DENVER — More than 65 Denver restaurant owners have signaled support for not reducing Denver’s tipped minimum wage, challenging the data behind a city-backed report that helped spark a legislative push to lower tipped wages for workers.
Some of the restaurateurs and the Denver auditor are calling the findings misleading and biased at a time when a new state law has opened the door to cutting wages for the first time.
The pushback centers on a February report titled “The State of Denver Restaurants,” commissioned by Denver Economic Development and Opportunity, Visit Denver, and inKind, a private restaurant financing company. The report was authored by the founders of the restaurant groups behind Snooze and Jax Fish House and cited Denver’s tipped minimum wage, currently $16.27 per hour, as a significant burden on the industry…