Edgewater Inn owner Niya Gingerich said she’s tracking to save $30,000 in labor costs this year because the city of Edgewater froze its tipped minimum wage at $13.50 an hour for 2026.
“We’re still just barely getting by,” she told BusinessDen. “I’m still saving up for a rooftop HVAC on the ceiling. I still have a fridge that needs to get fixed. Itap bleak.”
Next month, the Edgewater City Council will vote on whether to permanently cap the tipped minimum wage at 70% of the full minimum wage, which is slated to be $19.84 an hour starting Jan. 1, 2027. Under that proposal, the town of 5,000 just west of Denver would see its tipped minimum go up by 39 cents to $13.89.
The move would effectively slow the rising tipped minimum wage in the city, making the pay rate correspond to a ratio rather than a fixed number, as it has been in the past. Currently, the tipped minimum in Edgewater is 74% of the full minimum wage.
Edgewater is one of four municipalities in Colorado — along with Denver, Boulder and unincorporated Boulder County — that have higher minimum wages than state mandates. Tipped minimum wages in those areas have come under scrutiny from a struggling restaurant industry.
Last year, Edgewater became the first city in Colorado to make a change, freezing its tipped minimum wage at $13.50 headed into 2026. That was possible thanks to a state law passed in 2025.
The city increased the difference between tipped worker pay and standard minimums – called the tip credit – from the state mark of $3.02 to $4.67. That solved the problem for 2026, but they left the door open for the future, waiting to see how the policy worked.
If the Edgewater council doesn’t pass the proposal on Oct. 6, the tip credit will revert to $3.02 and tipped minimum pay will bump up 25% to $16.82. Thatap the same amount that tipped workers will make next year in Denver, where city leaders have so far balked at adjusting wages.
“I stand behind our local minimum wage and it increasing faster than inflation the past few years to catch up to Denver, but I fully own that the velocity of tip wage increases in this post-pandemic and now tariffed and unaffordable-for-everyone economy have been a huge struggle for employers,” Councilwoman Hannah Gay Keao, who proposed the 70% ordinance, said at last week’s meeting.
Gingerich would ideally like the wage to stay at the $13.50 mark, saying that her tipped staff would get a natural raise in their tips as menu prices increase. The average Edgewater Inn server makes between $30 and $50 an hour per shift, she said, while back-of-house kitchen staff make in the mid-$20s.
Gingerich hasn’t paid herself since she and her husband bought the restaurant in 2023, despite working there practically full-time. The restaurant also has a $15,000 repair on hold for one HVAC unit, a $1,200 fridge repair pending and a potential $30,000 bill for a larger, ceiling HVAC unit that is liable to go out “at any moment,” she said.
“Fortunately, my husband can support our family right now,” she said. “But most people would’ve gone out of business already. You can’t just keep working for free.”
Thatap despite revenue exploding in the last couple years, jumping 30% between 2024 and 2025 partially due to the addition of the Lot 46 music venue in the space. So far this year, she said, sales are up 40%.
“People come in and see how busy we are all the time,” she said. “But the busier you are, the more expenses you have.”
If the 70% ordinance passes, she projects the increase will cost her business another $25,000 for labor.
“The minute you think you’re ahead,” she said, “itap something else.”
Tipped minimum wage won’t be adjusted in Boulder. Over the summer, the city council there opted to keep the city’s scheduled hike to a $15.15 tipped hourly rate and an $18.17 minimum for 2027.
“Thatap off the table right now,” Boulder councilman Matt Benjamin told BusinessDen. “But we need to lower costs and burdens on restaurants and other small businesses. Itap basic math: you either reduce expenses or increase revenue to match that (wage increase) cost.”
He and fellow councilors are convening a restaurant task force to discuss relief options outside of rebates, like possible tax relief or other initiatives to drive more people to dine in the city. They plan on convening one representative from the restaurant owner class and another person from the labor side to start, seeing if there is a mutual policy path forward.
Benjamin said the conversation will start in the coming weeks, and he hopes to have concrete proposals by the time the council takes its annual retreat early next year. He hopes to have things he can bring to council directly or legislation to lobby for at the state level.
“Everybody is playing the game of chicken on this issue,” Benjamin said. “We’re all looking across the Boulder Turnpike at each other to see who will move first.”
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