9/10 restaurants don’t make it past the first year because corporations easily outcompete. I’m not saying to justify subsistence wages but because the system is exploitative that small businesses can’t afford to pay a living wage unless corporations do to.
Corporations have economies of scale which means cheaper food that restaurants cannot compete with. You aren't going to compete on price as a mom and pop shop, at least not generally.
The most successful and popular corporate chains are fast food that don't rely on tipping. Most tipping based corporate chains are failing and slowly getting churned out of existence, with perhaps a few exceptions.
That’s a good point but I think the corporate sit down restaurants are struggling just bc changing consumer preferences, not necessarily a function of their business model vs small
I think a lot of it has to do with how corporations are incentivized to enshittify themselves once they hit their cap, as that's the only way to keep up the facade of infinite growth. People go to a sit down restaurant expecting something a bit fancier, though, and if it's just some crap that was microwaved in a plastic bag and shoved on a plate anyway, of course people are going to lose interest. At least fast food isn't lying about their quality.
Seems like we've basically shortened the lifespan of a "successful" business to like 20-30 years (only about 5-10 of which are worth going to for the customer), and the "fast casual dining" businesses are now in private equity hospice.
I’d argue they’re failing not because of their reliance on tipping. But because of business model lack of service workers hasn’t been cited as a common reason for decline in sales. Causation doesn’t equal correlation, a major reason is people just don’t dine out as often because of economic factors as well as social isolation on the rise due primarily to finances.
It's has nothing to do with corporations. Restaurants have always had a high failure rate. It's incredibly difficult to survive until you're able to cultivate a large enough client base.
It has everything to do with corporations because corporations have the money and established presence that they can afford to charge lower prices for food. You are right a restaurant model is hard to maintain but it’s made ever worse by corporations, there’s specific times of the day businesses compete for which is lunch and dinner, corporations can easily draw in tons of people during these extremely popular food times, local restaurants don’t have the advertising capital to compete.
You are correct restaurants always had a high failure rate, even before the mass corporatization of the industry. The main reasons for the high failure was most who opened restaurants had zero experience in the industry or their experience was solely in the production side not the business side. It is one of the easier and relatively least expensive businesses to open and most think it is fairly easy.
The industry as a whole has one of the thinnest profit margins there is and most ONLY survive based on passing the lion's share of labor to the customer. Most staff with family, so they've created jobs for themselves not a business. They will create massive, bloated menus that are expensive. When that doesn't work they will greatly reduce the quality of food served. When thst doesn't work they will reduce staff and hours and raise prices. Before ultimately closing up shop.
Corps survive because they have standardized and scales. Every building is the sameayout, staff are trained the same way, the food arrives and is prepared the same way, and they know to the ounce and second what everything costs and how many they need to sling to make profit. And they pay only slightly better (sometimes) and the staff love the volume of turnover and tips they'll make.
No they don’t they can on a good night, have you spoke to wait staff? They get paid 2.75$/hr and the rest of their income is supplemented by generosity. This is why the food workers union is against tips and wants a standardized minimum wage.
This is why the food workers union is against tips and wants a standardized minimum wage.
Yeah, I'll definitely need a source on that because a union advocating for no tips especially for a profession like waitstaff would probably have no membership.
Just look up the food workers union. The union is one of the largest in the country behind teacher and auto manufacturers. They oppose the no tax on tips and tipping in general idk who you think is supporting tipping.
The "restaurant workers united" union that you've linked is absolutely not "one of the largest in the country", they seem completely irrelevant from what I'm seeing, their contact email is @gmail for fuck's sake.
You're probably thinking of the "United Food and Commercial Workers" which indeed is one of the largest unions in the country. They cover a lot of professions, not just waitstaff, and I don't think they're against tips anyway.
They all share generally the same views I just grabbed one. But look it up, I don’t have time to be to go searching for it for you.
Unions the vast majority of the time work together. The one that’s attributed heavily to the Harris campaign condemned her advocating no tax on tips, claiming that it solves little. Just ask a service worker if they’d rather make money on tips or be paid a living wage.
He's literally saying it's a flawed policy but it's good enough and we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good. Not much of a condemnation.
And I wouldn't keep asking you to show me a serious union that's against tips if I were to be able to find one. You don't think I've searched? There just doesn't seem to be anything on the internet, because again, I think it would be absurd for a union to stand against tips.
Also, maybe you should ask some service workers yourself. The ones I know seem to very much enjoy the whole pseudo minimum wage + tips structure they have because they make decent money. Tips in America are no joke.
Service workers I’ve met have not at all been happy with their job’s pay. Yes that is the condemnation, I was talking about they took a more reformist stance, they’re not advocating for a ban on tipping just that tips shouldn’t be used to fill pay gaps that employers don’t have or want to fill. They advocate for a standard minimum wage.
also i feel it relevant to ask but so you don’t need to answer if you don’t like, but why are you against service workers being paid more? It’s in your interest to get workers the highest possible wage. Obviously not so high as to bankrupt them because then there’d be no work to pay, but the high possible wage, bosses should make based on what value they bring not because they own the company right?
They already get paid the 'standard minimum wage'. If they don't make enough in tips, the employer is forced to pay them the minimum wage, so they already get paid that at the minimum.
I'm not against service workers being paid more, in fact I'm very much in favor of it, that's why I support tips. And that's why a lot of waiters support tips as well.
they should pay minimum wage first, then try for a living wage, but no wages at all. Who the hell accepts a job where you don't get paid? That shit should be illegal
They do get paid minimum wage if they don’t get enough tips to make minimum wage/hr. But if I go to a restaurant and order $30 worth of stuff then tip 25% is $7.50. That’s the federal wage.
Food workers do have a minimum wage in America it’s around 2.75$ an hour depending on state. The reason food service industries fight so hard against a living wage is because the burden of supplementing income for the worker is off set to the customer so that employers don’t have to pay more.
Yeah this is the case for why we have commerce laws. Set the baseline for competition to exist. Remove the minimum wage exemptions for wait staff and you are halfway there.
No I agree that’s what I’m saying. Frankly if you’re a business and you can’t afford to pay your workers a living wage you shouldn’t be in business in the first place.
You took it to its logical conclusion, you’re smarter than the vast majority of the people in this comment section. That believe more in someone getting to own a business than the living standards of their workers.
Margins in the restaurant industry are notoriously razor thin too, people in this thread seem to think opening a restaurant is a license to print money.
Statistically that’s not true at all. On the scale you’re talking we’re looking at more family owned businesses that hire their children or partner, maybe family friends. When we’re looking at statistics for larger businesses that can afford to hire outside of the family then we’re looking at higher rates of income inequality among equal amounts and skill of work. Plus this doesn’t take it into account corporations outcompeting local business. Because as data as shown when corporations set up in towns local businesses are driven out or wages get so low because of poor sales due to competition that nobody will work for them.
I’m not a capitalist or agree with entrepreneurship, but higher wages do work to both lower inflation and give workers surplus income. which allows for more opportunities to open businesses and without the threat of corporations these small businesses experience a boom in sales.
9/11 restaurants don’t make it past the first year because corporations easily outcompete. I’m not saying to justify subsistence wages but because the system is exploitative that small businesses can’t afford to pay a living wage unless corporations do to.
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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '24 edited Aug 28 '24
I genuinely feel like moving to the US just to open a restaurant and pay my staff a living wage
Edit: This is probably the most controversial comment I ever posted.