When it comes to shoes, as in many professions, servers spend many many hours on their feet. One big difference however, is that at a busy restaurant, a server may not get a break. Not one chance to sit and take a load off. Waiters, waitresses and bartenders often have to keep running to meet the needs and expectations of their tables.

In addition to the shear length of time on their feet, the surfaces of the flooring can range greatly and be often tough to navigate, surfaces such as wet tile, hard wood, wharfs, and carpet. It is imperative that a server has a good quality, pair of slip resistant work shoes.

Prolonged use of the wrong shoes can lead to foot and back problems such as, stress fractures, tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and acute and chronic osteoarthritis. This can be debilitating, and lead to time away from work and worse, permanent and recurring damage to the body.

While shopping for good quality shoes, keep in mind the following tips:

• Look for a light weight pair of shoes. You may be walking literally thousands of steps on any given shift. Each step you take can add up. The lighter the shoe, the less lifting you will be doing.

• Be sure to get slip resistant shoes, aside from wet areas, kitchen floors can have grease and oil on them. You may not always fall to the ground, but even something as simple as a twisted ankle can cause forced time away from work.

• A great fit, the right size and propped arch support. Shoes that are to big can slip, rub and chafe causing painfully sores and abrasions. Shoes that are to small can cause toe pain and overall achy feet.

When you have made the proper selection of shoe, the comfort and proper arch support should be built in, so you won’t feel compelled to purchase insoles or other slip in foot support.

Most online shoe retailers such as Shoes for Crews or zappos.com have very good return policies so that you don’t have to be stuck with a pair of work shoes that just aren’t right. There have been great strides (no pun intended) in the service shoe industry as well. Slip resistant shoes no longer need to look like something for a retirement home. Service and hospitality shoes now have great current styles available for men and women from conservative fine dining dress shoes to ultra-casual tennis shoe styles.

If you are on your feet for long tireless shifts, do yourself a favor and get a pair of good, high quality comfortable slip resistant work shoes. Your body will thank you and with that smile on your face longer, you’re destined to improve your tips!

Special Deal from Shoes for Crews:

Today is “National Food Service Employees Day” and we are excited to look back and reflect on the history of Tip20, and the positive impact that we have had on consumers and helping fellow waiters, waitresses, bartenders and managers all make the service industry a little bit better.

Our article about “Why you should tip” as been viewed thousands of times and has been frequently reposted across the world wide web.

We’ve covered important server topics such as handling campers, How to tip on free and discounted meals, how to handle difficult management situations, your legal server rights, service industry wages and so much more.

We’ve had a lot of fun too! We enjoyed visits from reality show celebrities, interviews from magazines and newspapers and we’ve been talked about on radio stations across the country. We have even been included for reference in a few educational text books! We have developed a great relationship with many other industry bloggers over the years too. It is great to see our industry getting the attention it so deserves and letting the world know that serving is a “real job” for many of us!

Working in the service industry can be very grueling. Typically working the hours when everyone else is playing and playing while everyone else is working. We do long shifts often with no breaks, but it can also be very rewarding and profitable. We’ve had great stories about restaurant guests going way over the top both in good and bad ways. We have also seen how the economy forces restaurants to raise prices and that raised and prices often gets taken out on the servers tips.

When Tip20 was started back in 2002, the mission was to educate consumers on how, why, where, when and who to tip and also to educate servers and bartenders on how to earn their tips and be better at their jobs. We have always felt that tips should be earned and not be just automatically given. Although tips are a critical part of every server’s income and in fact one of the biggest reasons to show up for work, tips in reality are a gift from the consumer who has been satisfied with the services they received from their server or bartender.

Our article on “tipping and taxes” has helped thousands of servers to get a better grip on their taxable income, what needs to be reported and what doesn’t. We have answered hundreds of questions e-mailed to us or post our discussion forum and throughout the blog. We listened to your feedback we try to make changes to Tip20.com to improve the speed and security and informational value and are offerings.

As we approach our 10 year anniversary next year in 2012. We are looking to further growth, development, change and more robust, interactive, useful information for our readers. Over the month of October you can expect to see some changes around Tip20, a little bit of a facelift, some simple overhaul and most importantly more regular content for you to learn from and enjoy.

A as we grow, we would very much like to have your input as to what is important to you. What would you like to see, what are you are not finding other places on the internet and basic overall feedback. Do you have an article to contribute or opinion to share? Send it in! We’ll ensure you get proper credit!

We will be integrating Facebook and Google+ more prominently in our site so it will be easier to share articles and information you like with your friends and coworkers. You will see improved product offerings for things like shoes, insurance options, job searching, etc. So if you haven’t subscribed to our feed you may want to now as we will be offering special offers for our subscribers. Also while your at it, please follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook!

So the team here at Tip20! would like to thank you Service Industry for helping us make it to where we are and keep us going long into the future!

Waiting Around Reataurant Musical

Attention restaurant workers…and customers! Beginning July 8th, Waiting Around–the Restaurant Musical (formerly titled The Black & White Blues), will play at the Allways Lounge and Theatre. Waiting Around is the musical comedy that celebrates the food business, all from the servers’ point of view. The show had a three-year run at Le Chat Noir, followed by an off-Broadway production in 2006. After the NY run, it was decided that the title should be changed, for clarity.

Composer/Producer Harry Mayronne returns as Musical Director, along with original cast member Chris Wecklein, who also co-produced the New York run with Mayronne. New cast members include Tracey E. Collins, Jason Kirkpatrick, and Darcy Malone. In her debut as director is Amanda Zirkenbach, who also serves as choreographer. Cecile Casey Covert returns as costume designer, along with lighting designer Su Gonczy. Book and lyrics are by Ricky Graham, who originally presented the show with producing partner Roy Smith.

On opening night, July 8th, and prior to their premiere, the cast has been invited by Barbara Motley to perform at Le Chat Noir in what will be one of that establishment’s final shows. (Mayronne and Wecklein were in one of Le Chat’s first three shows in 1999.) Meanwhile, the Pfister Sisters will entertain at Allways until the cast arrive for their opening performance. Details on the show’s website. Presented by Music Makers, LLC.

What: Waiting Around–the Restaurant Musical

When: Fri, Sat, Sun, & Mon, July 8-25

Time: 8:00pm

Tickets: $20 (Fri, Sat, Sun) and $15 (Mon). More info at show’s website.

Where: Allways Lounge and Theatre 2240 St. Claude Ave. New Orleans 504/218-5778

Show Website: www.WaitingAroundTheMusical.com

As the founder of Tip20.com I would like to personally congratulate Chef Isaac Becker of the 112 Eatery in downtown Minneapolis for receiving the 2011 Best Chef, Midwest Region James Beard Foundation Award. After multiple nominations this win is a great honor and it continues to be my privilege to work in the company of such culinary greatness. All servers should be so lucky to serve their restaurants food with pure confidence, knowing every item on the menu is sure to please.

Established in 1990, the James Beard Foundation Awards are a program of the James Beard Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to celebrate, nurture, and preserve America’s diverse culinary heritage and future. The James Beard foundation Awards have been described by Time Magazine as “The Oscars of the food world”.

Indeed Tip20! would like to congratulate all this years JBF winners and nominees. It is a big pool to begin with and a significant accomplishment to reach the top.

If you are visiting Minneapolis, do yourself a favor and make reservations at the 112 Eatery or Bar La Grassa and enjoy some of the best food in the Midwest.

From the OrlandoSentinel.com

Waiters can keep the change – but not all of it. By Sandra Pedicini, Orlando Sentinel

When you leave your waiter or waitress a tip, chances are they don’t keep all of it.

It’s common in the restaurant industry for servers to share part of their tips with other workers, sometimes voluntarily, but often because they have to.

But many workers have balked at what they describe as unfair tip-sharing policies, and some have sued. Starbucks, Chili’s, Outback Steakhouse and Orlando-based Hard Rock Café International are among companies that have faced lawsuits.

Restaurant workers often depend heavily on tips because in many states, employers can take “tip credits” and pay regularly tipped employees less than minimum wage — in Florida, as little as $4.23 per hour.

Restaurant companies “are all trying to reduce their bottom line at the expense of the wait staff,” said Robert Wood, an associate legal-studies professor at the University of Central Florida.

At Orlando-based Darden Restaurants, for example, a new policy is requiring Red Lobster and Olive Garden servers to share a percentage of total sales with bartenders and busboys, who are getting their hourly pay lowered.

The new policy has angered many workers — especially experienced bartenders — who in several parts of the country are getting their hourly pay cut to $5 when they had been making double that or higher. Darden says the policy is more fair than a previous system in which individual restaurants had informal tip-sharing arrangements.

Legal experts say that as long as Darden complies with tipping laws in each state, the basic policy would stand up in court because it limits tip-sharing to bartenders and busboys — workers clearly allowed by federal law to share tips.

“As long as all of the people who participate in the pool are in positions where they regularly receive tips, you can require them to share tips, as long as the amount shared is considered reasonable,” said David Young, a labor attorney with Fisher & Phillips in Orlando.

When restaurants start including other types of workers, though, they can get into murky legal territory.

Waiters sued Orlando-based Hard Rock Café International in Orange Circuit Court this year and federal court last year alleging they had to share tips with kitchen staffers who made sure food was garnished and prepared properly.

The waiters allege that because Hard Rock allowed kitchen employees to share tips, the company should not be able to pay workers less than minimum wage. Hard Rock said via e-mail the allegations “do not accurately reflect how Hard Rock pays it employees” and that it complies with the law.

Kitchen staffers doing similar work were the focus of a federal lawsuit against Dallas-based Brinker International in which a jury in 2009 awarded 55 Chili’s servers $270,000. Martin Shellist, the workers’ attorney, said servers were pressured to share tips with kitchen workers, whose pay went down. Brinker is appealing.

An appeals court in California in 2009, meanwhile, reversed a ruling that Starbucks illegally allowed supervisors to share in tip pools, erasing a $106-million judgment against Starbucks. The appeals court said supervisors perform many of the same jobs as baristas, according to news media reports.

Young said restaurants can avoid problems by making sure workers sharing in tips provide a lot of customer service. It’s one of many legal requirements a tip-sharing policy must meet.

“It’s got to be both legal and in my mind practical,” he said. “Otherwise it’s not really an advantage to a business.”

Spedicini@tribune.com or 407-420-5240. Follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/dineshopwrite

Copyright © 2011, Orlando Sentinel

Reprinted without permission.

New York style Cheesecake with Strawberries

In the United States July 30 has been unofficially declared National Cheesecake Day.

Cheesecake is a dessert consisting of a topping made of soft, fresh cheese on a base made from biscuit, pastry or sponge. The topping is frequently sweetened with sugar and flavored or topped with fruit, nuts, fruit flavored drizzle and/or chocolate.

Savory cheesecakes also exist, served sometimes as hors d’oeuvre or with accompanying salads.

The earliest author who mentions cheesecake is Aegimus, who wrote a book on the art of making cheesecakes. Cato the Elder’s De Agri Cultura includes recipes for two pies for religious uses: libum and placenta. Of the two, placenta is most like modern cheesecakes having a crust that is separately prepared and baked. In 1872, William Lawrence from Chester, NY, along with other dairymen, came up with a way of making an “un-ripened cheese” that is heavier and creamier by accident, actually looking for a way to recreate the soft, French cheese, Neufchatel.  Lawrence distributed the cheese in foil, becoming a brand that is familiarly recognized as “Philadelphia”. Later on in 1912, James Kraft invented a form of this cream cheese, but pasteurized it- this is now the most commonly used cheese for cheesecake.

Almost all modern cheesecakes in the United States use cream cheese; in Italy, cheesecakes use ricotta; Germany and Poland use quark cheese. Cheesecakes are most easily baked in a springform pan.

The type of cheese affects not only the texture and taste, but also the ability to incorporate certain types of ingredients. When cheesecake batter is too thin, many cheesecakes will not be structurally sound and fall apart at the table. One way to get around this is to use unflavored gelatin or a little cornstarch beaten with the eggs.

A common difficulty with baking cheesecakes is its tendency to “crack” when cooled. This is due to the coagulation of the beaten eggs in its batter. There are various methods to prevent this. One method is to bake the cheesecake in a hot water bath to ensure even heating. Other methods include blending a little cornstarch into the batter or baking the cheesecake at a lower temperature and slow cooling it in the oven, turned off, with the door ajar. If these methods fail, a common practice is to cover the top of the cheesecake with toppings such as fruit, whipped cream, or cookie crumbs.

Alternatively, cracks can also be repaired by simply using a flat knife and some warm water. After the cake has been chilled for a few hours, simply dip the knife in warm water and mold the cheesecake as if sculpting. Cracks and unevenness can easily be taken care of in this fashion. This method also works well for repairing the sides and giving the final cheesecake a flawless look. For crater size cracks, try using the bits that are stuck on the side of the pan to help repair the damage.

Another common problem, particularly with baked cheesecakes, is that the biscuit base becomes too soft. For extra crunch, replace around a quarter of the crushed biscuits with Grape Nuts.

Many types of cheesecake are essentially custards, which can lead a novice baker to overcook them, expecting them to behave like true cakes.

A sour cream-style cheesecake uses close to a 1:1 volume ratio of cream cheese to sour cream to make the traditional texture that crumbles like a good roquefort cheese with a distinctive sunken center and a golden-colored top from the Maillard reaction. An extra egg white brushed on the top can achieve the same effect in less time if you desire the cheesecake to be “gooey” when set.

In 1999, at one of the weekend-long Phish festivals, Big Cypress, held at the Seminole Indian Reservation in southern Florida, New Years Weekend, ABC Nightly World News broadcast a performance of “Heavy Things”. In an attempt to confuse viewers, members of the band requested that instead of applause at the end of the song, the audience chant “cheesecake” over and over. It became a running joke for Phish to reference cheesecake throughout the duration of the show. During a performance of “You Enjoy Myself”, the band went into a trademarked, vocal jam in which each of them sang “cheesecake”, types of cheesecake, and so forth. This has since been commonly referred to as the “Ben Milan Jam”.

The band King Missile has song called ‘Cheesecake Truck’. The song lasts for just over one minute, but the word ‘cheesecake’ is mentioned fourteen times. The song is humorous mainly due to the incredible number of cheesecakes (an entire truckload) that the protagonist claims to eat during the first day of his job driving a cheesecake truck.

In the 1955 film Guys and Dolls, Frank Sinatra’s character Nathan eats cheesecake when he first meets Marlon Brando’s character Sky. (The references to cheesecake were inspired by Lindy’s deli in New York City.) Brando, a practical joker, knowing how much Sinatra hated cheesecake, flubbed each take so that Sinatra would have to eat piece after piece of cheesecake. After filming repeated takes of the scene, Sinatra said he could not take one more bite.

Cheesecake was the favored dessert of The Golden Girls during their late-night talks around the kitchen table.

On an episode of MTV reality show Making the Band, P. Diddy made the contestants walk to Junior’s in Brooklyn to get him a piece of cheesecake. This was later satirized by Dave Chappelle on an episode of Chappelle’s Show.

Before the live broadcast of Phish’s millennial concert in Big Cypress. Phish frontman, Trey Anastasio, told the crowd to chant “Cheesecake” instead of clapping at the end of Heavy Things.

Couldn’t you go for a piece right now!!

Find other National Food and Drink Holidays

Our first Tip20! Poll addresses something that is neglected in most tipping vs. no-tipping arguments. If you don’t like tipping, what do you think a fair hourly  wage for servers should be?

Discuss below, also does your answer apply to bartenders as well? or would that change things?

Tip20 is pleased to welcome Shoes for Crews to it’s list of officially endorsed products! Shoes for crews has been in the business of creating comfortable slip resistant shoes for the service and hospitality industry for over 25 years.

Weather you are a waiter, waitress, bartender, support staff, Chef or kitchen staff you will see the immediate benefit of wearing the shoes offered by this amazing company. Part of their secret is that their SFC Mighty

Tip20! Endorses Shoes for Crews.

Grip slip-resistant outsole is made from an exclusive rubber compound that grips the microscopic roughness of the floor surface. And their patented micro-channel tread pattern channels liquids away from the bottom of the sole. This combination results in unbelievable traction on all types of wet and greasy floor surfaces.

Their shoes are attractive too with many styles to choose from to fit your workplace style.

Bonus: Right now Shoes for Crews is offering Free Standard Shipping on Shoes For Crews! Use Coupon Code: CCABN9