How old do you have to be to work in california kitchen?

I work at a sushi restaurant and i'm not sure we tip fairly, i get to keep only 1/3 my tips.?

• I work at a sushi restaurant in california. Currently we are required to pool all of our tips, and split our tips into thirds. Sushi Chef's, Kitchen, Servers. The reason I think this is unfair is because if I have a super busy day, and make say, 250 dollars in tips I have to split that into 3rds. If it's a slow day in the kitchen, ONE kitchen chef (which duties include, dishes as well as cooking chicken and shrimp) could make 83 dollars, and if there are two servers on the floor we would each only make 41.66 dollars. It just doesn't make sense to me that kitchen gets so much. Even when there is 2 people working kitchen, 2 people working sushi chef and 2 servers, it still doesn't seem fair that kitchen and sushi employees get so much. Our sushi chef's get paid really well and they still receive a large portion of tips. We are about to move to a larger restaurant and my boss wants to promote me to P/T manager and has asked my opinion on how we should split tips. She wants to start using 20% of our SALES and tipping out that way, but I've never heard of that method, and she was explaining it horribly! So what I want to know, is this...what is a general fair way to do tips? The way's I've been researching typically say that it's standard to tip out 20-30% to busers/kitchen ETC. Which I would be more willing to do. I've also researched and found out that legally I don't have to tip out, unless a tip pool is required, and even then, it's only a small percentage of my earned tips. Part of the reason I am a waitress is because of tips. I typically make 150-250 in tips when I work an 8 hour shift at a (very small) sushi restaurant, and I'm so bummed out when I give away 2/3s of my tips. Any suggestions??

• Answer:

  I don't know how this works in California but I did work for several hibachi and sushi restaurants in Texas and generaly is 50/50. Servers share tips with sushi chefs or hibachi chefs but not with kitchen...it is kind of fair to share tips with chefs because as server all u have to do is serving soups, salads and drinks and customers tip so good because the show, but kitchen and bussers should be apart. A waiter job is a lot easier in a japanese restaurant that any other one and tips are pretty good and also a regular waiter earns only $ 2.15 or$ 2.35 per hour + 100% tips (in Texas in a Mexican, italian or American restaurant) but in a japanese restaurant they pay $5 or $6 dollars per hour + 50% tips...and that depends on the restaurant owner: Small restaurants are not good!!) if u work for a big chain like Green Pepper or Edohana they did not ask u more than split with chefs, and that means: you'll split only with your chef, the one u are working at that moment...if they ask u to put all ur tips in a bucket and at the end of that day they will split everything in thirds no matter what ...then u should move to a better restaurant or try to work for any other like mexican or italian. I have an ex coworker, currently working at cheescake factory and she can earn up to $500 in a good single day (fridays or saturdays) so may be u should look around for a better option. Good luck!!