Islands Restaurants has been bringing the spirit of Oahu beach dining to California and Arizona since 1982. Known for its surf-inspired atmosphere, signature gourmet burgers, fresh-cut fries, and tropical drinks, the brand's ohana culture runs deep across its 38 locations. Behind that guest-facing warmth, however, is a complex operational engine: $20 million in tips paid out every year, across dozens of locations in 2 of the most strictly regulated wage and tip states in the country. For Carly Crown, Controller overseeing Accounting, FP&A, and Payroll, getting that engine to run cleanly meant rethinking tip management from the ground up.
$75K
Annual savings in armored car and cash vault fees after reducing most stores from two cash deliveries per week to one
~$20M
Tips paid out annually, fully automated, and digitally distributed across 38 locations with TipHaus
Visibility into tip calculations for front- and back-of-house staff, with automated rules replacing the honor system
California and Arizona
38
Full-service restaurant (FSR), and bar chain
Carly Crown, Controller
With tips paid almost entirely in cash, Islands needed $5–7K delivered to each store every week. Missed armored car deliveries triggered FedEx cash shipments, manager bank runs, and end-of-shift waits. Month-end reconciliation turned into repeated investigations into missing cash.
TipHaus Earned Tip Access, integrated with Toast, eliminated the cash dependency entirely, automated tip calculations across all job codes, and gave every employee full visibility into their earnings through the TipHaus Employee App.
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Islands Restaurants has operated as a beloved fixture in the Southern California dining scene for over four decades. Founded on the idea of recreating the relaxed, welcoming feel of Oahu beach life, the brand has grown to 38 locations while keeping its ohana spirit intact. Carly Crown joined the team as Controller, taking responsibility for the accounting, financial planning, and payroll functions that keep the organization running beneath the surface.
By 2023, Islands was ready for a significant technology overhaul. Toast replaced the existing POS, Paycom came in as the new payroll platform, and TipHaus launched alongside both, with full Earned Tip Access across all 38 locations. It was an ambitious simultaneous rollout, and Carly was at the center of making the financial side of it work.
The math of cash-based tip payouts had become unsustainable at Islands' scale. Because the vast majority of transactions were credit card, the stores were generating very little cash of their own. To pay out tips each night, $5,000 to $7,000 in cash had to be physically delivered to each location every week, typically twice per week via armored car.
When those deliveries were missed, the contingencies were creative and painful. The corporate office printed checks and overnighted them via FedEx. GMs drove to banks to cash them personally. Sometimes managers covered payouts out of pocket while waiting for the cash to arrive. In a network of 38 stores spread across Southern California and Arizona, some locations two to three hours apart, coordinating those cash flows consumed enormous time and energy.
The accounting side was no cleaner. Tip distributions ran on an honor system: the POS calculated what servers owed to the back of house, and servers paid it out in cash. That left real room for error and, at times, deliberate under-tipping to back-of-house staff. Month-end reconciliation regularly turned into what Carly describes as "research projects" to track down over/short variances, with missing cash nearly impossible to attribute with confidence.
Before Earned Tip Access from TipHaus, if we didn't get a cash delivery for the weekend, it was a nightmare. Some of our stores are 2 to 3 hours apart. We had to FedEx large amounts of cash that the GM then had to cash, taking them completely off the restaurant floor.
Carly Crown
Controller
When Earned Tip Access launched at Islands through the Toast integration, the cash dependency that had defined tip payouts for years simply went away. Electronic transfers replaced physical deliveries, automated rules replaced the honor system, and every transaction left a clear, auditable trail.
The reduction in armored car reliance was immediate. Most stores went from two cash deliveries per week to one, translating to roughly $75,000 in annual savings on armored car and vault fees across the portfolio. The improvement in cash over/short performance followed: without servers handling large cash tip-outs each night, the category of missing cash that had required the most investigation nearly disappeared, contributing an estimated additional $75,000 in annual improvement.
The transparency benefit extended to the back of house as well. With automated calculations replacing the honor system, front-of-house staff could no longer under-tip support roles, whether by accident or intent. Back-of-house employees began receiving what they were actually owed, and that shift in fairness was noticed.
At the end of the day, paying tips digitally through Earned Tip Access makes everything more transparent and easier on everyone involved. Transparency is number one for us. Our staff no longer have to verify the math with managers; there are simply fewer questions for GMs, and everyone can see the calculations are fair. A win-win for both sides.
Carly Crown
Controller
Change management across a 38-location network, mid-overhaul of three major technology platforms simultaneously, was genuinely challenging. Long-tenured servers and bartenders who had always left with cash in hand initially pushed back. The rollout spanned three to four months, and it took staff a few more months after that to settle into the new rhythm. The transparency that eventually won them over was the same thing that had made some of them resistant: they could now see exactly how tips were calculated, which meant the calculations had to be right.
By early 2026, the noise had subsided entirely. The TipHaus Employee App gave front-of-house staff on-demand access to their earnings and tip breakdowns, completely eliminating questions to managers and building the kind of trust that takes time to establish but is difficult to undo.
California and Arizona bring some of the most stringent wage and tip compliance requirements in the country. Having automated, auditable tip calculations across all 38 locations gives Islands confidence that every payout is accurate and defensible, without relying on manual input at the store level.
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For Carly and the Islands team, the transition to TipHaus Earned Tip Access was not without friction. A simultaneous multi-platform rollout across 38 locations with staff accustomed to cash is never simple. But the outcome speaks for itself: $150,000 in estimated annual savings, a cleaner accounting picture, and a tip distribution process that is finally as transparent as the ohana culture the brand has always stood for.
