the factor, maybe the main driving factor of these
restaurant closures.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Well, I mean certainly labor costs, right, and it traditionally
would be twenty five to thirty five percent, and we're
hearing now that they're fifty to fifty five or sixty
percent in restaurants. That's one of the biggest drivers. And
I want to be clear about this. You know that
the entire the tipped wage for all foodent beverage workers
in the state of Colorado is higher than that of
New York City in Washington, d C. Which are known

(03:02):
to be more expensive cities than Denver. And so you
know this is really just sort of setting it right
or sort of resetting it. Tipped workers can continue to
see pay raises every year because we see that every
time the full minimum wage goes up, more than ninety
percent of Colorado restaurants increased for many prices, which is
what tipping is based on. So it's really just a

(03:24):
way to help close that gap between the front of
the house and the back of the house and keep
those restaurants open.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
And it is a struggle to sometimes fill those back
of the house positions because it's like, well, why would
I want to be a dishwasher if I know I'm
going to be making less than some of those tipped workers.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
It absolutely is a struggle, and this is something that's
really designed to help those folks.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
And when it comes to this legislation that's been released,
the Restaurant Relief Act, have you heard support from the legislature?

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Does it look promising in our state capitol?

Speaker 3 (03:53):
Well, you know, any bills these days is always an
uphill battle. That being said, we do feel hopeful because
we've got strong Democrat support and Republican support. So this
is a bipartisan bill.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
In wrapping up with you, Sonya, what is the overall
outlook of our restaurant industry in our state.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Are we optimistic or pessimistic?

Speaker 3 (04:12):
Well, I wish I could say it was optimistic. It's
really hard to be in business as a restaurant these days,
and that's one of part of what we're trying to
do is find creative ways to help them while keeping
great paying jobs for their employees.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
The latest with the Restaurant Relief Act. It's Colorado Restaurant
Association CEO and president. It's Sonya Rigs. Sonia, thank you
so much for your time this morning. I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Thank you,