As a manager at a restaurant, here's my take on it.
Restaurant Owners collecting portions of tip-out is complete BS, UNLESS the owners are in there busting their humps along with everyone else, in which case it's slightly reasonable, although pretty lame.
If the owners are just taking money out of the tip-pool without doing anything on the floor they are loser idiots who deserve to lose their business, which they will probably do, because they are making it more difficult to attract and keep good staff. I don't know of any servers who would stand for that kind of behavior. It's not standard, it's not appropriate, your friend should make a scene and quit.
Being a good server is hard work, it requires a startling amount of specific knowledge, good personal skills, not to mention work ethic and energy. It's a difficult job that deserves to be reasonably well compensated, and tipping is the system we've arrived at here in North America to achieve that. Would it be better to simply pay servers what they are worth and do away with tipping? Probably, but unfortunately no restaurant can afford to do that because people simply won't pay that much for food, even if they are willing to leave that money sitting on the table in the form of a tip. Why is that the case, I don't know, but it is.
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