Sorrel Restaurant Chooses Kickfin — and Kicks Cash Tip Outs to the Curb

Meet Jace.

Jace Meagher, the General Manager of Sorrel, has extensive, coast-to-coast experience in restaurant operations — which means he’s all too familiar with the headache of nightly tip outs.

In his more recent positions, Jace had seen gratuities distributed via payroll — requiring employees to wait weeks at a time for their earnings — or via pay cards.

“Pay cards are such a half-baked idea,” Jace said. “Your money is basically in limbo. It’s just sitting on a card that’s not linked to any account, and you’ve got all these extra steps you have to take just to transfer and access your money.”

When Jace arrived at Sorrel, he was surprised to see the restaurant still tipping in cash. It’s old school and inefficient, Jace said, but he gets it.

“There’s a lot of demand for nightly pay. The perk of being in the service industry is you get your tips the moment you walk out the door, and cash was the only way to do that,” Jace said. “The problem is that you’re constantly running to the bank, counting and recounting cash, making errors — tipping out with cash is the worst.”

Sorrel’s tip out solution

When Jace realized what Kickfin could do for Sorrel, he was on 100% board — but he admits his employees were a little skeptical at first.

“The idea sounded great: they still get paid every day, it goes straight to their accounts, any time of day or night. But they just hadn’t used anything like it before,” Jace said.

Sorrel found that implementation was easy, and once his employees were set up on the platform? “They never looked back,” Jace said.

• No more bank runs: Jace said this has been huge for his managers, who no longer have to go back and forth to the bank to pull cash.
• Fewer mistakes: Counting cash, distributing cash, dealing with miscalculations, disputing tip amounts — Kickfin solved for all of Sorrel’s “human error” pain points.
• Reporting made easy: Jace uses Kickfin’s reporting every pay period, when they declare their employees’ tips.
• Happy employees: Jace’s team gets their tips sent to their bank accounts at the end of every shift — no waiting for payroll, no hassling with pay card transfers and fees.
• A selling point: During interviewing and onboarding processes, Jace introduces Kickfin and has found that candidates and new employees get excited about the technology.