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An "Employee's Market?" - Perhaps, But There's One Thing That's Not Budging


DonRocks

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With the tsunami of post-recession Restaurant Openings occurring, it was inevitable that we'd see an article like Jessica Sidman's Underfed: Good Staff Is in Short Supply, and Restaurants Are Getting Desperate. Note my comment on the bottom (which I put there despite having a couple known haters on City Paper who will go after me anonymously) - when salaries for sous chefs, line cooks, AGMs, dishwashers, etc. start moving commensurate with traditional supply and demand economics, I'll take restaurateurs' comments more seriously. Notice that in the article, salaries aren't moving up; qualifications are moving down - thus, restaurants are getting worse and worse. Yep, it's true!

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It's a vicious cycle, though, isn't it? Most places have had to reduce prices in the last couple of years. If you increase salaries, prices are going to go up, and then you will lose patrons, and then you will have to lose some staff, etc.

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I see pricing always creeping up. There might be a lot of grouponing and livingsocial discounts..but there are a lot of diners out there.

....and the brutal hit to restaurateurs in my mind is how unbelievably expensive so many rents are. In the city and certain hotter suburban sites they have simply exploded. It seems to me the huge explosion in areas with which I'm familiar just skyrocketed in the last decade...as the central area was so less impacted by the recession than so many other parts of the nation.

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It's a vicious cycle, though, isn't it? Most places have had to reduce prices in the last couple of years. If you increase salaries, prices are going to go up, and then you will lose patrons, and then you will have to lose some staff, etc.

I believe too many restaurants have opened up to possibly all flourish. Winter is coming.

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Just as I am somehow able to tie in the lack of good bagels with height restrictions (*), I am also able to tie in this issue with the national debt. I don't mean to be pessimistic, but this economy is fucked in the long term, and the dollar is in the process of being devalued, often in subtle ways.

Don't get me started on global warming. :)

<Theme song from "Psycho" begins playing.>

(*) Trump ingeniously circumvented NYC height restrictions overlooking Central Park - I can't remember exactly how he did it, but he did, and he'll do it here, too. I'm not saying this is good or bad; only that he'll figure out a way to get it done if he hasn't already (and I suspect he has already, and when I say "he" I mean "his company").

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Thanks for posting that. I think it's factually correct but they are reversing the heroes and villains. 

The entire industry was built upon paying the uneducated, unskilled lower class less than minimum wage, forcing the customer to subsidize the wages of the front of the house via tips (a vestige from slavery), paying the back of the house a limited hourly wage and not contributing to their health care costs or retirement, and utilizing tax law to make "unprofitable" restaurants tax havens for the rich. 

So, sorry-not-sorry that the owners now have to be considerate about things like, oh you know, minimum wages and contributing to health care costs. This sounds a lot like Detroit where you got the cries of "Well, $2k of our cars cost is health care and pensions, so we can't compete with the Japanese." Baloney. The Americans built terrible cars, management was unagile, unions were fat and lazy, and work ethic was miserable. 

I think they are right about the bubble. Just don't blame the lower class workers who want to be able to, you know, eat and get their illnesses treated. The entire industry took advantage of the weak, the poor, the undocumented and got very rich doing it. I'm not crying about AQ closing down because their profits are down. You see that they sort of gloss over the fact that they do 100 covers now instead of 240? Maybe their food wasn't as good? Maybe they stopped trying?

I think the writer is right that fast casual/hip counter service is the future. But, they pay their workers fairly, contribute to health care, and sometimes even give tuition assistance. It's not over for sit-down restaurants, they just have to get used to the new reality of .. decency.  

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5 hours ago, Simul Parikh said:

I think it's factually correct but they are reversing the heroes and villains. 

I didn't get the sense that the article was blaming anyone, so much as it is pointing out that paying for "decency" increases the barriers to entry and decreases the margin for error.  That, coupled with an over-saturated marketplace necessarily leads to a contraction.  Ultimately, what you wind up with is more chains, or at least more "corporate" restaurants like NRG that can pool their resources.  The "independent" restaurants that do survive will ultimately be better, but there will be fewer and they'll be more expensive.

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11 minutes ago, RWBooneJr said:

I didn't get the sense that the article was blaming anyone, so much as it is pointing out that paying for "decency" increases the barriers to entry and decreases the margin for error.  That, coupled with an over-saturated marketplace necessarily leads to a contraction.  Ultimately, what you wind up with is more chains, or at least more "corporate" restaurants like NRG that can pool their resources.  The "independent" restaurants that do survive will ultimately be better, but there will be fewer and they'll be more expensive.

I cannot agree more - I can envision a future with less than half the restaurants we currently have, and I don't think that would be such a bad thing. There's a very good reason I've eaten out nearly every meal of my adult life: It's cheaper (or, could have been cheaper) when you take into account my time, my trouble, washing dishes, buying groceries, etc. I've had a great life when it comes to dining, but I suspect it won't go on forever. There's a really good reason Dr. Hall had (has?) dinner at Marcel's every single night - we've essentially done the exact same thing; I distributed my dining, he concentrated his.

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Sigh...

The main thing is the American consumer has to become more comfortable with higher costs of dining out, and less comfortable with the idea of tips as rewards/punitive measures/a way to try to get laid. Then, and only then, do we get a a reasonable correlation between menu prices and income of workers. No reason a hot 24 year old front of house AMW (actor, model, whatever - some gal or guy in the overall beautiful business) at Eleven Madison Park should make $100k and a 35 year old experienced Bolivian line chef at same restaurant should make $30k. That's Market Failure. Until that's fixed this model is crashing and burning. 

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Here is a fascinating, if gut-wrenching post from one of the owners of the recently shuttered Foreign Correspondents in Houston. If you (for some strange reason) don't follow the Houston restaurant scene, FC was a regional Thai joint that seemed to do everything right, including sourcing authentic ingredients from local Southeast Asian farmers. (Think Thip Khao.) Bon Appetit named them one of the best new restaurants in the US this year. And yet, they failed badly. Sad, as it was our favorite restaurant in town  

Tough but interesting read. 

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1 hour ago, Josh said:

Here is a fascinating, if gut-wrenching post from one of the owners of the recently shuttered Foreign Correspondents in Houston. 

Tough but interesting read. 

Ugh.  

The 3 part Thrillist piece was fascinating reading and insightful.  This personal story on FB seems quite forthcoming and horrifically painful for all.

At the end of this December a local area company, Office Movers, closed suddenly throwing about 1000 people out of work.  I don't know the deep story there but know folks who do and I got the sense that the cash flow issues and problems were similar.  All very hard stuff on people's lives.

I suspect writing the FB post must have been somewhat cathartic.  I hope so.

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It's a tough read, and certainly not a bad bone in this guys body, but 3 large restaurants at the same time? Even if the timing worked out properly, it was a very short time frame to try to do very good work on each one.

Danny Meyer has been doing the podcast circuit recently, and listening to him, you can see how people can thoughtfully expand. He didn't open his second restaurant until 11 years after his first. Now- well, Rose's was probably our biggest story in DC in years, and 4 years after opening, they opened P&P. Seems to be working but who knows what happens if the minimum wage continues to rise in DC and the lease is up.

It's a low margin business, much less than most small businesses, so the margin of error is very small. 

I wonder when you look at the failures and successes, how many of the owners are actually experienced in the restaurant game vs hobbyists. Bet the success rate and margins are higher for the experienced folks.

I wonder if the new administration will either waive the 50 employee rule or change the 30 hour as full time definition. That could ward off the bubble bursting for a bit.

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No doubt these guys screwed up by expanding so quickly. Closing a restaurant the same year it's named one of the best openings in the US is a clear message that you have royally screwed the pooch. 

Here's a...less charitable take on what went down with Foreign Correspondents. A cautionary tale that good press can only take you so far  

"What Was Really Going On Behind the Closing of Foreign Correspondents" by Craig Malisow on houstonpress.com

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14 minutes ago, Josh said:

No doubt these guys screwed up by expanding so quickly. Closing a restaurant the same year it's named one of the best openings in the US is a clear message that you have royally screwed the pooch. 

Here's a...less charitable take on what went down with Foreign Correspondents. A cautionary tale that good press can only take you so far  

"What Was Really Going On Behind the Closing of Foreign Correspondents" by Craig Malisow on houstonpress.com

It's amazing what a $1+ million tax lien can do for your motivation when it comes to writing heartfelt letters on Facebook.

"You know, if you let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could give you an illusion of prosperity, too."
-- Lloyd Bentsen, during his 1988 VP debate with Dan Quayle (yes, it has been almost 30 years)

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Well dueling stories with different takes on the situation.   I can add the following:  Timing and construction are two items that often fall out of control and completely screw up businesses and particularly cash flow.  It has to do with risk management, and rather than use some esoteric analysis of the issues my experience suggests if one does focus on that one way to try and evaluate and then mitigate against it beforehand is to try and assess what are the cash flow (outgoing costs) of trying to carry a business if we can't open because of timing and construction delays...and how much will it drain us.   So risk "might be assessed" by estimating that what if we can't open in 5 months.  What is the outbound cashflow without any income for 5 months (ie 5 months rent, 5 months salaries, 5 months of cash for all the other items one is paying for during that period).  So if that is your estimate you need at least 5 months of that amt of money to cover that risk).   But if the project is delayed 10 months instead of 5 months you are up "sh1t's creek".  I also doubt the detail or accuracy of what employees might be reporting on topics such as who the "owners" are dealing with on the investment side.  The employees don't know.  The employees definitely KNOW if they are being paid or not, or the checks are bouncing.    In any case I've seen timing issues screw up businesses more than once. 

Then there is the economy ebbing and flowing and its impact on restaurants and business.  For the vast majority of the past 30 years the DC area has been relatively immune to the impacts of ups and downs in the economy that other metro areas experience far more dramatically; Houston being a city that is severely impacted by the dramatic swings in the oil business.  Here we aren't immune to those swings...but over the long term the negatives have been incredibly less severe on the economy than in virtually any other metro area.  Of course when it does hit here and during those times and in those sub areas it is viciously severe.  We have restaurateurs in this city and on this forum who can vouch for the downturns and its miserable impacts.

I can't lay blame but it seems the story in Houston does mirror themes from the 3 part ThrillList piece and takes it down to its very unfortunate painful granular level.  Everyone suffers.  The folks living paycheck to paycheck suffer the most.

Additionally from the perspective of the bar schools, my impression for DC from the placement side relative to bartenders and the front of the house....there is a shortage of trained experienced people in the industry, just as referenced above there is a shortage of cooks and chefs, and from what I've heard more than once, management.  Too many restaurants, not enough experienced or skilled people. 

Lastly: 

On 1/4/2017 at 8:30 AM, Simul Parikh said:

Thanks for posting that. I think it's factually correct but they are reversing the heroes and villains. 

The entire industry was built upon paying the uneducated, unskilled lower class less than minimum wage, forcing the customer to subsidize the wages of the front of the house via tips (a vestige from slavery), paying the back of the house a limited hourly wage and not contributing to their health care costs or retirement, and utilizing tax law to make "unprofitable" restaurants tax havens for the rich. 

So, sorry-not-sorry that the owners now have to be considerate about things like, oh you know, minimum wages and contributing to health care costs. This sounds a lot like Detroit where you got the cries of "Well, $2k of our cars cost is health care and pensions, so we can't compete with the Japanese." Baloney. The Americans built terrible cars, management was unagile, unions were fat and lazy, and work ethic was miserable. 

I think they are right about the bubble. Just don't blame the lower class workers who want to be able to, you know, eat and get their illnesses treated. The entire industry took advantage of the weak, the poor, the undocumented and got very rich doing it. I'm not crying about AQ closing down because their profits are down. You see that they sort of gloss over the fact that they do 100 covers now instead of 240? Maybe their food wasn't as good? Maybe they stopped trying?

I think the writer is right that fast casual/hip counter service is the future. But, they pay their workers fairly, contribute to health care, and sometimes even give tuition assistance. It's not over for sit-down restaurants, they just have to get used to the new reality of .. decency.  

I've read, and had cited to me that story about American and Japanese efforts to build cars in the US.  Very interesting and revealing history.  As to AQ going from 240 to 100 covers in a few years, among the issues that might have led to that, via the ThrillList story, was that the number of restaurant (licenses) in San Fran roughly doubled in the years between their opening and closing.  That had to be impactful.

As to equalizing incomes between the front and back of the house, based on some merit...oooh big complex situation.  I'll pass on it for the time being and take the easy way out suggesting its appropriate for someone with a "higher pay scale"  ;)   Its another tough issue.

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Article about restaurants/health care in Eater. What I found interesting is the massive scale of the issue - 9% of all private sector jobs are in the restaurant business and 40% of those workers are living in poverty. Just 14% of all restaurant employees receive healthcare from their employer. Will be interesting to see if there will actually be a "replace" that comes with the "repeal". Seems like labor in this industry will be particularly affected by upcoming change in administration.  

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3 hours ago, Simul Parikh said:

Article about restaurants/health care in Eater. What I found interesting is the massive scale of the issue - 9% of all private sector jobs are in the restaurant business and 40% of those workers are living in poverty. Just 14% of all restaurant employees receive healthcare from their employer. Will be interesting to see if there will actually be a "replace" that comes with the "repeal". Seems like labor in this industry will be particularly affected by upcoming change in administration.  

Thanks for the reference.  Allison Robicelli is the author.  Its a beautifully written heartfelt read wherein she juxtaposes that hard data referenced above with the stories that reflect health care issues that she and her husband have faced, conditions in the food and beverage industry and the issues workers face.  A. TREMENDOUS. READ.  

Ugh...yesterday the GOP Senate started the process of eliminating ObamaCare.  They have no alternative in the works.  For eight years that side of the political fence has been proclaiming Repeal and Replace.  There is nothing concrete on the Replace side.  Nothing.  Eight years.  Nothing.   Lotta political hot air.  Nothing to show for it.  Repeal will ruin a lot of lives.  Read the article. She is one of those brilliant and dedicated people that can exercise her drive and skills to become an entrepreneur and might benefit from the existing political/economic system.  So she has seen all its elements. So well and beautifully written.  Very worthwhile article.
 

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4 hours ago, DaveO said:

Ugh...yesterday the GOP Senate started the process of eliminating ObamaCare.  They have no alternative in the works.  For eight years that side of the political fence has been proclaiming Repeal and Replace.  There is nothing concrete on the Replace side.  Nothing.  Eight years.  Nothing.   Lotta political hot air.  Nothing to show for it.  Repeal will ruin a lot of lives.  Read the article. She is one of those brilliant and dedicated people that can exercise her drive and skills to become an entrepreneur and might benefit from the existing political/economic system.  So she has seen all its elements. So well and beautifully written.  Very worthwhile article.

There are so many people who will be affected by repeal of the ACA who don't even know or remember how it touched their lives.  College students, farmers, entrepreneurs, restaurant workers, black lung victims, veterans, people on medicare, people on medicaid, divorcees, most any woman.  About 95% of people I work with use the law in some form, it could be even higher than that.  It's just crazy to think the number of people who will lose significant benefits and might not even know till it is gone. 

One very interesting thing about traveling to Japan and then reading this article was that they are a country that is also heavily centered on work productivity.  The number of meals the urban Japanese person eats out is very high due to long working hours.  You don't tip in Japan and you have government healthcare, with an option of insurance for your co-pay.  You do see a lot of fast-casual meals, but done in a different way than our typical approach.  It was very interesting to compare.  I think that in urban areas restaurant density will continue to be very high because of long working hours, but I don't think the average working American can afford to spend what it costs to eat out at what I would say is a neighborhood like casual restaurant often enough to sustain the number out there now, especially in area that aren't highly dense urban areas.  BUT more and more people are going to have to live in urban areas for work.  The Japanese also value craft and Japanese made much more than we do, even in their "fast" food. We are much more "bargain" centric.  It is interesting to compare and see how they have been able to do what they have done given that they have been in a recession economically for years.  I think the DC area is much the same in that people work so much they will eat out a lot.  If you take Japan as a test case, independent places that hone in on doing a few things very well and keep staffing costs down in front of house and go for smaller spaces should do well.  I think restaurant owners are also going to look more at automation of functions like ordering and paying for meals. 

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I like the idea of ultra-specialization for foods, but Americans are much too picky eaters for that. There are so many posts on this board about "We had to go somewhere that Thurston Junior would be able get his chicken fingers." Asian cultures don't really have that. Everyone eats everything. If they go out to a xiao long bao place or a mapo tofu place or a khao soi place or a samosa shop or a pani puri stand, everyone in the family eats that item, and happily. Here, since Thurston only eats chicken fingers and Emma can't eat gluten and Ava is doing Whole30, can't really do that. People's kids sort of define what they eat, and then those kids become picky adults, and there is almost no way a family (or a group of friends) can go to a place that just serves one thing, and so you have restaurant menus that have 250 things on it, very few if any being great. Even Chinese places have to have chicken nuggets or burgers. For chrissakes, I'm getting so worked up writing this!!!  

These types of places would be way cheaper, lots of economies of scale, and the quality would improve so much. The margins would be higher than a place that has to make 250 different things.

(Reminded me of a travel blog post I read where the mom said she packed 10 different snacks for the plan, because she wasn't sure what the kid would eat; hmm, my mom would have brought just thepla and I could eat if I wanted, otherwise I was welcome to enjoy hunger)

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6 minutes ago, Simul Parikh said:

(Reminded me of a travel blog post I read where the mom said she packed 10 different snacks for the plan, because she wasn't sure what the kid would eat; hmm, my mom would have brought just thepla and I could eat if I wanted, otherwise I was welcome to enjoy hunger)

My amish nanny was a proponent of this.

The choice is going to end up in toppings though and bases- you see this is fast casual- grains, greens or bread bases, lots of toppings.  You go to a ramen shop- you have a choice of broth, meats or vegetarian.  I think you will see more of that in neighborhood style places too- instead of I want to do everything well- smart chefs will say instead of even a whole cuisine- I am going to do one part of that cuisine (examples I have seen already here: hot chicken, pasta, brisket and pastrami, biscuits)- very well and then have different bases to suit different needs.  And you will order it from a machine- that cuts a paycheck. We are getting more used to specialization- see taco shops, ramen shops, JUST burger, burger shops (although they will have a veggie burger), salad shops.  But we don't think of those places as "crafts" a whole lot yet, but what about Taylor Gourmet, G Sandwich, Smoked and Stacked- it moved into sort of a craft sandwich territory.  I think we will see more "craft" fast casual, but that can be independently owned.  I don't think we can afford the rent, staff and food waste that comes with behemoth restaurants and menus.  And yes it is amazing to do it all- make you own pasta, roast your own meats, make your own charcuterie.  That isn't sustainable, it's awesome, but not economically sustainable, but what is- is good local sourcing from other independent makers.  And kids might be picky, but in urban areas- those kids eat sushi, bagels and lox, etc.  And there is a whole host of dining options these days in urban areas not geared to kids anyway.  This is already happening here in DC, it is moving out to smaller cities or ones more prone to feeling the effects of shifts in the economic markets- you are starting to see it in those places Atlanta, etc.  BUT we have to value the craft and not a vast selection of crap.  That is the problem, that is an American problem.  We have to- not only in the DC area, which happens slightly more, but also in say Morgantown, WV- choose the taco from someone honing their craft instead of Taco Bell.  And restaurant owners are going to have to be way smarter about multiple use kitchens, keeping things small and concise and having smart business plans.  And cutting staff, but paying staff they do have living wages- so those people can afford to pay back into our communities in productive ways. (Trickle down economics is about those getting tax cuts creating more taxable occurrences- not just rich people getting richer. (I don't believe it scientifically works, but it's what is going to be in place for at least four years.) Which means choosing to pay employees more without government mandate so they can create more taxable occurrences, it doesn't really mean creating "jobs" if they aren't paying enough to create a host of taxable occurrences. It means creating good jobs. Let's see if it happens the way it is supposed to, it hasn't in the past.)   Anyway, just some of my thoughts after reading a host of those articles.  Now if someone could only sustain a good taco shop in Garrett County... 

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You're right - it's a process and may be it's happening. Smoked and Stacked is a great example of craftsmanship, limited menu, good ingredients, not too customizable and reasonably priced. The model seems sustainable and the margins are probably decent. I mean, she left one of the best restaurants (in my opinion) in all of DC to open what ostensibly is a "sandwich shop". Mockingbird Hill tried to be very one-trick pony with basically just ham and sherry, but doesn't seem to get too busy. Rasa Grill is trying to do this for Indian food (disclosure - I'm a tiny investor in this venture). Amsterdam Falafal sort of did it, too, and has a fairly good following. I don't have it figured out, but Edens Center seems to be a place where many shops each have one or two notable dishes that people go for. I like that model, but it's not that common in the States. I just loved walking into an alley in Chengdu and seeing that everyone either had noodle soup one or two, and just pointing at one of those. Do a few things, do them well, do it cost effictively, do it quickly, and scale it... shouldn't be too hard, but I guess it is. 

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I think it's just we have the luxury of being a place where food is grown, wide arrays of food- so we have had lots of choices.  And we are not a poor country in the grand scheme of things, we have had relatively few really long periods of economic recession and few wars on our home soil- so we aren't good at change.  We were good at thriftiness, but that was now a couple generations ago- but a lot of people have this inkling- those silly millennials, that we have to get back here, but we are now economically driven by consumerism and have developed policy that hinders mico-thriftiness.  We have a declining birth rate as a country so we are going to have to learn to tighten our belt and spend much more thought on macro and micro economic policy than previously, even in our own homes and communities.  We should be taking lessons from other countries who have done this well, but we are America- we have it all under control, just ourselves, thank you very much- mmm Applebees, opiates and Nascar.  

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On 1/4/2017 at 10:54 PM, Josh said:

Here is a fascinating, if gut-wrenching post from one of the owners of the recently shuttered Foreign Correspondents in Houston. If you (for some strange reason) don't follow the Houston restaurant scene, FC was a regional Thai joint that seemed to do everything right, including sourcing authentic ingredients from local Southeast Asian farmers. (Think Thip Khao.) Bon Appetit named them one of the best new restaurants in the US this year. And yet, they failed badly. Sad, as it was our favorite restaurant in town  

Tough but interesting read. 

As it relates to this post and the story Josh shares in which the ownership described the issues, one of which was that too many restaurants opened in too short of a time frame, I was reflecting about that when I saw mentioned elsewhere in DR that Vasili's opened last month in Gaithersburg.

About 1 1/2 years ago the bartending school was alerted that Vasili's was going to need new bartenders for their new location in about 3 months...or about 1 and 1/4 years ago.   Sometimes construction goes completely awry, everything gets backed up, and all sorts of problems, issues and costs hit.  The kinds of problems that the owners of Foreign Correspondents described are not a normal occurrence but they happen.  Unless you are on the inside you have no idea of all the things that can go wrong and sometimes do.  When all these things go wrong employees of course suffer.

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In Eater ... 

Curious to see what happens, if the wall goes up, illegal immigration enforcement becomes reality, and sanctuary cities get punished. Article is right - restaurant industry will suffer a lot. Huge workforce shortages, increased menu prices, leading to reduced margins and many closures. Downstream/upstream effects, too. These folks pick our fruit and vegetables and work our meat factories. Ingredients will become more expensive, too. People will have to pay more money for food / restaurants, and will spend much less. Ugh. Not aiming for the politics of it, but just very disturbing and potentially quite disruptive, from a food/restaurant point of view.

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2 hours ago, Simul Parikh said:

Ugh. Not aiming for the politics of it, but just very disturbing and potentially quite disruptive, from a food/restaurant point of view.

[I really want to emphasize that it's okay to discuss issues in the Current Events forum - all I ask is that nobody gets partisan or personal, but it's perfectly fine to discuss the issues themselves, even if you have a strong viewpoint (just be sure and back up any opinions with facts, if possible)]

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On 1/26/2017 at 11:50 AM, Simul Parikh said:

In Eater ... 

Curious to see what happens, if the wall goes up, illegal immigration enforcement becomes reality, and sanctuary cities get punished. Article is right - restaurant industry will suffer a lot. Huge workforce shortages, increased menu prices, leading to reduced margins and many closures. Downstream/upstream effects, too. These folks pick our fruit and vegetables and work our meat factories. Ingredients will become more expensive, too. People will have to pay more money for food / restaurants, and will spend much less. Ugh. Not aiming for the politics of it, but just very disturbing and potentially quite disruptive, from a food/restaurant point of view.

The law of unintended consequences is going to get a good workout here I suspect.  Couple that with the new, and possibly already scrapped, 20% tarriff on goods from Mexico, like fruits and vegetables, and it's gonna upset the whole damn apple cart (pun!)

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On 1/27/2017 at 0:09 PM, Bart said:

The law of unintended consequences is going to get a good workout here I suspect.  Couple that with the new, and possibly already scrapped, 20% tarriff on goods from Mexico, like fruits and vegetables, and it's gonna upset the whole damn apple cart (pun!)

Silly, we import apples from New Zealand. (Why do we do this?)

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