Saru Jayaraman laughs at the $25 hamburger and other restaurant myths

• Author and activist Saru Jayaraman signed copies of her controversial book, Behind the Kitchen Door last week during her appearance at the Central Library.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard, during the years I was a server, a customer gripe: “If your employer would pay you a decent wage, I wouldn’t have to leave a tip.”

My response: “But they don’t, Blanche. And they’re not going to as long as they can get customers to subsidize our salaries and the National Restaurant Association to aggressively fight a rise in the tipped minimum wage.”

That shut them up pretty quickly.

Saru Jayaraman, author of Behind the Kitchen Door and co-founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a national restaurant workers organization, has heard all the same arguments for not paying restaurant worker a living wage – and then some.