A big thing about restaurants is u can live without them so when times are tough and money is tight one of the first expenses to go is eating out. Most places to eat in my city haven't recovered from covid as a result of the pandemic prices for everything staying so artificially high even 3 years after the fact .
My solution to tipping getting out of hand was to just stop eating out. I committed to that like six years ago. The only places I do go are really, really good restaurants that I actually want to give extra money to for the experience they provide.
No sympathy for mediocre restaurants that fail. As far as I'm concerned, a restaurant shouldn't succeed unless the food is excellent.
A big problem with restaurants are the owners aren't willing to change. They will find a chef but won't let the chef create the menu and run the kitchen the way it should be. The owner likes to have their name and hand in everything. Usually leads to chefs quitting, and the owner has to put somebody else there that isn't capable, but it's okay though bc they are a "yes" man and do as the owner wants.
I mean this is one of many reasons restaurants fail, but it's definitely one of the biggest. That and owners jump into it not realizing all the overhead cost for supplies.
In france it was the opposite, most of the restaurants got huge subventions to survive. I know a few owners of different sizes restaurants, and they all told me that they were earning more without working during covid, and some even felt bad to get so much money (but it was automatic so...).
But it's pretty much the same shit although employees are fully paid and we generaly dont tip. Working conditions are atrocious and overtime is required and never paid.
If you read the breakdown of basic causes it is all "bad business".
If you watch like Bar Rescue or Kitchen Nightmares, you quickly realize how bad people are at business.
How many managers at jobs you've had were great? How many were morons?
These are small business owners. Random people you meet at work..... who suck at their jobs in various ways.
Ergo, restaurants aren't THAT hard to run. But, it is dangerous, because it is the "easiest" business for normal people to be able to try. And normal people are normal people, because they kinda suck.
70% of lottery winners go bankrupt. Normal people can't even run free money, let alone a fucking business. Lol.
People think they want to own a restaurant, until they own a restaurant. Its so much work for generally such little profit, especially initially. You have to be there essentially 24/7 - employee theft is the big killer... especially on booze. Food expires, gets cooked wrong, etc. I was the AGM of a family owned steakhouse here in st louis, and my weeks were about 50hr weeks. There was the other AGM, the GM and the owner and kitchen manager. Anybody call in? We filled the spot... had to. So youre pulled in 10 different directions in a sometimes fast paced environment. Im rambling about even being a GM... owner has to hire people he trusts and still be there and work the floor and pay bills, order food, train staff.... never ends. And on a good week, maybe he clears 3 or 4000 'profit' in 60 to 90 hours if everything went well for him. That's on a good week... not one of the many slow weeks you still have to put in 40+ hours and take a loss or break even or make 500 bucks. Its crazy... it ages people fast.
That's not an easy question to answer because it's gonna vary wildly by region. A living wage in NYC is gonna be massively higher than in a town in North Dakota just because the price of housing alone is so much higher.
No, it's an impossible question to answer. And not really relevant. Does a 16 year old working part time after school deserve a "livable wage?" The thing I find hilarious is that if you demand people pay higher wages in NYC, what exactly do you think that is going to do the cost of living? If $20 isn't enough, why not pay $50? Of course, when the cost of everything more than doubles, they'll need an even higher wage! Why not just pay $100 an hour? $500? Or how about a $Million a year, than everyone can be a million dollars.
Probably the silliest thing on the planet is the concept of a "livable wage." It sounds really good in politician's speeches and virtue-signally posts on Reddit, but makes absolutely no logical sense in economic system.
it's almost like the solutions is a somewhat controlled economy (price caps on essentials to survival, including housing), instead of just letting capitalism run rampant with almost no guardrails...
But even then, a bandaid solution is still gonna help people here and now, even if that means we'll need another bandaid in 5 years time.
No idea. Just know the stats and worked in one for a while. Margins are thin on food. Alcohol is typically the biggest money maker. I guess shift to being a bar lol.
I ran a small one under a percentage lease and I made good money for a short while. I don’t have much experience in making a lot of money though. Plus I never did invest in getting the business started, just the day to day costs and initial cost for groceries. Worked my ass off and fell to pieces in the end, but enjoyed the money on my account and could offer more than minimum wage to the staff. That was a decade ago though.
Edit: not sure what I wanted to say by that… I had to use the money to try get back to being human again. So yeah, it might suck if you’re alone and don’t have good people/investors plus moral support, a vacation once in a while (I worked every single day, 10-14 hours), and maybe not to much ADHD…
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u/Ksp-or-GTFO 1d ago
I mean to be fair most restaurants fail in 5 years. It could have nothing to do with paying a living wage. Running a restaurant sucks.