Front-of-house staff, and back-of-house staff, that is—and sometimes it seems like never the twain shall meet.These are two very different groups of people, with different jobs, skill sets, schedules and pay grades. They may even have different work ethics, temperaments and ambitions—very few aspiring actors, for instance, take a job working the broiler line in a restaurant kitchen.Many restaurant professionals who have come up in the industry have worked both sides of the equation, in the kitchen and on the floor, and have learned firsthand the sometimes adversarial relationship between BOH and FOH.Servers can fear the kitchen crew, especially if the chef is temperamental or given to yelling (the trope of the big, bad, foulmouthed chef as portrayed by Gordon Ramsey on “Kitchen Nightmares” is not so far from the truth). The dining room crew depends on the kitchen to get the orders right and timed correctly, and woe betide the waiter who has to bring back a steak that a customer says is overcooked.Back in the kitchen, the cooks can resent the servers, who get to spend time in an air-conditioned dining room, and who go out for drinks together after the shift while we were still scrubbing down our stations. And they can really resent it when word comes back that one of them has snagged a hundred-dollar tip—more than a minimum wage kitchen worker makes in an entire day.Recently, supporters of eliminating gratuities have addressed this inequity in pay as one of the many reasons to get rid of tipping. Proponents like Danny Meyer argue that a “hospitality included” policy, which would build the tip into menu prices, would allow management to pay back- and front-of-house employees more equally. This would help with retention and morale, at least in the kitchen, and many people feel it’s also morally the right thing to do. Camino, an upscale restaurant in Oakland, CA (which now has a mandated minimum wage of $12.25 an hour), recently eliminated tipping—and raised its prices by 22%—with a notice on the menu that states “Our prices now include service so we can pay our employees a living wage.”Restaurant tipping is ingrained in the United States, however, and if will be a long time, if ever, until the restaurant gratuity goes away entirely. But there are other ways to foster better communication between kitchen and dining room staff.

• Make mutual respect part of company culture and policy
• Include front- and back-of-house equally in all perks, recognition and skill-building programs
• Keep hours reasonable and working conditions comfortable for all staff; don’t let the kitchen culture be “survival of the fittest”
• Consider closing the restaurant twice a year for a whole-staff party or trip
• Get kitchen and dining room staffs both involved in trainings like wine tastings or recipe development
• Keep the door open for suggestions, complaints and commentary
• Don’t hesitate to step in when there are problems

You could also do what Holy Belly in Paris did, and swap kitchen and dining room roles so the crew could understand each other’s pain. The video may be in French, but the issues are universal.