Are You an Employer Committed to Fair Wages and Great Working Conditions?
The country's largest network of restaurants committed to taking the high road to profitability, which includes paying a living wage — backed by OFW with hiring support, training, marketing, peer learning, and the seal that tells diners you do right by your team.
Restaurant owners who pay a fair wage already know the math works: lower turnover, better service, stronger margins, real loyalty. The hard part is convincing other owners — and finding the customers who'll choose you specifically because you do this. That's what RAISE High Road Restaurants is for. We put your restaurant on the map, plug you into a national network of operators making the same choice, and back you up with the OFW research, training, and policy work that makes the fair-wage model normal instead of the exception.
What you get
Training and technical business assistance
Manager training on fair-wage models, anti-harassment protocols, equitable scheduling, and the legal landscape around tipped vs. flat-floor pay, plus hands-on business assistance as you make the transition. Annual refreshers as policy changes in your state.
Access to capital
The RAISE High Road loan fund helps operators finance the move to a full wage with tips on top — the capital piece that makes the transition workable for small businesses.
The OFW seal
The RAISE High Road Restaurants badge on your front door, your menu, your website, your Google listing — the same way a Michelin star or a James Beard award gets used. Recognized in restaurant guides, on food media, and by diners who go out of their way to support fair-wage restaurants.
National network
Peer learning with hundreds of other RAISE High Road operators — wage models, scheduling, scaling without compromising, fielding press questions. Annual convening. Regional working groups.
Hiring support
OFW's worker network is your hiring pipeline. Workers who came through our English For Restaurant and Service Workers classes, our Just Safe Food program, and our state campaigns know which restaurants pay fair — and they want to work for you.
Marketing & press
OFW pushes RAISE High Road operators to local food press, national media covering the wage conversation, and tourism boards. When the wage fight is in the news in your state, your restaurant is the local example reporters call first.
Policy backup
Your voice in the wage debate. OFW amplifies fair-wage operators in state legislatures, city councils, and the federal conversation. When the industry lobby claims raising wages will close restaurants, you're the proof it doesn't. High-road operators can also endorse the federal Living Wage For All Act as a business.
What It Looks Like To Take The High Road To Profitable
RAISE High Road Restaurants is a real standard, not a logo program. Here is the goal for RAISE High Road Restaurants.
1. Pay one fair wage
Every front-of-house and back-of-house worker earns at least the full state minimum wage before tips. Tips are on top of the wage, not a credit against it. No subminimum tipped rate.
2. Tip pooling, done right
If you pool tips, the pool is transparent, the formula is in writing, and it follows the law in your jurisdiction. Managers don't take from it.
3. Anti-harassment protocol
A written policy, manager training, and a worker-side reporting path that doesn't run through the harasser. OFW provides the template.
4. Schedule transparency
Workers see the schedule at least one week out. Predictable hours, predictable income.
5. Worker voice
Whatever the form — town halls, a worker committee, a union contract — workers have a real way to raise issues and get them addressed.
Michael Fuquay
The Queensboro is a One Fair Wage Restaurant. We pay our staff fairly and have done everything in our power to help them through this difficult year. As a result, we haven’t had any issues staying fully staffed.
Michael Fuquay has been in the New York restaurant industry for two decades — busboy, dishwasher, bartender, server — before opening The Queensboro. His restaurant has been a High Road participant since the program’s early years. He testifies regularly in Albany and Washington for the worker-pay reforms.
Some Of The 1,000
A few of the named restaurants in the RAISE High Road Restaurants network — coast to coast, from a single Maine cocktail bar to multi-state operators. All paying one fair wage.
Plus 1,000+ more operators across the country. Find a RAISE High Road restaurant near you →
RAISE High Road Restaurants, In Their Words
Named operators across the country on what one fair wage actually does for a restaurant.
The Queensboro is a One Fair Wage Restaurant. We pay our staff fairly and have done everything in our power to help them through this difficult year. As a result, we haven’t had any issues staying fully staffed.
Michael Fuquay Owner, The Queensboro — New York, NY
Unlike what some would like to have you believe, people who work in the restaurant industry are skilled professionals, and we ought to start treating them like they are. It is time to raise wages.
Ji Hye Kim Owner, Miss Kim’s — Ann Arbor, MI
Our success depends on valuing everyone from the dishwasher to the sous chef to the servers and bartenders, and we need a wage structure that reflects that. Valued, happy employees are the key ingredients to a successful restaurant.
Ilma Lopez Co-owner, Chaval — Portland, ME
It’s time to end the subminimum wage, allowing for restaurant owners who want to invest in our employees to compete on a level playing field with low road employers down the street who continue to leverage poverty level wages to subjugate their workers.
Monique Carter Owner, MJB Restaurant Group — Chicago, IL
A long time before I owned a restaurant, I worked in a restaurant as a busboy, dishwasher, bartender, server. I think it’s important for us to have a kind of industry that good people want to stay in.
Michael Fuquay Owner, The Queensboro — Queens, NY
Having people rely solely on tips made it feel like a throwaway profession for so long.
Andy Shallal Owner, Busboys & Poets — Washington, D.C.
The subminimum wage. Working for tips, a legacy of slavery, keeps our industry backward looking and our workers mired in jobs that encourage harassment, racism, wage theft and poverty.
Michael Landgarten Owner, Corner Pub Kittery & Lil’s Cafe — Kittery, ME
You know what’s not fun? Worrying about whether you’ll be able to pay your rent or your electricity bill if you have a bad night of tips. That kind of dependence on customers’ generosity for their survival opens up servers and bartenders to rampant sexual harassment.
Dave Aceto Owner, Arcadia National Bar — Portland, ME
Our best bartenders have been with us for years. Employees stick around because they feel valued. Instead of paying the subminimum wage, we pay one fair wage. That means that instead of worrying about making rent, our bartenders can focus on making the perfect cocktail.
Steve Corman Owner, Vena’s Fizz House — Westbrook, ME
The Corporate Executives Are Saying It Too — To Shareholders.
When CFOs tell their own investors that higher minimum wages improved their business, it’s not advocacy. It’s a financial report. These are direct quotes from public investor calls and corporate statements.
As they’ve increased their minimum wage kind of in a tempered pace over that time frame — California has outperformed the system. Over that time frame, they had six consecutive years of positive guest traffic — not just positive sales, but positive guest traffic — as the minimum wage was going up.
Robert Verostek CFO, Denny’s — investor call
I believe that we’re really well positioned to manage through any changes here. We’ve been managing structural wage changes for years.
Gene Lee Chairman & CEO, Darden (Olive Garden parent)
We believe in investing in our partners. There is a direct correlation between investment and partners, customer connection scores and traffic increase.
Kevin Johnson President & CEO, Starbucks
Sources: Denny’s investor call (cited in OFW Small Business Restaurants Succeed series + Raising Wages to Reopen, p. 3). Darden & Starbucks via NRA Exposed (April 2021) / Motley Fool. Full citations in our research library.
Stop subsidizing the lowest bidder
Restaurants that pay fair compete on food and hospitality, not on how little they can pay the floor. Join the RAISE High Road Restaurants network.
Apply to High Road