""Most of the people who left reviews are from outside our region and community," said owner and chef Geoff Davis in a phone interview with SFGATE. "They're using this as a crusade against Oakland, DEI, and the moment that we're in. People are upset about a lot of things in America right now.""
"'Tipping is this crazy power dynamic that allows the employer to not pay and puts the onus and luck on the server,' Davis said. 'We put the onus on ourselves to pay our staff what we feel is a living wage.'"
Burdell is a critically acclaimed Oakland soul food restaurant that adds a 20% service charge to bills. The menu and receipts explain tipping's historical ties to racism and reference slavery. A Reddit post in r/EndTipping shared a receipt photo, received more than 28,000 upvotes, and prompted calls for both boycott and support. Yelp monitored the restaurant page as a surge of one-star reviews followed. Many negative reviews came from outside the region. The service charge exists to provide staff a living wage and remove reliance on customer tips.
Read at SFGATE
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