Line Cooks - A Washington City Paper Article by Laura Hayes

[DaveO]

Washington City Paper has a revealing story about line cooks, their jobs, pay, work conditions, etc.   These are grueling jobs with low pay and tough conditions.  An interesting and revealing read.

[DonRocks]

37 minutes ago, DaveO said:

Washington City Paper has a revealing story about line cooks, their jobs, pay, work conditions, etc.   These are grueling jobs with low pay and tough conditions.  An interesting and revealing read.

I think the use of gender-neutral names and the complete lack of pronouns (he/she/his/her) was masterfully done, although I don't see how these anonymous line cooks won't be known to their employers.

[dcs]

That 90 day termination notice to enable you to get paid out on your earned vacation looks a bit hinky to me.

[DaveO]

12 minutes ago, DonRocks said:

I think the use of gender-neutral names and the complete lack of pronouns (he/she/his/her) was masterfully done, although I don't see how these anonymous line cooks won't be known to their employers.

I bet they will be.  There are only so many line cooks in a restaurant; the smaller the restaurant the fewer the line cooks. 

The jobs are hard.  Its nearly impossible to work cooking without cuts and burns or worse.  Long hours on your feet.  You have to be very tough and probably young.  References to the heat reminded me of a factory job I had as a college kid off a machine that generated enormous heat.  As part of a team off that machine we rotated; two people working while one took a short break, drank water and toweled off, then stepped in for one of the workers.  Grueling days.  I was as spry and strong as I ever was and those days were exhausting.

The article is educational and revealing.  Behind those dinners whether incredible experiences or somewhat disappointing are jobs that are arduous and result in poor pay.  I mostly don't like to complain about restaurants in reviews.  Its such a tough environment, tough to compete in a universe with thousands of competitors and then the work environments are the opposite of easy.

Had a recent less than great experience at a restaurant that gets acclaim here and elsewhere.  I've had better experiences there before.  They work in a very tough environment on many fronts.  In my opinion why complain.  Maybe it was a glitch.  I don't want to be the person or contribute in a way that dissuades others from dining there.  They need the customers as do so many other restaurants and all the folks that work in those restaurants.  (one of the line cooks in the article spoke to that issue)  

The reluctance to write negatively is my choice. That is just my opinion. 

[stupidusername]

Very interesting article but one portion (copied below) struck me.  I can understand (but perhaps not agree) with the notion that a waiter/waitress job is more difficult than being a line cook, but how in the world is being a food runner paid better than a line cook?  If you dropped me into a restaurant and asked me to be a food runner, I am sure I would be bad at it, people might get the wrong food a couple times and it might be a little slow.  If you dropped me in as a line cook, it would be a race to see whether I would make someone sick or burn the building down first.  

Every line cook at Tail Up Goat works in the dining room once a week as a food runner or back server. They complete easy tasks like folding napkins and filling waters. It’s a much shorter shift, and the line cook gets a share of the pooled tips from the evening. Laura Pohanka, who has been a line cook at Tail Up Goat since July 2016, says the boost brings line cooks’ pay closer to a living wage. 

[Simul Parikh]

41 minutes ago, stupidusername said:

Very interesting article but one portion (copied below) struck me.  I can understand (but perhaps not agree) with the notion that a waiter/waitress job is more difficult than being a line cook, but how in the world is being a food runner paid better than a line cook?  If you dropped me into a restaurant and asked me to be a food runner, I am sure I would be bad at it, people might get the wrong food a couple times and it might be a little slow.  If you dropped me in as a line cook, it would be a race to see whether I would make someone sick or burn the building down first.  

Every line cook at Tail Up Goat works in the dining room once a week as a food runner or back server. They complete easy tasks like folding napkins and filling waters. It’s a much shorter shift, and the line cook gets a share of the pooled tips from the evening. Laura Pohanka, who has been a line cook at Tail Up Goat since July 2016, says the boost brings line cooks’ pay closer to a living wage. 

Totally agree! Cooking is one of those jobs that people seem to do against economic self interest, maybe? There seems to be a "love of the game" aspect of it. Or used to be, since it seems to be a lot of undocumented workers now. But, still, seems like the people interviewed are doing it for the experience and joy of it, despite how thankless of a task it is.

[zgast]

55 minutes ago, stupidusername said:

Very interesting article but one portion (copied below) struck me.  I can understand (but perhaps not agree) with the notion that a waiter/waitress job is more difficult than being a line cook, but how in the world is being a food runner paid better than a line cook?  If you dropped me into a restaurant and asked me to be a food runner, I am sure I would be bad at it, people might get the wrong food a couple times and it might be a little slow.  If you dropped me in as a line cook, it would be a race to see whether I would make someone sick or burn the building down first.  

I think the underlying issue is English.  Many line cooks don't speak it well enough to interact with customers, which runners need to do.  I wonder if there's a non-profit that could partner with kitchens to do English lessons  during a slow stretch 2x per week at restaurants.  Probably a meaningful benefit that wouldn't cost the restaurant much at all.

[DaveO]

1 hour ago, zgast said:

I think the underlying issue is English.  Many line cooks don't speak it well enough to interact with customers, which runners need to do.  I wonder if there's a non-profit that could partner with kitchens to do English lessons  during a slow stretch 2x per week at restaurants.  Probably a meaningful benefit that wouldn't cost the restaurant much at all.

The business owners would give a great response to this.  Over the years and currently I've heard and seen:  you can teach all of the skills of front of the house...but you can't teach "hospitality" /customer service. etc.  Its a skill.  You can learn it but better than that you get it in your personality.   But the BOH staff is no different than the rest of the population in terms of having the skills or not.

I still think the training manuals at GAR and Clyde's are terrific tools for teaching FOH how to act.  Different people take the manuals in at different levels.  I've known some ex GAR FOH people who could never flick on the great hospitality personality.  They could do a great job...but they didn't shine.  Others shine.

Its funny the bar school gets a lot of the same people that work in the BOH.  Lots.  Many have terrible English skills.  I always warned them prior to enrolling.  Check out the class first.  See if you can get it. Don't sign up if you can't follow it.  I always suggested improving English skills.  My advice was to get a gringo bf or gf, speak to their gringo friends, watch gringo tv all the time.  That also works. 

We just had this old grad from over a decade ago come in to get a new book then he wants to take our free refresher classes and bartend again.  Its been over a decade.  While we were chatting I asked where he had bartended.  It was a bunch of very Hispanc restaurants with more natives than non Spanish speaking folks.  I started laughing and responded sarcastically:  Jose you only worked at gringo bars.  He started laughing and acknowledged his English was much worse over a decade ago.  He gets to brush up his skills, learn new cocktails, he has a nice personality...and now he has a shot at working at places where there can be more $$.

A lot of the folks in the BOH know their language skills hamper their ability to get ahead.  I suppose it would be a huge benefit if there were NOT For Profit services that could help them in that area.  Cripes if I were an owner in this environment with staff shortages I'm not sure I'd want to expose them to that and risk losing valuable people. 

[DaveO]

I reread this story.  It is simply amazing how tough these jobs are while the pay is so low and the conditions are rough, exhausting, all going into dinners that are so expensive, and the reviews/commentary can be so impactful (good and bad).  

On top of that the political environment hanging over the head of these mostly Hispanic workers is ever more troubling and threatening.  

[Poivrot Farci]

Other than flying coach and the hopelessly arcane process of signing up for aenemic health insurance, there are few indignities worse than working for a restaurant in the US, small independent or multi-Michelin outlet. Restaurant work is fetishized with very little reward and that is baffling. Across the Atlantic, the value -even reverence- of quality of life persists. While looking for a place to eat in Strasbourg (FR):

Quote

Our restaurant will be closed on December 23^rd, 24^th, 25^th, 26^th as well as from Dec 30^th until January 21^st included for our annual holidays.

Further north, Geranium will be closed for Christmas vacation from the 23^rd of December through the 9^th of January.

If only time off from work was more ingrained in the greedy ethos of Capitalism.

[DonRocks]

54 minutes ago, Poivrot Farci said:

Other than flying coach and the hopelessly arcane process of signing up for aenemic health insurance, there are few indignities worse that working for a restaurant in the US, small independent or multi-Michelin outlet. Restaurant work is fetishized with very little reward and that is baffling. Across the Atlantic, the value -even reverence- of quality of life persists. While looking for a place to eat in Strasbourg (FR):

Further north, Geranium will be closed for Christmas vacation from the 23^rd of December through the 9^th of January.

If only time off from work was more ingrained in the greedy ethos of Capitalism.

Thank you. Seriously: Thank you.

[DaveO]

13 hours ago, Poivrot Farci said:

Other than flying coach and the hopelessly arcane process of signing up for aenemic health insurance, there are few indignities worse than working for a restaurant in the US, small independent or multi-Michelin outlet. Restaurant work is fetishized with very little reward and that is baffling. Across the Atlantic, the value -even reverence- of quality of life persists. While looking for a place to eat in Strasbourg (FR):

Further north, Geranium will be closed for Christmas vacation from the 23^rd of December through the 9^th of January.

If only time off from work was more ingrained in the greedy ethos of Capitalism.

You, of course, would have a keen insight into the indignities of working for any type of restaurant in the US.  Thank you for the comment.   OTH:  At $12, 13,14, 15/hr.  Time off is not necessarily a good thing unless it is paid vacation time.  One of the line cooks referenced above works two jobs.

My observation from the outside is that unless a restaurant is killing it all the time, busy always, it often struggles financially.  It might not be able to afford paid time off.  One of the references above from the interviews referenced a "catch" on taking advantage of perks.    If the restaurant is tremendously busy it can more easily afford bennies and higher pay.

Saw a reference to this type of situation in the news/commentary this past week.  There was, as you undoubtedly know, a hubbub concerning Time Magazine in the past week.  On top of that Time Inc. was sold, at a price, that was dramatically lower than it would have commanded 10 years ago.  A fraction of the value it once had.

But once it was "flush with cash" as per this reference:

Quote

So flush,” John Podhoretz wrote in Commentary, describing what it was like to work for Time in the 1980s, “that the first week I was there, the World section had a farewell lunch for a writer who was being sent to Paris to serve as bureau chief…  at Lutèce, the most expensive restaurant in Manhattan, for 50 people. So flush that if you stayed past 8, you could take a limousine home… and take it anywhere, including to the Hamptons if you had weekend plans there. So flush that if a writer who lived, say, in suburban Connecticut, stayed late writing his article that week, he could stay in town at a hotel of his choice.”

  That has nothing to do with line cooks. 

Back of the House:  Its a very rough environment.  Amazing that so many critical cooks in the kitchens of restaurants that sometimes charge amazing prices for their meals are earning basically minimum wage and working in such tough environments.  Very tough.  An eye opener to me.  Sometimes I think I know tons about the restaurant business.  I've worked in it, and I've sold/consulted into it since the 1980's.  Known lots of people in the industry including owners, BOH and FOH personnel.  I never grasped the context of the struggles of the vast majority of those that work in the kitchens till I read the above article.

 

[Poivrot Farci]

6 hours ago, DaveO said:

My observation from the outside is that unless a restaurant is killing it all the time, busy always, it often struggles financially.  It might not be able to afford paid time off.  One of the references above from the interviews referenced a "catch" on taking advantage of perks.    If the restaurant is tremendously busy it can more easily afford bennies and higher pay.

I have not heard a convincing or reasonable explanation to uphold the notion that a restaurant employer with more money will spend more on their employees, other than perhaps to retain employees by throwing a holiday party -which some have to stumble out of early to work the morning shift and the occasional bonus. The elusive and mystifying “trickle down” altruism defies the mission of a business which is to increase profits and cut the costs of production. There is no federal law for paid sick days, paid vacation or paid public holidays in the United States whereas the rest of the modern world has at least 2 weeks paid mandatory vacation. According to the BLS, the average number of paid vacation days offered by private US employers (77% of them) after 5 years of employment is 14 days. After 20 years it is 20 days. Albania has more paid public holidays and vacation time than the US.

A former colleague of mine works at the flagship NYC restaurant of a highly celebrated and awarded restaurant group that has no less than 39 establishments throughout the world. They appear to be “killing it” if they have not already “killed it”. The benefits are minimal. Hours are strictly regulated (no more than 5hrs overtime) and cooks are expected to work pro-bono to finish the work that can not be done within 40+5.  At the other end of the gilded table: Carmine’s (NYC) which grossed $33 million in 2016. It is owned by Alicart which has 6 Carmine’s locations and as of 2011 grossed $70 million with 1,200 employees. A cursory search suggests that they do not offer much. An anonymous former senior sales manager (possibly an anecdotal outlier) reviewed the operation: “Though the salary is very competitive, almost nothing else is: no paid holidays, 10 days of PTO for the entire year (to include sick, vacation, and personal time), a PTO blackout from October 1st to January 1st, VERY expensive health care, no flexible spending, and short and long term disability are additional. Expect to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas. They require 10 hour workdays, weekends, and nights."  Employees allegedly get 30% food discounts though, which, given the portions, one could stash in the freezer for a rainy day or make a cardiologist's payday.

While these are only 2 examples of a powerful restaurant groups within the highly profitable “killing” range, I would posit that such entities are financially successful because they "stifle", offer little to their employees, maintain low wage/benefit standards and invest at the top (executives, investors, shareholders, etc...) rather than the bottom (hourly employees). If neither the fancy group nor Carmine’s coffers can provide the benefits enjoyed by the rest of the modern world, who can?

Perhaps a forensic accountant can explain how an industry with $800 billion in annual sales in a country with a GDP of $18.5 trillion can not afford paid sick days, vacation days or at least paid public holidays for all employees as is standard on other poorer countries.

Of course the simplest explanation is that American workers simply do not know the level of mandated benefits offered abroad, therefor do not want and ultimately do not demand work/life/family balance orientated policies such as paid maternity leave, paid vacation and paid sick days. If American workers do crave more fundamental benefits they certainly do not elect legislators to fulfill those cravings.

[DaveO]

@Poivrot Farci Thanks.  My anecdotal experience is that when restaurants are always busy it’s the FOH staff that often makes out well.  I’m ignorant if proceeds are passed onto the BOH.  FOH staff can also more liberally trade shifts and get better time off.  

I was stunned by the article.  Conditions and pay are terrible.  Minimum wage or close to it.  That had never sunk in before.

Yep, our overall work force gets far fewer benefits than in Europe.  Not to mention we have states that rip unions and the corporations love it.  

[DonRocks]

4 hours ago, Poivrot Farci said:

Perhaps a forensic accountant can explain how an industry with $800 billion in annual sales in a country with a GDP of $18.5 trillion can not afford paid sick days, vacation days or at least paid public holidays for all employees as is standard on other poorer countries.

A warning about forensic accountants: There are a lot of people out there who say they're "forensic accountants," which really sounds impressive, but their quality of performance is often quite low - and they're expensive.

[DaveO]

22 hours ago, Poivrot Farci said:

I have not heard a convincing or reasonable explanation to uphold the notion that a restaurant employer with more money will spend more on their employees, other than perhaps to retain employees by throwing a holiday party -which some have to stumble out of early to work the morning shift and the occasional bonus. The elusive and mystifying “trickle down” altruism defies the mission of a business which is to increase profits and cut the costs of production. There is no federal law for paid sick days, paid vacation or paid public holidays in the United States whereas the rest of the modern world has at least 2 weeks paid mandatory vacation. According to the BLS, the average number of paid vacation days offered by private US employers (77% of them) after 5 years of employment is 14 days. After 20 years it is 20 days. Albania has more paid public holidays and vacation time than the US.

A former colleague of mine works at the flagship NYC restaurant of a highly celebrated and awarded restaurant group that has no less than 39 establishments throughout the world. They appear to be “killing it” if they have not already “killed it”. The benefits are minimal. Hours are strictly regulated (no more than 5hrs overtime) and cooks are expected to work pro-bono to finish the work that can not be done within 40+5.  At the other end of the gilded table: Carmine’s (NYC) which grossed $33 million in 2016. It is owned by Alicart which has 6 Carmine’s locations and as of 2011 grossed $70 million with 1,200 employees. A cursory search suggests that they do not offer much. An anonymous former senior sales manager (possibly an anecdotal outlier) reviewed the operation: “Though the salary is very competitive, almost nothing else is: no paid holidays, 10 days of PTO for the entire year (to include sick, vacation, and personal time), a PTO blackout from October 1st to January 1st, VERY expensive health care, no flexible spending, and short and long term disability are additional. Expect to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas. They require 10 hour workdays, weekends, and nights."  Employees allegedly get 30% food discounts though, which, given the portions, one could stash in the freezer for a rainy day or make a cardiologist's payday.

While these are only 2 examples of a powerful restaurant groups within the highly profitable “killing” range, I would posit that such entities are financially successful because they "stifle", offer little to their employees, maintain low wage/benefit standards and invest at the top (executives, investors, shareholders, etc...) rather than the bottom (hourly employees). If neither the fancy group nor Carmine’s coffers can provide the benefits enjoyed by the rest of the modern world, who can?

Perhaps a forensic accountant can explain how an industry with $800 billion in annual sales in a country with a GDP of $18.5 trillion can not afford paid sick days, vacation days or at least paid public holidays for all employees as is standard on other poorer countries.

Of course the simplest explanation is that American workers simply do not know the level of mandated benefits offered abroad, therefor do not want and ultimately do not demand work/life/family balance orientated policies such as paid maternity leave, paid vacation and paid sick days. If American workers do crave more fundamental benefits they certainly do not elect legislators to fulfill those cravings.

Related to your comments this timely article from the NYTimes about about retail jobs and wages in the US vs industrialized nations in Europe

From one part of the article store effectiveness was referenced with stores selling much more per person or other metrics in
Europe than the US.  Hence businesses can afford to pay more.  A different metric is that US retail, including restaurants has something like 3-7 times the amount of square footage of retail vs that in other industrialized nations.  Again that lowers the sales per worker, per sq ft and other metrics of effectiveness.

That also means the number of such low paying jobs in the US is huge in quantity. 

Big societal differences. 

 

 

[Mark Slater]

For what it's worth, restaurants in hotels usually pay far better than chains or single owner businesses. Union hotels, especially. In DC, hotel line cooks generally make between $16-18 hour, while privately owned restaurants are usually in the $11-13 an hour range. When Michel Richard opened his restaurant in the Palace Hotel in Manhattan, their union had negotiated wages that were 3 times that. $36 an hour dishwashers, $30 an hour line cooks.

[DonRocks]

48 minutes ago, Mark Slater said:

For what it's worth, restaurants in hotels usually pay far better than chains or single owner businesses. Union hotels, especially. In DC, hotel line cooks generally make between $16-18 hour, while privately owned restaurants are usually in the $11-13 an hour range. When Michel Richard opened his restaurant in the Palace Hotel in Manhattan, their union had negotiated wages that were 3 times that. $36 an hour dishwashers, $30 an hour line cooks.

I never thought the day would come when I'd say this, but ... this seems like the way it should be. These people - all of them - work harder than I ever have (except the weekend I spent washing dishes for Manpower at Indian Spring Country Club - in three days, I worked almost forty hours. They loved my work, but I told them I physically couldn't handle it anymore, and I was in my late teens at the time).

[Pool Boy]

I suspect, in the USA at least (if not other places), there seems to be a steady stream of folks willing to put up with substandard pay and benefits that fill these positions. At least for a time, until that individual no longer wants to or find other opportunities for less time working, with more benefits, and for more pay elsewhere. It's sad and pathetic that restaurants in our fine country cannot seem to offer a compensation package that does not treat its folks like garbage. Different grades of garbage I am sure, but still garbage.

I am not sure what can be done to fix this, but I sure hope it somehow gets fixed, because, at some point, that so-far-never-ending stream of folks willing to put up with this will.....dry up.

[Poivrot Farci]

On 12/1/2017 at 10:17 PM, Pool Boy said:

I suspect, in the USA at least (if not other places), there seems to be a steady stream of folks willing to put up with substandard pay and benefits that fill these positions. 

Most of those folks are not aware that virtually every other modern country has paid sick days, multiple weeks of paid vacation and paid maternity leave.  Americans have been bred to work long hours for little reward and time off is stigmatized.

Kudos to Aaron Silverman's model of treating his staff with fundamental financial dignity despite it's effeminate and socialist "sharing is caring" brushstrokes.  

[Mark Slater]

2 hours ago, Poivrot Farci said:

Most of those folks are not aware that virtually every other modern country has paid sick days, multiple weeks of paid vacation and paid maternity leave.  Americans have been bred to work long hours for little reward and time off is stigmatized.

Kudos to Aaron Silverman's model of treating his staff with fundamental financial dignity despite it's effeminate and socialist "sharing is caring" brushstrokes.  

Julien, you are so good at this. Thanks!!

[Simul Parikh]

What if people are completely aware of what is out there in Europe in terms of benefits and wages, but are powerless to do anything about it? I disagree it’s because of labor’s ignorance. It’s because of their powerlessness, its because unions are disrespected and now weak compared to prior eras, and because there are no alternatives. 

It’s like medical residents. Nowhere in the world do they work 80-100 hour a week. We all know it. We all fudged our hours and pretended it was less. What are you supposed to do about it? Buck the system and get fired? No thanks. My partners are all very educated about the world around them. Many are female. Yet, we aren’t copying Scandinavians 1 year fully paid maternity leave. Not efficient and not necessary to offer since no other group does. Our 3 months is “generous” (1 of those being taken out of your PTO allowance).

The American worker - and I mean worker -not opiate addicted, disability check collecting waste of space - the non-professional American worker that puts in 40-70 hours a week of restaurant, factory, or office work is not lazy, stupid, or ignorant. They happen to live in a country where those that own capital don’t feel the need to bestow rights to the labor that generates the wealth. And if I sound like Karl Marx, that’s not the goal. We don’t believe in “the third way” here. The country is dropping the 35% corporate tax rate to 20% with almost no backlash, but to raise the minimum wage of our lowest paid employees causes huge backlash and scares the Dow. We no longer believe/never believed in paid vacation, adequate PTO/sick time, retirement accounts, adequate health care, maternity/paternity. It’s not because people don’t know about it. It’s because there is no way to obtain it. Even places like Starbucks (that have a perceived social justice mission) screw their workers out of benefits, by keeping them under the threshold of hours needed for benefits, while forcing them to be available for greater than 60 hours a week, even if they won’t be called in.

People know what’s out there. My fiancé knows. But she works at Hopkins in nursing and is limited in what she gets for time off and even for health care. She works for the “best medical system” in the country and can’t find a gyno within many miles to see her within a reasonable amount of time, and her copay to an ENT is a low level employees weekly take home. She had a great sales job with great benefits before that, but she had a calling for health care, so she took a hit. What is she going to do? Make JHH give her better insurance and 6 months of maternity? Yeah right...

[DaveO]

On 11/26/2017 at 9:44 PM, Poivrot Farci said:

Other than flying coach and the hopelessly arcane process of signing up for aenemic health insurance, there are few indignities worse than working for a restaurant in the US, small independent or multi-Michelin outlet. Restaurant work is fetishized with very little reward and that is baffling. Across the Atlantic, the value -even reverence- of quality of life persists. While looking for a place to eat in Strasbourg (FR):

Further north, Geranium will be closed for Christmas vacation from the 23^rd of December through the 9^th of January.

If only time off from work was more ingrained in the greedy ethos of Capitalism.

On 11/27/2017 at 5:36 PM, Poivrot Farci said:

I have not heard a convincing or reasonable explanation to uphold the notion that a restaurant employer with more money will spend more on their employees, other than perhaps to retain employees by throwing a holiday party -which some have to stumble out of early to work the morning shift and the occasional bonus. The elusive and mystifying “trickle down” altruism defies the mission of a business which is to increase profits and cut the costs of production. There is no federal law for paid sick days, paid vacation or paid public holidays in the United States whereas the rest of the modern world has at least 2 weeks paid mandatory vacation. According to the BLS, the average number of paid vacation days offered by private US employers (77% of them) after 5 years of employment is 14 days. After 20 years it is 20 days. Albania has more paid public holidays and vacation time than the US.

A former colleague of mine works at the flagship NYC restaurant of a highly celebrated and awarded restaurant group that has no less than 39 establishments throughout the world. They appear to be “killing it” if they have not already “killed it”. The benefits are minimal. Hours are strictly regulated (no more than 5hrs overtime) and cooks are expected to work pro-bono to finish the work that can not be done within 40+5.  At the other end of the gilded table: Carmine’s (NYC) which grossed $33 million in 2016. It is owned by Alicart which has 6 Carmine’s locations and as of 2011 grossed $70 million with 1,200 employees. A cursory search suggests that they do not offer much. An anonymous former senior sales manager (possibly an anecdotal outlier) reviewed the operation: “Though the salary is very competitive, almost nothing else is: no paid holidays, 10 days of PTO for the entire year (to include sick, vacation, and personal time), a PTO blackout from October 1st to January 1st, VERY expensive health care, no flexible spending, and short and long term disability are additional. Expect to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas. They require 10 hour workdays, weekends, and nights."  Employees allegedly get 30% food discounts though, which, given the portions, one could stash in the freezer for a rainy day or make a cardiologist's payday.

While these are only 2 examples of a powerful restaurant groups within the highly profitable “killing” range, I would posit that such entities are financially successful because they "stifle", offer little to their employees, maintain low wage/benefit standards and invest at the top (executives, investors, shareholders, etc...) rather than the bottom (hourly employees). If neither the fancy group nor Carmine’s coffers can provide the benefits enjoyed by the rest of the modern world, who can?

Perhaps a forensic accountant can explain how an industry with $800 billion in annual sales in a country with a GDP of $18.5 trillion can not afford paid sick days, vacation days or at least paid public holidays for all employees as is standard on other poorer countries.

Of course the simplest explanation is that American workers simply do not know the level of mandated benefits offered abroad, therefor do not want and ultimately do not demand work/life/family balance orientated policies such as paid maternity leave, paid vacation and paid sick days. If American workers do crave more fundamental benefits they certainly do not elect legislators to fulfill those cravings.

On 12/2/2017 at 11:19 PM, Poivrot Farci said:

Most of those folks are not aware that virtually every other modern country has paid sick days, multiple weeks of paid vacation and paid maternity leave.  Americans have been bred to work long hours for little reward and time off is stigmatized.

Kudos to Aaron Silverman's model of treating his staff with fundamental financial dignity despite it's effeminate and socialist "sharing is caring" brushstrokes.  

@Poivrot Farci  I thought of comments you have made relative to work, quality of life, comparing US conditions to those in Europe, when I came across this story about a French Baker working too hard, and getting fined   I don't recall if you have other comments in this forum on this and overlapping topics.

I neither agree or disagree with you.  I'm pretty aware of costs and working conditions but far from an expert.  I'm well aware of how FOH staff can make tons more than BOH staff, while too well knowing there are many places where FOH don't do that well.  Lots of places. 

Its a big big issue..bigger and above my pay scale.  Restaurants in this and other regions don't all kill it.  There are tons of open reservations around the region on many many restaurants.  Restaurants open and close with all too much frequency.  When menu costs go up diners move elsewhere.  Tough tough environment.

But within our worlds there are always these interesting exceptions.  I thought the story about the French baker is one of them.

[Poivrot Farci]

While there are exceptions (tourist destinations), France bans most retail work on Sundays.  Employers that are open Sundays often must pay their employees double or make employee approved concessions and mayors can apply to have businesses open for 12 Sundays each calendar year.  France also has a "right to disconnect" law which established a limit between personal life and work.  Personally, I prefer not to receive, send or be expected to respond to work communications/bullshit outside of working hours.

Meanwhile, the US quality-of-life sausage-making involves spit-balling legislation to bring guns to school and cuts to employee safety.  Depends on what employers and employees value: quality of life (free time) or greed (depressing wages and tax cuts that neuter quality of life and fundamental services)

3 hours ago, DaveO said:

Its a big big issue..bigger and above my pay scale.  Restaurants in this and other regions don't all kill it.  There are tons of open reservations around the region on many many restaurants.  Restaurants open and close with all too much frequency.  When menu costs go up diners move elsewhere.  Tough tough environment.

There are far too many restaurants.   Humans need to eat but they don't necessarily need the luxury and convenience of having someone else feed them and clean up afterwards. 

[DonRocks]

58 minutes ago, Poivrot Farci said:

Meanwhile, the US quality-of-life sausage-making involves spit-balling legislation to bring guns to school and cuts to employee safety. 

Matt Damon is moving to Australia.

I can just hear him now, walking off the plane, and strolling into the airport:

"I'm fucking *Matt Damon*!"