Here's Another Fine-Dining Mess You've Gotten Me Into, Ollie

I have never quite figured out why the fine-dining restaurants give so little to this food drive. I know many of you throw charitable parties throughout the year, benefiting all sorts of great organizations. And yet these parties are often hosted by the owners of the restaurants, with the proceeds coming directly out of his or her pocket. Again, this particular food drive is aimed at the staff members and is not designed to dig into the restaurant's profits.

So in an effort to boast the donations from the staff of some of the best restaurants in Norfolk, I have an idea for a challenge within the challenge.

As I have stated before in this blog, there will be five weeks between the day the challenge begins and the final collection. This gives everyone five Fridays, five Saturdays, five Sundays and so on.

Pick ONE of those days, lets say a Friday for example. On Friday, every time you break $100 in tips, you have to buy a can of food (about 40 cents). So if you make $200, you have to buy 2 cans (80 cents), and if you make $300 on that Friday night, you commit to buying 3 cans of food.

If five or six servers would commit to this plan, which equals 4/1000 of their tip money- and if these servers committed to doing this all five Fridays, those employees would give far more than any fine-dining restaurant has given in any previous year.

Of course ideally, the servers would commit to this seven days a week, but I do not want to pressure anyone into giving away their holiday tips. I know very well what happens in the industry during the painfully slow months of January and February.

Just a couple of thoughts about this: a) this plan would only work if it were brought up often during shift "line-up" and b) this plan would probably only be successful if the servers who donated the 40 cents or more could see the money being put to use. In other words, designate someone to make a run to the Market at the end of the shift to purchase the cans. This way after a hard night, everyone can see where their quarters were spent.