Cheap Bastards

We're doing a wedding reception for "friends" of the GM's family tonight. Actually they're friends of her father's new girlfriend. These people embody the passive-aggressive pseudo-hippie types we have to deal with here all the time. They're pretty vocal about supporting revolutionaries in Chiapas and making sure people across the globe get a living wage but they generally treat waiters like shit and are constantly nickel and diming us to squeeze the most out of our already low prices.

It's so difficult to get through to these people. They're just as bad if not worse than right-wing ideologues. They seem unable to differentiate a small business owner from Dupont and they can't seem to equate earning a living wage with a young white woman who's bringing them a cup of soup.

We've avoided having a large party or catering menu in trying to be flexible about our approach to dining and serving people but the longer we go on and the more we deal with people looking for a bargain the more necessary it seems. After this weekend we will have to develop a menu and policies that lay out in detail what we will and won't do at what prices. If somebody needs a custom menu or experience we'll do it for them but they have to pay for the services.

Everyone is looking for value. I get that. But people, don't be greedy. If we all had to pay the true cost of our food in this country starvation would be the number one issue.

Comments

[Fatemeh]

Ain't that the ugly truth?

I went to dinner once with a quite well-off, extremely liberal vendor. After lingering at our table for over 3 hours, this man left our waitress what amounted to a 13% tip.

Since I was the client, and getting ready to fire his firm anyway, I was in the unique position to call attention to his offensive behavior.

The idiots response? "Well, it's not like she was DOING anything the last hour we were sitting here!".

The disconnect between our monopolizing the table, and the waitress being able to seat another party was completely lost on this moron.

[shuna]

Few people understand the economies in restaurants. And how could they, really, if they come from a middle class background and/or they have never had to earn a living in a restaurant? It is completely hidden from them, to the point where if they make a few good cakes or meals at home they feel fine to open a bakery or restaurant without ever having studied one iota of their state or country's labor laws or wage specifications.

thank you for reminding us all about the complex intricacies of bravely working in and owning a restaurant!

[McAuliflower]

I think these "pseudo-hippies" are the same we see at our neighborhood natural foods grocery store... dreadlocks, birkenstocks, and then they drive up with the huge brand new spanky car and only one person in it... but I digress!

thanks for the reminder that restaurant owners aren't all about pulling the wage rug out from under their employees. Up here in Oregon we have some nasty politics brewing involving the Oregon Restaurant Association fighting our recent living wage legislature and looking to cut into servers wages by exempting them from minimum wage and cutting into their tips.

I'd love to hear more about your take on servers wages and tipping. We've had some local restaurant owners here in Eugene claim they can't run a restaurant while paying their waitstaff $7.25/hr. I think its hooey, but I also don't own a restaurant... what do you think?

[Kudzu]

Glad we got the gender issue (see TrackBack) straightened out, so to speak!

I find it increasngly apparent that Americans have no concept of service as a profession, not respecting workplace skills and, all too often, not giving them adequate compensation.

I suggest you go forward with prix fixe menus for special occasions and deal with each event as it arises. It will give you a place to stand. Dickering is exhausting.

[haddock]

Thanks for the comments.

McAuliflower, your Oregon restaurateurs are right. Nearly every state in the nation (unfortunately I'm not doing business in one of them) has a sub-minimum wage for tipped employees. It's called tip credit in some places. The more I have to pay my waiters, the less I can pay my cooks, dishwashers and self. On a good night my waiters walk out of the place with $125 cash. That's after tipping the bussers and the kitchen. Most do a 5 or so hour shift. So they're already earning $25 per hour. Add the minimum wage to that and in CA they're up to $31.75. And we have a pretty modest ticket average. My highest paid kitchen employee makes $14 per hour and works at least 8 hour shifts.

If I were to pay everyone what they're worth or should be earning to make a true living my prices (and just about everyone elses) would be so astronomical that no one would ever go out to eat.

As Kudzu points out the problem is with the public perception. Believe me, I would like nothing better than to have a place where everyone earns a reasonable wage and where tipping isn't part of the equation. Very few places in this country can acheive this. Chez Panisse is one. I'm sure there are a few others but our paradigm is wrong. Unfortuately I am not maverick enough to try to change that paradigm.

Until we as a country are willing to pay the real cost of our goods be it gasoline or franks and beans the economics of food will be skewed.