>>I've yet to meet a bar owner who admits to *any* trust in bartenders. I once spent an idle hour at Kennedy during which the bartender explained to me the numerous scams that were rife in the trade.....
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>In a completely different setup (i.e. not in the then FRY, but in the US) I had to write an app for "server banking". First, I knew what the memory banks were; and I imagined that was something about pooling the servers (the app did have its own load balancing scheme, so I guessed it must have something to do with spreading that scheme across multiple servers).
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>But no, that was about the waiter's (i.e. server's) pocket (i.e. bank). The app had to know, at all times, how much money did he take from the register when starting the shift (so he'd have change with him), how big were the tips each time he loaded the cash or swiped guest's card, and how much he must have in his pocket at each step. When closing, he was supposed to enter the amount and percentage that would go to the kitchen. There was also an option to pool the whole shift and then run a report stating each's share (kitchen included).
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>From what I know in real life, kitchen may not get anything at all, and there's nothing stopping the waiter to type numbers slightly lower than real, and keep the difference in his private pocket.

I think that, in this country, the kitchen staff always get a share. But the usual problem is that the restaurant owner may act as the troncmaster and not put the total amount of tips into the kitty (non-cash tips belong to the restaurant and it is then common for them to make deductions for breakages, card-handling charges etc.)

Fairer owners allow a member of staff to administer the tronc.

Oddly, a restaurant is still allowed to pay less than the minimum wage and rely on payments from the tronc to raise it above the minimum.