The parent company of Joe’s Crab Shack is taking the controversy over federal minimum wage polices to a new level by testing a no-tipping policy at 18 of its 131 locations. 
 
 The test by Houston-based Ignite Restaurant Group scraps tips in exchange for raising wages for its restaurant workers. 
 
 “I personally believe tipping is an antiquated model,” Chief Executive Ray Blanchette told investors in a conference call last week. “We believe that the no-tipping service model gets us above the fray with regards to the increased minimum wage conversations that seem to be happening all over the country.” 
 
 Joe’s operates two restaurants in Orange County – one in Newport Beach and the other in Garden Grove near Disneyland. Those restaurants are not part of the pilot. 
 
 Test restaurants have raised the fixed hourly rate of workers based on factors that include employees’ historical compensation and their importance to the business, Blanchette said. Joe’s declined to discuss salary specifics. 
 
 Restaurants testing the policy are in Utah, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska and Kansas. At these restaurants, Joe’s is not adding service charges to checks, though there have been small increases for menu items, the company said. 
 
 Last week, Blanchette said he expects less employee turnover by eliminating tips because workers will enjoy a fixed rate, of “say, $14 an hour” compared with $2.25 an hour – a model seen in some states where employers are allowed to pay tipped workers below the federal minimum wage as long as their tips make up the difference. 
 
 Joe’s test comes a month after famed New York restaurateur Danny Meyer announced plans to eliminate tipping at all of his New York City restaurants. The no-tipping policy will be phased in starting later this month at The Modern, he said. Diners will face menu price hikes to ensure all workers are paid fairly, he said. 
 
 Meyer operates Union Square Hospitality Group, whose other restaurants include, Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and Blue Smoke. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.
– Put away the calculator and enjoy dessert: There's no more tipping at Joe's Crab Shack, the first national full-service chain restaurant to test a no-tipping policy, Consumerist reports. In a conference call last week, Ray Blanchette, CEO of parent company Ignite Restaurant Group, told investors that 18 of its 131 units are trying out the no-tipping policy that began in August, making up for lost tips by upping servers' starting minimum wage to $14 an hour from $2.13 (exact pay depends on work performance), Restaurant Business Online reports. The goal: to prevent staff turnover and improve service. "I personally believe tipping is an antiquated model," Blanchette said in the call, per the OC Register. "The no-tipping service model gets us above the fray with regards to the increased minimum wage conversations that seem to be happening all over the country." Blanchette explained that, in addition to servers being more likely to stick around for the long haul with a higher hourly wage, they'd also be guaranteed the same pay whether they worked a dead shift on a Monday afternoon or a busy Friday night, per National Restaurant News. And service would likely improve, too, he noted, especially when servers start sharing table duties for large parties (instead of getting territorial over a table for an anticipated big tip). The wage increase is paid for by raising menu prices 12% to 15%—which could still save customers money if they usually tip 18% or more. Results so far have been positive. "What makes us optimistic is the restaurant that has been in test the longest is gaining the most traction," Blanchette tells NRN. Consumerist notes that the parent company of 13 well-known NYC restaurants has been testing its own no-tipping policy since October, leveling wages between front-house and kitchen staff. (A NYT writer says tipping is "degrading" to women.)