ay Porter Q&A

Earlier this month, Jay Porter, owner of The Linkery restaurant at 30th Street and North Park Way in North Park, received notice from the City Attorney’s Office that the city would be bringing legal action against his business for its service charge policy. On March 5, following a flurry of media attention including a story in Uptown News, the City Attorney’s Office reversed its decision. Editor Christy Scannell joined Porter last week to talk about what makes The Linkery a “weird food” haven for some and a target for others.

Q: The Linkery touts a “farm-to-table” concept for its menu. Explain how that works.

A: To me, “farm to table” means that we’re buying and serving ingredients that were nurtured by human hands from the time they were in the ground. Animals that were raised by people who care. The thing about farm to table food is that to me the best cuisine can only come from the best ingredients. Done right, we don’t have to do that much to them in order to create this emotional and delicious experience. We have to cook them well but we don’t have to cook them fancy.

Q: How does that vary from other supply sources?

A: In contrast, almost all food now that’s widely available in America is grown in non-sustainable industrial processes. It’s easy for a restaurant to make the decision to avoid that food because it doesn’t taste good. The hard part is developing a food chain, a supply of hand-grown, well-farmed food, and that’s been a lot of what we’ve been working on for the five years we’ve been open. We’re not the first people (in San Diego) to do it and we’re not the only people to do it but we’ve made a lot of progress at a time when there wasn’t much else going on. Now it’s really gratifying to see other restaurants working with the same farmers or building similar relationships.

Q: So is that farm-to-table concept really that much more expensive? You have $13.50 tacos on your menu, for example, in a town where we can get tacos for a buck.

A: We underprice them – they probably are worth $16 or $17 but we really wanted to keep it affordable to our neighborhood. People’s perceptions of what food costs is skewed by industrial food, which is built entirely on heavily subsidized corn. Feed lot operators run these really unwholesome operations that are subsidized by antibiotics and hormones and a willingness to tolerate millions of pounds of recalls and dead kids from food-borne diseases that only occur because of feed lots. Every step along the way, you have extremely low-paid workers working in dangerous conditions. And that’s what makes tacos cheap but tacos are expensive because if you have people raising healthy animals correctly and you’re doing it nearby, then there’s no benefit for the subsidy.

Q: What would you tell someone who thinks a big chunk of that $13.50 is going right into your pocket?

A: I can tell you that we have yet to make a profit. I made enough to live on this year but I didn’t make as much as about a third of the people here.

Q: What do your servers earn?

A: The typical server here earns between $23 and $30 an hour depending on their experience level and how effective we are at selling our products. The base wage varies and then the revenue share goes on top of that. We would like to get everybody to $35 an hour in the front (of house).

Q: How is the 18 percent service charge distributed to your staff?

A: All the money goes to pay the people here. Every pay period 73 percent goes to the front of the house, divided on an hours-worked basis, 22 percent goes to the kitchen and 5 percent goes to the stewards. It’s comparable to a tip situation where the servers tip out about a quarter of what they earn. It’s like tipping out about 5 percent of your sales.

Q: But 18 percent is less than the 20 percent or more servers might earn elsewhere.

A: At some point we’ll probably increase it. We chose 18 percent as a number that was clearly not about us trying to make more money.

Q: Still, you said you haven’t made a profit yet. Why not go back to the traditional tipping method?

A: The thing about tipping is it’s not part of the business but yet the business model depends on it. It creates all these bizarre situations that don’t benefit the customer, that don’t benefit the business and that don’t benefit the server because all there is is friction between everybody’s short-term needs. If you build into the business a way to charge for what you do to make sure that all the costs get paid, then that’s frictionless and that’s the best thing for the staff, the guests and the business.

Q: So why aren’t more restaurants relying on service charges rather than tips?

A: Everybody who’s tried to manage what goes in a restaurant that I’ve talked to understands the benefits to everybody of replacing tipping with a simple system that one way or another builds the cost into the business rather than external to the business. But very few people are in a position to communicate that to the community. We happen to have this unique position where we’re already engaged in a really rich dialogue with our guests, whether it’s about the food we’re serving or the farms we’re using, and so the idea of introducing a new concept and being willing to talk about it, we were really in a unique position to do that. If we weren’t communicating with the community we wouldn’t have success with the weird food we’re serving.

Q: You donate any extra money left above the service charge to charity – but maybe diners would feel better if they could add to the service charge as a tip?

A: You hit on something there. The service charge isn’t the thing that’s upsetting people. It’s the fact that we’re not accepting tips above that. Because what we’re saying is that we’re equals and it’s not about us as service people depending on or even wanting your largesse. Instead we’re going to do a good job because we take pride in our work. I worked my whole career before I worked in the restaurant business and never once got a tip. I always did my best work. I was always treated with respect. I took a lot of pride in the quality of what I did. It never occurred to me that when I was leaving some meeting that somebody I was working for was going to toss me an extra 20 for the great job I did.

Q: Why not just charge a flat rate for service rather than a percentage?

A: One battle at a time. It’s a very short step from a tipping culture to a service charge with no tips. Look, [tips and service charges] are almost identical and some people have completely lost their minds over it.

Q: A complaint I’ve read about your policy is it doesn’t allow diners to show appreciation or dissatisfaction with service.

A: People who have a bad service experience at a restaurant often don’t tip or tip low and that information never gets back to the restaurant so nothing is ever done about it. Whereas here we ask that you either ask for a manager and explain the problem and we’ll remove the service charge or just e-mail me afterward and explain the problem and then we can actually fix it so the restaurant is better. That’s been a big part of our improving our service.

Q: The 30th Street restaurants and bars often join together in marketing efforts, yet some media reports about the City Attorney incident included quotes from competitors condemning your policy. Is there dissension in the ranks?

A: Not everybody understands that a rising tide lifts all boats. Some people for whatever reason live in a world that it’s all a competition for every scrap and dragging the other guy down is just as effective as being better. But most of the 30th Street businesses are really supportive and we all understand that the better this corridor is, the better the restaurants and bars are. The more we get the word out about the quality that’s here, it’s better for the community, it’s better for San Diego and it’s better for the businesses.

Q: What is your take on the recent opposition from some residents toward liquor licenses for new North Park businesses?

A: As a result of the explosion of popularity of bar-going here, unfortunately I think there has been an effect on the quality of life for the neighbors. I totally can see why people would be upset by that. At the same time a lot of good business owners here are doing a lot to try to make things better. I don’t see any villain in it. Everybody’s really treating each other with respect except for the people who are causing problems, some of the people at 3 a.m. Everyone is doing their best to try to solve the problem but I don’t think any of us have figured out the answer yet.

Q: You’re opening El Take It Easy later this year. What’s the concept?

A: Farm-driven small plates. More accessible, more approachable but it’s also the kind of place we hope people will spend several hours at grazing. We won’t have any fixed (menu items). So we’ll be able to buy from the local people that we really want to buy from to create 100 percent seasonal dishes.

Q: Will you continue the service charge policy there?

A: It’s a way better way of running a restaurant. It is a competitive advantage because it makes the restaurant run better and that’s really helped us. I’m certainly not interested in giving up a business model that makes the business run, that allows us to serve better food and give better service.