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The restaurant economy of New York City may be nearing a tipping point.

State officials are recommending a big hike in the minimum hourly wage for people who work for tips. But that idea is giving many restaurateurs indigestion in New York City, home to more than 20,000 restaurants. Some say a tipped wage hike could upend the whole system of tipping.

And many servers say tips are the No. 1 reason why they started waiting tables.

"You need money, OK? Waiting tables has always been a job where you can rapidly start making money," says Steve Dublanica, a former waiter who now writes a blog called Waiter Rant.

"You can have your terrible night, where you walk out with $10," he adds. "And then you can have a great night where you walk out with 300 [dollars]."

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Customers Can Keep The Tip — Which Might Please Restaurant Workers

The New York State wage board wants to take some of the sting out of those $10 nights. Like restaurants in many places in the U.S., those in New York pay their tipped employees less than the minimum wage with the expectation that their tips will make up the difference. This is called the tipped minimum wage.

The federal tipped minimum wage is $2.13, but New York state's is higher: $5 an hour. The wage board wants to raise that to $7.50 at the end of the year. And as you might expect, restaurants are not happy about this proposal.

"I don't know of any place ever that's increased a minimum wage or a tipped wage by 50 percent," says Melissa Fleischut, president of the New York State Restaurant Association. "I just think it's unheard of."

Actually, the wage hike would be smaller for servers who already earn more than minimum wage if you count their tips. In New York City, many servers make way above minimum wage anyway, but restaurateurs still say this change would mean a serious jump in their labor costs in an industry where margins are thin.

"It's a matter of life and death," says Philippe Massoud, the executive chef of ilili, a Lebanese restaurant in Manhattan.

He says he thinks the hourly increase could have major unintended consequences for the industry.

"I wouldn't be able to have as many waiters as I have here because if I'm over-staffed, the cost is so enormous that it's going to hit me financially," Massoud says. "So by default, all of a sudden, I'm going to be understaffed, and the quality of my service is going to go down."

Other restaurateurs say they're considering getting rid of tipping altogether and just paying waiters by the hour. To do that, the restaurant would have to collect a lot more money from the dining public, probably in the form of a service charge or higher menu prices.

As The Salt has reported, a few restaurants around the country are experimenting with this higher hourly wage, no-tip model. And just this month, New York City's Dirt Candy, an acclaimed vegetarian restaurant, reopened with a no-tip policy: Instead of a service charge, its bills now include a 20 percent mandatory administrative fee that goes toward the salary of all restaurant employees.

"If this happens, we will, in all likelihood, go to a service charge model that's used in Europe," says Jimmy Haber, CEO of ESquared Hospitality, which operates more than a dozen restaurants, including BLT Prime in New York. "We'll pay our front-of-house employees a fixed hourly wage, which means that we're going to have to work them a lot less hours."

There are a handful of restaurants in the U.S. that already pay their servers higher hourly wages and benefits. But mostly, they're at the very high end, including Michelin-starred places like Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., or Per Se in New York. Experts are skeptical that this is going to catch on widely because no restaurant wants to suddenly jack up its prices by 20 percent.

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Why We Tip

"Customers will look at the menu price, and because it's higher, they'll think you're more expensive," says Michael Lynn, who teaches at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration.

He's studied tipping and says restaurants that include service in their prices are judged differently than the competition.

"Those restaurants are perceived as more expensive than restaurants with slightly lower menu prices, but there's tipping expected," Lynn says.

There are plenty of states, including California, Washington and Nevada, where restaurants have to pay employees the full minimum wage, Lynn says, yet tipping is still the norm.

Dublanica also thinks tipping is here to stay.

"If you could somehow work things out, where everyone was equitably compensated and got what they needed to live a human life, and the employers made enough money to stay happy, I'd be all for that," he says. "But I've got news for you: That's not going to happen."

Right now, New York's commissioner of labor is considering the wage board's recommendations. He's expected to decide on them soon.

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As the 500-year-old bell tower tolls, about 25 students from the University of Oxford cross a medieval cobblestone street. They duck under a stone archway and slip into a room named after T.S. Eliot, who studied here a century ago.

The students drop their backpacks and get ready for practice. They're here to hone their tongues. This week, an elite team of Oxford's six best tasters will battle the University of Cambridge to see which group has the most refined palate.

In the back of the Oxford practice room, the coach, Hanneke Wilson, is setting things up. She's published a book about wine. She oversees a wine cellar. And right now, she's struggling to uncork a few bottles.

"Corks can be very recalcitrant," she mutters to herself. Moments later, she succeeds and slips the bottles into cloth sleeves that disguise their labels.

Oxford and Cambridge have academic awards to see which school is smarter, and boat races to determine which is stronger. And for the past half-century, their blind wine tasting societies have held competitions. It's all part of an epic rivalry that dates back to the 13th century.

Now, these tasting teams are hoping to be recognized as an official sport.

As practice gets underway, wine is the only topic of conversation. Students list the regions they've visited: Bordeaux, Champagne, Alsace.

"I basically plan my holidays around vineyards," says Yee Chuin Lim, a master's student in development studies. Other students confess they do the same.

Soon the room is quiet and tense. One student makes his way around the long table, setting out wine glasses. Another student pours. Then, they start a sophisticated version of "guess the grape."

They study the color. They swirl the glass and take a big sniff. Eventually, they sip it and swish it, constantly jotting down what they notice. Finally, they spit it out; there is no drunkenness allowed. And, before the clock runs out, they guess.

Coach Wilson explains: "You get five points for the predominant grape variety, five for the country of origin, two points for the main viticulture region, three for the subdistrict, two for the vintage and then five points for your tasting note."

Basically, you need to know what grape, from when and from where — the more specific, the better. This means your tongue needs to have a database of wine. Plus, it helps to have a good working knowledge of agricultural practices and winemaking techniques.

"Wine tasting, as you will by now have realized, is very difficult," coach Wilson says.

Oxford's ultimate goal is, of course, beating Cambridge. Historically, Oxford has the edge, but Cambridge is the defending champion.

"It's very tense. People get jolly nervous. We go to the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, so it's on neutral territory," Wilson says. "And the match happens in total silence."

Early in the morning on their big day, the team will head over to the train station. Ren Lim, a doctoral student in biophysics, has made this trip three times to represent Oxford. He says that on the train there is a scramble to find seats together. Then they pop open a bottle, cover the label and do a quick practice session right there.

"When you start dishing out glasses," Lim remembers, "you get funny looks."

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When people ask him about why he devotes so much time to blind wine tasting, Ren Lim says, "I still struggle to find why."

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It is fun and challenging, he admits. And of course, college kids will be college kids.

Remember how you have to spit out the wine after you taste it? Well, you spit into a black spittoon that students from the two teams are supposed to share. But Ren Lim says that when you've got a mouth full of wine, sometimes your archrival will "hog onto the spittoon and deprive you of the privilege to use it."

Coach Wilson says that in more than 20 years of coaching, she's noticed that "Cambridge always makes more noise slurping and spitting than we do. We think they do this to put us off our stride."

But there's one thing both of these teams agree on.

"We treat wine tasting as a sport," Wilson says. "We train for it, the way we train for a competitive sports match."

She says both Oxford and Cambridge have petitioned to become officially recognized as sports teams. After all, it worked for chess. But so far, the powers that be haven't been persuaded.

"They think that sport involves running around and kicking or hitting things. We disagree, but there you are," Wilson says with a sigh.

Still, other universities are catching on. Blind tasting has spread around the U.K., and it's even crossed the pond. Both Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania's business schools have teams, among others. They let spectators watch — and taste for themselves.

Here in Oxford, competitions still happen behind closed doors.

So do the practices. As this one winds down, the team captain calls on Mateusz Tarkowski to guess the last pair of red wines. Tarkowski studies computer science, and he's hoping to make Oxford's wine team.

"Cherries on the palate. Of course it's a dry wine," Tarkowski looks down at his notes. "I definitely thought it was Italian." Then, he decides to hazard a guess.

When the sock comes off, Tarkowski has guessed right — full marks. It's been a good practice.

As the presidential hopefuls chase after big donors, the Center for Responsive Politics brings us a quick look in the rearview mirror:

The 2014 congressional midterm elections cost $3.77 billion, the center says, making them (no surprise here) the most expensive midterms yet. CRP also reports that those dollars appeared to come from a smaller cadre of donors — 773,582, the center says. That's about 5 percent fewer than in the 2010 midterms.

CRP found that the average contribution swelled from $1,800 in 2010, to slightly more than $8,000 in 2014. That appears to reflect the growth of superPACs, political committees created by the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling and other court decisions earlier in 2010. SuperPACs disclose their donors but have no contribution limits.

Another flourishing sector of politics is the 501c4 secret-money groups, which don't disclose their donors or, in many cases, their spending. Conservative groups accounted for 78 percent of the known spending by secret-money groups. (Secret-money groups must disclose some overtly partisan advertising and some field work.) Liberal groups led in the disclosed-money arena of superPACs, with 52 percent of the spending.

Overall, CRP found that Republican candidates, party committees and outside groups spent $1.77 billion, about $44 million more than Democrats.

Besides the donors to secret-money groups, CRP's data don't include the number of donors who gave $200 or less. Those smallest of small donors are exempt from federal disclosure law.

midterms 2014

superPACs

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Popular Mexican actress Lorena Rojas has died of cancer at age 44.

Rojas was born Seydi Lorena Rojas Gonzlez in Mexico City and got her big break in the 1990s with the telenovela Alcanzar Una Estrella. She later starred in Azul Tequila, El Cuerpo del Deseo and Pecados Ajenos. Her most recent telenovela was Rosario.

She also moved into films, such as Corazones Rotos, and stage in the musical Aventurera. Earlier this year, she'd put out a children's album called Hijos Del Sol, inspired by her daughter Luciana.

Rojas had been battling cancer since 2008. She died on Monday in Miami.