Last updated: May 26, 2026.

Most commuter benefit providers were built for salaried office workers — open enrollment in October, a fixed monthly election, a prefunded card you load before you spend. None of that works for a restaurant team. Tips vary by daypart and by weather. Servers pick up shifts at different locations across the same group. Line cooks swing between prep weeks and overtime. Alice was built for restaurants: per-pay-period elections sized to actual paychecks, no employee pre-funding, no employer-managed open-enrollment cycle.

The restaurant problem with traditional commuter benefits

Traditional commuter benefits ask everyone to guess a fixed monthly amount, weeks in advance. That works fine for a salaried office worker who commutes the same five days every week. For a restaurant team, it breaks in every direction:

• Tipped wages swing by daypart, day of week, weather, and season. A server’s Tuesday lunch paycheck and her Saturday dinner paycheck are not the same number.
• FOH staff often work multiple stations or multiple locations. A bartender who picks up shifts at two locations in the same restaurant group may sit in different payroll entities. Put a benefit election in the wrong pay group and you get payroll errors or a manual HR headache.
• BOH overtime weeks and slow weeks don’t match a fixed monthly amount. A line cook working 50 hours during a private-events push and 25 hours during a January lull has a completely different gross wage each period.
• Part-time and one-shift-per-week employees have tiny paychecks. A prep cook working one shift weekly can’t absorb the same monthly deduction as a full-time expo running six dinners a week.
• Open enrollment between rushes is not realistic. Getting 60 people to log in and make a benefits election during the three-minute window between lunch and evening prep is not a workflow.

How Alice fits a restaurant

Alice connects with the payroll and scheduling systems restaurants already run:

Toast, Paychex, Paylocity, Paycom, ADP, Restaurant365, 7shifts, Square, Homebase, and 20+ others. Your team is already in one of these systems. Alice connects to it — you don’t move anyone twice.

Per-pay-period election sizing. Instead of a fixed monthly guess, Alice sizes benefit activity around each employee’s actual paycheck. When a server has a big Saturday dinner week, the election fits. When she works one slow Tuesday lunch, it fits that too. Alice internal data for hospitality customers showed benefit elections changed in 91% of pay periods over a one-year period — without the employer manually updating a spreadsheet each cycle. (Alice internal data; ask Alice for current methodology before quoting.)

Alice Card — no pre-funding. The Alice Card is a Visa commercial credit card. Employees use it for eligible transit and parking expenses. There’s no balance to load before the shift, no separate commuter wallet to top up.

Phone enrollment in 5 minutes. No paper forms. No HR session. An employee downloads the app, connects their account, and they’re enrolled before the pre-shift lineup ends.

Multi-location support. For restaurant groups running multiple concepts or locations, Alice is designed for employees who pick up shifts across locations in the same group.

See what’s eligible | Compare Alice to WageWorks | Compare Alice to HealthEquity

Restaurant-specific eligibility examples

Not every commute qualifies. How the IRS rules play out on a real restaurant team — sourced from Alice’s eligibility guide and IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (2026 limit: $340/month for transit, $340/month for parking):

• Server who takes the subway from Brooklyn to her Manhattan dinner shift — eligible transit. Subway fare between home and work qualifies.
• Line cook who drives to the LIRR station and rides the train into the city — eligible. Park-and-ride parking at a transit hub plus commuter rail fare both qualify.
• Bartender who Ubers home after a 2 AM close — not eligible. Standard rideshare (UberX, Lyft Standard) does not qualify under IRS rules. A shared ride may qualify only if it meets IRS commuter-highway-vehicle rules: a vehicle with seating for at least six adults not counting the driver, in an organized shared-ride commuting program.
• Pastry chef who takes the Staten Island Ferry — eligible transit.

Full eligibility list | 2026 commuter limits

Restaurants already running Alice

• Unapologetic Foods — NYC Indian restaurant group (Dhamaka, Semma, Adda); uses Alice across its NYC workforce.
• Jean-Georges Restaurant Group — NYC fine-dining group; uses Alice for commuter benefits across its Local Law 53–eligible team.
• Joe Coffee Company — 20+ locations across Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens; 107 employees on Alice.
• Stout NYC Hospitality Group — 18+ locations across NYC and New Jersey; 145 employees on Alice.
• Salt & Straw — multi-city ice cream company; uses Alice across locations in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Also on Alice: Apollo Bagels, Five Leaves (Greenpoint), The Little Owl (West Village), Fish Cheeks (NoHo + Brooklyn), Devoción (Brooklyn), Frita Batidos Brooklyn, and more.

NYC Local Law 53 and restaurants

If you operate in New York City, Local Law 53 generally requires employers with 20 or more full-time non-union employees to offer eligible workers the ability to use pretax income for qualified transit benefits. Restaurant groups hit that threshold fast — often before a second location opens.

Full NYC Local Law 53 guide | NYC DCWP FAQ

Getting started

Alice gets restaurants live in about one week. Five steps:

1. Payroll connection — Alice connects to Toast, ADP, Paychex, Restaurant365, etc.
2. Scheduling connection — if you’re on 7shifts, Homebase, or another scheduling tool, Alice can connect there too.
3. Logo and plan details — your branding goes into the employee-facing materials.
4. Billing and banking — Alice connects to your employer account for the program reserve.
5. Employee materials — Alice provides ready-to-send enrollment materials. Employees enroll on their phones.

After setup, Alice works with the employees already in your payroll. No employer-managed open enrollment. No manual deduction updates.

We’ll get you onboarded in one call. Contact sales@thisisalice.com or (929) 552-4625.

Ready to set up commuter benefits for your restaurant?

Alice was built for teams like yours — variable hours, tipped wages, multiple locations, no time for manual HR administration.

Get started

Alice does not provide tax, legal, or financial advice. For specific eligibility questions, see the Alice eligibility help article.