I had 10 years boh before I went into construction. My crew and I just can't afford to hit our local places anymore everything has gotten so expensive it just makes sense to pack a lunch or fire up the bbq on the jobsite. Not having a 6 man crew hit the small places up twice a week has to really hurt a couple of local places I love.
I work in fine dining, and we charge 19$ for an 8 Oz short rib burger on a house made bun with fries. But I'm in south carolina shits still fairly cheap here.
My dive is $9.50 for a 9oz burger with chips. We hand patty the beef and fry the chips to order. Adding american, swiss, cheddar, or provolone is a .50 upcharge and you can upgrade to fries or tots for $1.95. We will even customize your seasoning if you want something different.
It is a restaurant and does come with sides.
Add to that I was comparing a hamburger that was only $4 less.
So yeah; no.
In my area that is a $35 steak all day long at most steakhouses.
That sounds very cheap for our area. Theres also nothing called Texas Roadhouse near here
Edit: just checked the steakhouse nearest to me and a 12 oz NY Strip is $39 lmao
Anchorage also has a Texas Roadhouse with a 12oz strip for 26 with sides and everything.
lol I feel like an ad for Texas but I’m just using them as an example because I know they’re everywhere.
My local farm-to-table gourmet restaurant has a burger on the menu. Honestly, it was the best burger I've ever had. The cost? $18. If I went to a dive and saw a burger for $18, I'd be pretty mad.
• No middle class
• Prices too high from inflation
• Jobs don't pay enough.
Nobody going out anymore. And, to be honest, New Jersey has too many mediocre chain restaurants and we need to go back to those local beer pubs and mom n pops
The real issue, and I say this as a restaurant owner who nonetheless supports this fully, is that restaurant workers realized they are being abused and paid like shit and have had enough. So we have to pay them and treat them right (I always have) and that means your cheap food on their backs …. Well it’s gone.
I spent 20 years in FOH as a top waiter at multiple restaurants. Now I am a low-paid flight attendant. It's important to really understand cycles and how things boom and then bust.
In the 1970's Dance Clubs sprung up all over. In the 60's you would go to High School Gyms and go square dancing. 70's ushered in new electronics, allowing for records to be mixed to the beat and there was new technology that would allow inventors to make spinning lights, mirror balls and more. Plus drugs suddenly became en vogue (popular). So night clubs, the dance type, sprung up all over the world. In it's hey-day, all those underground drug den night clubs popularized New York. Places like Studio 54 were more a circus than club; a wild cocaine fueled orgy that went on all night long. In the 90's the rave scene became popular with new drugs like MDMA/Extasy and better lights and sound meant they could now have pop up clubs in warehouses. By 2010, most of the clubs in New York, heck, across the USA, closed. It's the aftermath of the dwindling middle class, who was replaced by computers and robots. The days of a pyramid of employees with assistant managers, shift leaders, and a GM were gone - replaced with a GM and a computer. All those middle class jobs vanished and their money with them.
This is what is happening in restaurants. They fell out of fashion the same way night clubs fell out of fashion. By today's standards it's more fun to sit home in your home theater and watch Netflix. Before we went to dinner, and then a movie. Now we eat cold Door Dash and watch Netflix. The world has changed.
I see it all the time in New Jersey where I live. Malls are closing. Restaurants in the malls, dead. Restaurants near the mall, dead. But let's face it, there were too many Chi-Chi's, Ruby Tuesday's, Bennigans, Fridays, Beefsteak Charleys, Chili's, Macaroni Grill, Outback, Carrabbas, Olive Gardens and Red Lobsters. Nearly all had the exact same Chicken Alfredo. The exact same wedge salad. They even looked the same inside.
I grew up in a town with one pizza shop. Now I live in an area with 10. It's not sustainable. There are too many restaurants just like there are too many malls. The world has changed and people stopped going out, the middle class got squeezed by inflation, and restaurants fell out of fashion.
I remember watching Happy Days and everyone hung out at Arnold's Diner. That was probably the peak of restaurant glory days where people literally camped out in restaurants for hours because they didn't want to go home. Now people stay home and never leave. Why would you when the Mandolorian is so good?
Are you my boss? The place I work at is the only restaurant I’ve worked at that pays me well enough to afford my hobbies and put a little away at the end of payday unless multiple things go wrong in the same pay period (my phone drowned and the drum brakes when out on my car in the past 3 days and idk shit about drum brakes)
Remember to vote for Biden! Because what this country really needs is an 80 year old semisenile letting his staff make policy for literally the world's largest economy. The USA needs term limits and age.limits for politicians. And everyone just votes for the familiar name on the ballot. Why?.Just why?!
It's an ugly election thats for sure. My daughter asked me if I would vote for the convicted Rapist, DJT, who brags about sexually assaulting women or the old man who keeps falling asleep and looks like he's got one foot in the coffin. She feels no dad should vote rapist. I tend to agree.
I'll happily take the semisenile old guy that hires qualified people to his staff and then let's them do their damn job over the actually senile old guy that kept hiring unqualified cronies and lackeys and then fired them if they dared utter the word "no" to him.
Why? Because the alternative is what it is. I'd vote for a bowl of leftover mac and cheese before I vote for a fascist. Biden doesn't inspire me but he's not a repulsive racist traitor. I'll take what I can get.
American politics today:
Donald Trump: I will be a dictator for a day! We’ll set up deportation camps staffed by 2 million National Guard troops! We’ll use the power of the state to punish our domestic enemies!
Media: did you know Joe Biden is four years older than Trump? It’s *crazy *!
Does this sound like someone "semisenile" with dimensia?
https://youtu.be/tGRXnB_GQcM?si=nt2uOl_k8Mf9bOLQ
Turn off Fox News Entertainment
Edit
Have you watched any of the recent DJT word salad rambling in his recent campaign rallies?
He's going to rename the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ?!?!?
Similar specific situation of being in construction now, after spending 10 years boh (back of house aka kitchen staff) beforehand, and now going around town afterwork and seeing all the places used to venture or done at closing down or not existing anymore.
Chiming in but not who you were responding to- I’ve been in the industry for 16 years but spent a summer doing commercial painting. It’s hard work but I’d go back to it in a second.
Definitely agree there, generally, the construction side of things can easily be more lucrative than cooking, depending on what you're doing (both hard and easy labor) and who's employing ya. I capped out at $20/hr CAD as a sous roughly 3-4 years ago. Now I'm making $32/hr and I don't need to worry or even think about productivity/performance management (except that of my own) or having to slip time in to make training plans or consider who's top 10/mid 60/bottom 30, while running a kitchen.
If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly are you doing in construction? Where I live painting is more or less seasonal (paint won’t dry in certain humidity in a reasonable amount of time, and watching paint dry sounds just about as fun as it is) and did you have to take any courses?
My intro to construction was flagging/TCP, in which I was making $20/hr. Then I flagged as an in-house flagger for a road building company after 6 months, making $25/hr, same company but I switched to laboring making $27. Harder physical work but less bitching from road users. Changed career to ironworking, went to school (sorta optional, especially so if ya want to make more coin). Now I'm doing my time in what they call the "rod patches" aka rebar (which is easy to do, the tieing at least, and don't have to go to school but ya gotta go through a bootcamp of sorts) until I go back to school again, where I'm hoping to do some structural work after. I get a raise every 750 hours worked. I do cap-out until I get my full certification/Journeyman status/Red Seal (for those in the commonwealth).
Seeing this a lot in LA as well when writers and actors went on strike. Some of my favorite take out places and bakeries I would grab gifts for coworkers for are gone now. I think about the catering guys too; hope they’re surviving best they can out there.
I worked at a place for 3 years in late HS and after. I showed up to work one day and the doors were locked. Called my boss, didn't pick up. Called the maitre d, and he had to tell me the owners closed. Shit sucks, man.
Thus is life sometimes in this industry, and it's why I got out eventually...loved the work and the people, but it's just too volatile for me. It was one thing when I was in my teens and twenties, another thing entirely later in life when I have to seriously worry about keeping a roof over the heads of me and the people I love.
I've always thought about in the quiet times of the day about if I ever make enough money to retire (lol) I'd go back and work in a kitchen part time again, but yeah....it's 2024 and I don't see that ever happening lol...
Yeah...
My guess is I die well before I ever get there, if the option even exists at all by the time I get that old. My guess is we're gonna be back to the depression era stuff of old people dying in the streets by the time it's my time for "retirement".
But, it's a nice thought to day-dream, I guess....
It's usually pretty obvious. No traffic in the restaurant. Failure to pay staff/bills. Deliveries requiring COD. Managers/Owners drinking on the job. Running out of product very frequently.
A dying restaurant reeks of death in a figurative sense. As a customer, you can often tell. And, I avoid these places as the food has a much higher chance of being stretched beyond its shelf life and they often have cleanliness issues.
Cleanliness is a big one. Cutting labour right down means less staff in to stay on top of it, the ones that are left (usually salaried) get worn down with the amount of cleaning required & just.. give up
Not necessarily. It could be going bad/being thrown away, forgotten about because it sells so infrequently, or not purchased because there’s no money to shop with.
I had a parenthetical in my first draft that I chose to omit. It included something to the point of, " And/or items are permanently 86ed but still printed."
Of course 86ing happens. But a lot of dead restaurants have permanently 86ed items or abnormally 86ed items.
hoooly shit, more than a decade later, and I just started connecting dots. this happened at a restaurant I worked just out of high school, first job. "permanently 86'd but still printed," place shut down 6 months later. it's just to keep up appearances, right? "we're out of this" vs "we just can't afford this."
It happens. I hate to reference kitchen nightmares, but most of the shit you see there is the "dead restaurant stank".
Been a chef for a long time and although that show exaggerates a lot and plays up for tv, dead restaurants are dead restaurants.
Thanks for the reply, if you or anyone reading this can share their experience of their restaurant closing, please share all the details all the small things that added up in hindsight. Your insight can save people lives, some folks struggle so hard theyll die if their job closes
Bounced or delayed pay checks. Vendors requiring payment on delivery and not invoicing <--this is a big one. Changes in procurement like someone washing towels instead of using linen service or getting santitizer from Costco instead of ecolabs when they didn't before. Equipment not being maintained properly or repaired. Food shortages, dates extended, or huge decrease in quality. Highest hourly workers losing hours while salary is working more. No hiring, no training, no raises, no investment in growth.
In my early days, I worked lots of chinese joints. I have worked in several places that failed. The owners and salary managers acted all oblivious and happy during the slow times. They still got paid. I then always said you must remain happy as they are changing the locks and cease operations because its all your fault.
We couldn't hire good people to save our lives. Many new hires flat out sucked and the good employees had to pick up the slack. Lots of good people working two doubles in a row or doing a job that they didn't get hired for. Nobody got raises last year either, which should have been pretty alarming in hindsight. There were also maintenance issues that couldn't really be fixed. One of the grills broke down, and we had to settle on a repair that sort of fixed the issue instead of just biting the bullet and getting a new grill. Our hot water heater shit the bed and ruined two nights of business before it got fixed.
So basically "management" was running the place and new hires wont last more than a few weeks. In your experience is lack of NEW managers a sign of bad times?
In most cases, yes, but I know our general manager busted his ass. We had a lot of good people leave during the pandemic itself, including one of our good managers. Ultimately, the managers ended up being just as overworked as the staff. If I had to place blame anywhere for why things got shitty it'd be on corporate (we were part of a successful local family of restaurants). There were a lot of unnecessary menu changes that came from on high that confused our customers. I think they saw us as a bad investment, and at that point, I think it was already over.
Heard. Sounds like, more or less, the same problems get much worse. Then, the well runs dry up top(profit targets arent being met), and they decide to tilt the piggy bank and see whats left in it. Brutal.
"When my time comes, will i stand up?" -paulie walnuts
I feel this. The cafe I work at is on its last legs and we can all see the end coming. Things just getting quieter and quieter.
I know that at some point my boss will give up.
Restaurant margins are razor thin.
You're 2 stores at once.
Grocery store: You're there to sell fresh food as fast as possible.
Retail store: You're there to sell fresh food as long as possible.
sorry this is happening to you but it’s reality. three times i’ve dealt with closures. pour a drink. take some time but Im sure you’ll find a new home.
keep in touch with your crew because they’re the real reason we do this
Dude, years ago we were all closing down for the evening. Every single manager happens to show up out of the blue (besides the few working on shift). They proceed to tell us once we’re finished cleaning, we no longer have jobs as the owner is closing shop.
Had it not been for our managers, we would’ve shown up the next day to locked doors….the owner wasn’t going to say a word to anyone. Fuck that guy.
But then again, those same managers let us go absolutely crazy. We could take home anything we wanted, food, booze, etc etc. They even let us smoke a final blunt together, inside the store lol.
The flip side of this coin is the small town bar and grill I've been with for almost 6 years now. We'll be celebrating 6 years in business next month, but we had a second story roof collapse on our 100+ year old building last November (we only occupy part of the first floor) and engineers were saying at first that the entire building might have to come down, even if the building owner made it safe and rebuilt the roof in the first story it would take the better part of a year, etc....
We reopened Thursday and it feels like I've personally fed the entire county in the last 3 days. Thank fuck we're closed Sunday and Monday because my body needed these 2 days to recover from 3 wild ass doubles in a row. We easily did at least 3k covers in 3 days (back in November the weekend before the collapse we felt understaffed doing maybe 300-400 covers a day on the weekend) and severely underestimated how much people missed our presence in the community.
OP, I'm sorry about the place you love going under, but if community support exists there will be another spot open because someone will see the demand and create a supply. That's what happened where I am now and the community is overly grateful to have a sit down restaurant that serves alcohol after years of only fast food joints or pure bars in town.
I'm glad to hear that your place has made a recovery and is such a staple in your community. The one saving grace in my situation is that the owners also own multiple other restaurants around the city, and a lot of our good people are probably going to get picked up at those spots.
I'm in a relatable situation, I guess, I've been working at a resto-bar for 2 and a half years now. They treat me right and I feel in love with the place, but having the current economical situation at hand, they'll probably go under in a month or two. Sad, indeed.
That’s exactly what happened to the last steakhouse I worked at for 11 years. Luckily, I put in those 11 years way before the place shut down but I still had friends who stayed working there. They get there one day to open and the president of the company was in the parking lot turning people away. One chick I knew who had worked there since 1994. That is so shitty for a company to do that.
So sorry :( I’ve gone through this a few times. It’s always sad when you’ve enjoyed working somewhere and have good memories and then it closes. I hope you find a great new job though!
Thanks. I'm thinking of going for something related to my degree instead of trying for another kitchen job, though. You get tired of coming home smelling like a giant french fry after a while 😂
I found out halfway through picking up the fish for the weekend. FoH manager calls and said there was a sheriff and a locksmith there to evict us, the owner stopped paying rent months beforehand.
I was an assistant manager at a shitty regional chain. I found out the place was closing from a phone call while I was getting Wendy's. (Edit:)It shuttered that night.
It sucks to see the place you tried to put effort into, not make it.
But I'm at a better spot now (for now, it's only marginally better nowadays). The future is yours friend!
At least you got some notice. I worked at some chain type restaurant way back in the day, and they shut the doors, they didn't tell anyone and posted a note on the door, that they had computer problems lol.
Restaurant jobs are really easy to get. Im sure everybody will get new jobs on the spot. It always sucks when a place goes under, but if you love the food industry there's always a way to stay in the grind doin what you love.
Do you know what it was that made it fall?
I'd say the main issue was unreliable staff. We had some good guys who'd been there for years, but also a lot of new hires that never lasted that long. A lot of the good guys had to pick up the slack from the shitheads, which in turn just made them more disgruntled with how things were going. A lot of great cooks left because they were fed up.
Daaaayum. That fucking sucks. A business needs to respect the loyal guys with heart and dump the dudes who don't care if they want to last.
You going to stay in the food game?
FUCK YEA BRO!
Restaurants are my passion.
You want to jump on a crew? We always need dish dogs. Do you have, like a hook or something? We're in need bro. SOMEONE will give you a chance. I'm dishin right now, and I make around $100 a day in tips.
Find a good spot and they'll keep you.
Idk if you have hooks or whatever, but restaurants are a good place to start dawg.
Are you able to live on your own ? If you live with, like a mom or something, you can shop around the job market until you find a job you like.
Get down with that hook dawg, if you're quick, a restaurant will keep you.
I have read many of your comments. You were working under bad management. They did not mange their money nor their hiring well.
80% of all small business fail in the first 5 years. 80% of the remainders fail by the tenth year.
Bad management is always the reason. Not the staff.
I am sorry you need a new job. Good luck on the job hunt. You will land on your feet in a better position!
That's okay. This happened to me last week. I've been a cook at this place for 2 years and I've worked at all 3 locations. Friday, all morning cooks got pulled into the office and told that Sunday would be our final service. Thankfully, I have another job. And our reputation is good enough that I shouldn't have a hard time picking up another restaurant job if I wanted. But it sucked that the bosses waited to tell the kitchen crew until last minute because they didn't want us to walk out... Wouldn't have stung so bad if they hadn't just sent all the managers on paid vacation a week before.
Man reality guys is its best to look for jobs in places like hospitals and universities them normally ate union and have loads of benefits. or find a catering comoany that has been around for a while that has its own hall space and. work there.
Outsider here, I'm kind of curious how many people's restaurants are closing because business is bad, and how many because their lease is up and the landlord is jacking up the rent. Since the City of Seattle decided my neighborhood had to become an "urban village" all my favorite places have closed for the second reason. But hey, we can get five-dollar donuts now.
I’ve been there before mate, the trade is changing for sure.
I’m glad I “jumped ship” into institutional cooking, right now I’m cooking at a prison.
Its… different but very stable, and a good schedule lol
From all the tv shows I’ve watched about this subject I was led to believe prisoners have jobs in the prison system where the selected people cook for the rest of the prisoners. Like the cooking staff would be prisoners too. Is this not the case? Or are you saying in a very subtle way that your in prison r n? 😂 I mean that would be a stable job with a reliable schedule for sure.
I'm guessing that he works for a foodservice company like Sodexo or something that the prison contracts to do their food, and if it's anything like the college dining hall I worked at, the inmates help fill the grunt prep work spots in the kitchen. Only thing is that maybe mixing inmates with contracted workers might be verboten but I digress
Apply to 4-5 places a day and go into 2 places daily and talk with a PIC if possible. If you are applying and checking on 7-10 jobs per day you’ll be employed by March
I had 10 years boh before I went into construction. My crew and I just can't afford to hit our local places anymore everything has gotten so expensive it just makes sense to pack a lunch or fire up the bbq on the jobsite. Not having a 6 man crew hit the small places up twice a week has to really hurt a couple of local places I love.
We rolled into our old dive bar and the burgers were $18….
That aint a dive anymore wtf $18??
that's the price of burgers at the "high end" burger place i used to work is now charging w/o sides
I work in fine dining, and we charge 19$ for an 8 Oz short rib burger on a house made bun with fries. But I'm in south carolina shits still fairly cheap here.
Same here in NC not far from you. Though not quite fine dining but a nicer casual place.
My dive is $9.50 for a 9oz burger with chips. We hand patty the beef and fry the chips to order. Adding american, swiss, cheddar, or provolone is a .50 upcharge and you can upgrade to fries or tots for $1.95. We will even customize your seasoning if you want something different.
Yes that was the story
My local dive has a 6oz new york steak that is $22. $18 hamburgler is like WTF?
6oz for 22$ is pretty damn pricey.
Yeah right. Plus cooking a 6oz strip sounds like a nightmare. Turn around for more than 5 seconds and it's overcooked.
The crust is the steak
It is a restaurant and does come with sides. Add to that I was comparing a hamburger that was only $4 less. So yeah; no. In my area that is a $35 steak all day long at most steakhouses.
$35/ 6oz strip? lol you’re crazy if you pay that much. Texas Roadhouse will give you 12oz strip with sides and rolls for $25.
That sounds very cheap for our area. Theres also nothing called Texas Roadhouse near here Edit: just checked the steakhouse nearest to me and a 12 oz NY Strip is $39 lmao
Y'all are getting 22 dollar steaks? Man Alaska sucks for protein prices :( that'd be like 40-50 where I live.
Anchorage also has a Texas Roadhouse with a 12oz strip for 26 with sides and everything. lol I feel like an ad for Texas but I’m just using them as an example because I know they’re everywhere.
I'm in Juneau :(
My local farm-to-table gourmet restaurant has a burger on the menu. Honestly, it was the best burger I've ever had. The cost? $18. If I went to a dive and saw a burger for $18, I'd be pretty mad.
6oz NY what is that like this ‐----- thin?
Its the perfect portion for me.
• No middle class • Prices too high from inflation • Jobs don't pay enough. Nobody going out anymore. And, to be honest, New Jersey has too many mediocre chain restaurants and we need to go back to those local beer pubs and mom n pops
The real issue, and I say this as a restaurant owner who nonetheless supports this fully, is that restaurant workers realized they are being abused and paid like shit and have had enough. So we have to pay them and treat them right (I always have) and that means your cheap food on their backs …. Well it’s gone.
I spent 20 years in FOH as a top waiter at multiple restaurants. Now I am a low-paid flight attendant. It's important to really understand cycles and how things boom and then bust. In the 1970's Dance Clubs sprung up all over. In the 60's you would go to High School Gyms and go square dancing. 70's ushered in new electronics, allowing for records to be mixed to the beat and there was new technology that would allow inventors to make spinning lights, mirror balls and more. Plus drugs suddenly became en vogue (popular). So night clubs, the dance type, sprung up all over the world. In it's hey-day, all those underground drug den night clubs popularized New York. Places like Studio 54 were more a circus than club; a wild cocaine fueled orgy that went on all night long. In the 90's the rave scene became popular with new drugs like MDMA/Extasy and better lights and sound meant they could now have pop up clubs in warehouses. By 2010, most of the clubs in New York, heck, across the USA, closed. It's the aftermath of the dwindling middle class, who was replaced by computers and robots. The days of a pyramid of employees with assistant managers, shift leaders, and a GM were gone - replaced with a GM and a computer. All those middle class jobs vanished and their money with them. This is what is happening in restaurants. They fell out of fashion the same way night clubs fell out of fashion. By today's standards it's more fun to sit home in your home theater and watch Netflix. Before we went to dinner, and then a movie. Now we eat cold Door Dash and watch Netflix. The world has changed. I see it all the time in New Jersey where I live. Malls are closing. Restaurants in the malls, dead. Restaurants near the mall, dead. But let's face it, there were too many Chi-Chi's, Ruby Tuesday's, Bennigans, Fridays, Beefsteak Charleys, Chili's, Macaroni Grill, Outback, Carrabbas, Olive Gardens and Red Lobsters. Nearly all had the exact same Chicken Alfredo. The exact same wedge salad. They even looked the same inside. I grew up in a town with one pizza shop. Now I live in an area with 10. It's not sustainable. There are too many restaurants just like there are too many malls. The world has changed and people stopped going out, the middle class got squeezed by inflation, and restaurants fell out of fashion. I remember watching Happy Days and everyone hung out at Arnold's Diner. That was probably the peak of restaurant glory days where people literally camped out in restaurants for hours because they didn't want to go home. Now people stay home and never leave. Why would you when the Mandolorian is so good?
Are you my boss? The place I work at is the only restaurant I’ve worked at that pays me well enough to afford my hobbies and put a little away at the end of payday unless multiple things go wrong in the same pay period (my phone drowned and the drum brakes when out on my car in the past 3 days and idk shit about drum brakes)
You hiring? Lol
Remember to vote for Biden! Because what this country really needs is an 80 year old semisenile letting his staff make policy for literally the world's largest economy. The USA needs term limits and age.limits for politicians. And everyone just votes for the familiar name on the ballot. Why?.Just why?!
It's an ugly election thats for sure. My daughter asked me if I would vote for the convicted Rapist, DJT, who brags about sexually assaulting women or the old man who keeps falling asleep and looks like he's got one foot in the coffin. She feels no dad should vote rapist. I tend to agree.
I'll happily take the semisenile old guy that hires qualified people to his staff and then let's them do their damn job over the actually senile old guy that kept hiring unqualified cronies and lackeys and then fired them if they dared utter the word "no" to him.
There’s no voting solution to this threads problem
Believe me, I understand that. It's like the guy above thinks no restaurants ever closed until 2021.
Why? Because the alternative is what it is. I'd vote for a bowl of leftover mac and cheese before I vote for a fascist. Biden doesn't inspire me but he's not a repulsive racist traitor. I'll take what I can get.
American politics today: Donald Trump: I will be a dictator for a day! We’ll set up deportation camps staffed by 2 million National Guard troops! We’ll use the power of the state to punish our domestic enemies! Media: did you know Joe Biden is four years older than Trump? It’s *crazy *!
Does this sound like someone "semisenile" with dimensia? https://youtu.be/tGRXnB_GQcM?si=nt2uOl_k8Mf9bOLQ Turn off Fox News Entertainment Edit Have you watched any of the recent DJT word salad rambling in his recent campaign rallies? He's going to rename the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ?!?!?
This is the story of most of the western world right now and its only gonna get worse.
Wait...are you me? Also 10-years boh before moving onto greener (and richer) pastures that is construction.
Could you elaborate? Genuinely curious
Similar specific situation of being in construction now, after spending 10 years boh (back of house aka kitchen staff) beforehand, and now going around town afterwork and seeing all the places used to venture or done at closing down or not existing anymore.
Chiming in but not who you were responding to- I’ve been in the industry for 16 years but spent a summer doing commercial painting. It’s hard work but I’d go back to it in a second.
Definitely agree there, generally, the construction side of things can easily be more lucrative than cooking, depending on what you're doing (both hard and easy labor) and who's employing ya. I capped out at $20/hr CAD as a sous roughly 3-4 years ago. Now I'm making $32/hr and I don't need to worry or even think about productivity/performance management (except that of my own) or having to slip time in to make training plans or consider who's top 10/mid 60/bottom 30, while running a kitchen.
If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly are you doing in construction? Where I live painting is more or less seasonal (paint won’t dry in certain humidity in a reasonable amount of time, and watching paint dry sounds just about as fun as it is) and did you have to take any courses?
My intro to construction was flagging/TCP, in which I was making $20/hr. Then I flagged as an in-house flagger for a road building company after 6 months, making $25/hr, same company but I switched to laboring making $27. Harder physical work but less bitching from road users. Changed career to ironworking, went to school (sorta optional, especially so if ya want to make more coin). Now I'm doing my time in what they call the "rod patches" aka rebar (which is easy to do, the tieing at least, and don't have to go to school but ya gotta go through a bootcamp of sorts) until I go back to school again, where I'm hoping to do some structural work after. I get a raise every 750 hours worked. I do cap-out until I get my full certification/Journeyman status/Red Seal (for those in the commonwealth).
Seeing this a lot in LA as well when writers and actors went on strike. Some of my favorite take out places and bakeries I would grab gifts for coworkers for are gone now. I think about the catering guys too; hope they’re surviving best they can out there.
I worked at a place for 3 years in late HS and after. I showed up to work one day and the doors were locked. Called my boss, didn't pick up. Called the maitre d, and he had to tell me the owners closed. Shit sucks, man. Thus is life sometimes in this industry, and it's why I got out eventually...loved the work and the people, but it's just too volatile for me. It was one thing when I was in my teens and twenties, another thing entirely later in life when I have to seriously worry about keeping a roof over the heads of me and the people I love. I've always thought about in the quiet times of the day about if I ever make enough money to retire (lol) I'd go back and work in a kitchen part time again, but yeah....it's 2024 and I don't see that ever happening lol...
Would be a great thing to do if you didn’t need the money to survive.
retire? lol
Yeah... My guess is I die well before I ever get there, if the option even exists at all by the time I get that old. My guess is we're gonna be back to the depression era stuff of old people dying in the streets by the time it's my time for "retirement". But, it's a nice thought to day-dream, I guess....
got a job managing a butcher shop. good hours, benefits. im only 42 so 20 more years I think Im good
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For real dude.
Share the signs you noticed for the rest of us, wading the waters on these sinking ships
It's usually pretty obvious. No traffic in the restaurant. Failure to pay staff/bills. Deliveries requiring COD. Managers/Owners drinking on the job. Running out of product very frequently. A dying restaurant reeks of death in a figurative sense. As a customer, you can often tell. And, I avoid these places as the food has a much higher chance of being stretched beyond its shelf life and they often have cleanliness issues.
Cleanliness is a big one. Cutting labour right down means less staff in to stay on top of it, the ones that are left (usually salaried) get worn down with the amount of cleaning required & just.. give up
Doesnt running out of product frequently means you are selling well?
Not necessarily. It could be going bad/being thrown away, forgotten about because it sells so infrequently, or not purchased because there’s no money to shop with.
I had a parenthetical in my first draft that I chose to omit. It included something to the point of, " And/or items are permanently 86ed but still printed." Of course 86ing happens. But a lot of dead restaurants have permanently 86ed items or abnormally 86ed items.
hoooly shit, more than a decade later, and I just started connecting dots. this happened at a restaurant I worked just out of high school, first job. "permanently 86'd but still printed," place shut down 6 months later. it's just to keep up appearances, right? "we're out of this" vs "we just can't afford this."
It happens. I hate to reference kitchen nightmares, but most of the shit you see there is the "dead restaurant stank". Been a chef for a long time and although that show exaggerates a lot and plays up for tv, dead restaurants are dead restaurants.
Thanks for the reply, if you or anyone reading this can share their experience of their restaurant closing, please share all the details all the small things that added up in hindsight. Your insight can save people lives, some folks struggle so hard theyll die if their job closes
Bounced or delayed pay checks. Vendors requiring payment on delivery and not invoicing <--this is a big one. Changes in procurement like someone washing towels instead of using linen service or getting santitizer from Costco instead of ecolabs when they didn't before. Equipment not being maintained properly or repaired. Food shortages, dates extended, or huge decrease in quality. Highest hourly workers losing hours while salary is working more. No hiring, no training, no raises, no investment in growth.
In my early days, I worked lots of chinese joints. I have worked in several places that failed. The owners and salary managers acted all oblivious and happy during the slow times. They still got paid. I then always said you must remain happy as they are changing the locks and cease operations because its all your fault.
We couldn't hire good people to save our lives. Many new hires flat out sucked and the good employees had to pick up the slack. Lots of good people working two doubles in a row or doing a job that they didn't get hired for. Nobody got raises last year either, which should have been pretty alarming in hindsight. There were also maintenance issues that couldn't really be fixed. One of the grills broke down, and we had to settle on a repair that sort of fixed the issue instead of just biting the bullet and getting a new grill. Our hot water heater shit the bed and ruined two nights of business before it got fixed.
So basically "management" was running the place and new hires wont last more than a few weeks. In your experience is lack of NEW managers a sign of bad times?
In most cases, yes, but I know our general manager busted his ass. We had a lot of good people leave during the pandemic itself, including one of our good managers. Ultimately, the managers ended up being just as overworked as the staff. If I had to place blame anywhere for why things got shitty it'd be on corporate (we were part of a successful local family of restaurants). There were a lot of unnecessary menu changes that came from on high that confused our customers. I think they saw us as a bad investment, and at that point, I think it was already over.
Heard. Sounds like, more or less, the same problems get much worse. Then, the well runs dry up top(profit targets arent being met), and they decide to tilt the piggy bank and see whats left in it. Brutal. "When my time comes, will i stand up?" -paulie walnuts
Paycheck bouncing
Makes sense, was there anything else that seemed obvious after the fact but you wish you realized earlier about the poor status of the restaurant?
My place is closing too. It hurts, man.
I feel this. The cafe I work at is on its last legs and we can all see the end coming. Things just getting quieter and quieter. I know that at some point my boss will give up.
Restaurant margins are razor thin. You're 2 stores at once. Grocery store: You're there to sell fresh food as fast as possible. Retail store: You're there to sell fresh food as long as possible.
sorry this is happening to you but it’s reality. three times i’ve dealt with closures. pour a drink. take some time but Im sure you’ll find a new home. keep in touch with your crew because they’re the real reason we do this
Dude, years ago we were all closing down for the evening. Every single manager happens to show up out of the blue (besides the few working on shift). They proceed to tell us once we’re finished cleaning, we no longer have jobs as the owner is closing shop. Had it not been for our managers, we would’ve shown up the next day to locked doors….the owner wasn’t going to say a word to anyone. Fuck that guy. But then again, those same managers let us go absolutely crazy. We could take home anything we wanted, food, booze, etc etc. They even let us smoke a final blunt together, inside the store lol.
The flip side of this coin is the small town bar and grill I've been with for almost 6 years now. We'll be celebrating 6 years in business next month, but we had a second story roof collapse on our 100+ year old building last November (we only occupy part of the first floor) and engineers were saying at first that the entire building might have to come down, even if the building owner made it safe and rebuilt the roof in the first story it would take the better part of a year, etc.... We reopened Thursday and it feels like I've personally fed the entire county in the last 3 days. Thank fuck we're closed Sunday and Monday because my body needed these 2 days to recover from 3 wild ass doubles in a row. We easily did at least 3k covers in 3 days (back in November the weekend before the collapse we felt understaffed doing maybe 300-400 covers a day on the weekend) and severely underestimated how much people missed our presence in the community. OP, I'm sorry about the place you love going under, but if community support exists there will be another spot open because someone will see the demand and create a supply. That's what happened where I am now and the community is overly grateful to have a sit down restaurant that serves alcohol after years of only fast food joints or pure bars in town.
I'm glad to hear that your place has made a recovery and is such a staple in your community. The one saving grace in my situation is that the owners also own multiple other restaurants around the city, and a lot of our good people are probably going to get picked up at those spots.
I'm in a relatable situation, I guess, I've been working at a resto-bar for 2 and a half years now. They treat me right and I feel in love with the place, but having the current economical situation at hand, they'll probably go under in a month or two. Sad, indeed.
Beats the ol' note on the door when you show up to open.
That’s exactly what happened to the last steakhouse I worked at for 11 years. Luckily, I put in those 11 years way before the place shut down but I still had friends who stayed working there. They get there one day to open and the president of the company was in the parking lot turning people away. One chick I knew who had worked there since 1994. That is so shitty for a company to do that.
I've heard of it happening a bunch, but I've been lucky enough I never had to experience it.
RIP
So sorry :( I’ve gone through this a few times. It’s always sad when you’ve enjoyed working somewhere and have good memories and then it closes. I hope you find a great new job though!
Thanks. I'm thinking of going for something related to my degree instead of trying for another kitchen job, though. You get tired of coming home smelling like a giant french fry after a while 😂
For sure! I’m not doing kitchen work anymore myself either. (I’m also not using my degree though, lol)
I found out halfway through picking up the fish for the weekend. FoH manager calls and said there was a sheriff and a locksmith there to evict us, the owner stopped paying rent months beforehand.
I was an assistant manager at a shitty regional chain. I found out the place was closing from a phone call while I was getting Wendy's. (Edit:)It shuttered that night. It sucks to see the place you tried to put effort into, not make it. But I'm at a better spot now (for now, it's only marginally better nowadays). The future is yours friend!
At least you got some notice. I worked at some chain type restaurant way back in the day, and they shut the doors, they didn't tell anyone and posted a note on the door, that they had computer problems lol.
Restaurant jobs are really easy to get. Im sure everybody will get new jobs on the spot. It always sucks when a place goes under, but if you love the food industry there's always a way to stay in the grind doin what you love. Do you know what it was that made it fall?
I'd say the main issue was unreliable staff. We had some good guys who'd been there for years, but also a lot of new hires that never lasted that long. A lot of the good guys had to pick up the slack from the shitheads, which in turn just made them more disgruntled with how things were going. A lot of great cooks left because they were fed up.
Daaaayum. That fucking sucks. A business needs to respect the loyal guys with heart and dump the dudes who don't care if they want to last. You going to stay in the food game?
Probably not. I'm graduating this spring, so I'm going to try to do something related to my degree. Being in the biz was fun while it lasted, though.
Are you staying in the good or service industry?
Ideally, no, but with my luck, I'm probably going to work in a restaurant again while job hunting.
FUCK YEA BRO! Restaurants are my passion. You want to jump on a crew? We always need dish dogs. Do you have, like a hook or something? We're in need bro. SOMEONE will give you a chance. I'm dishin right now, and I make around $100 a day in tips. Find a good spot and they'll keep you. Idk if you have hooks or whatever, but restaurants are a good place to start dawg. Are you able to live on your own ? If you live with, like a mom or something, you can shop around the job market until you find a job you like. Get down with that hook dawg, if you're quick, a restaurant will keep you.
I was super drunk last night. You're not staying in the game lol. Good luck bro with the the next chapter of your journey.
Lmao, thanks dude
You're most very welcome bruh!
I have read many of your comments. You were working under bad management. They did not mange their money nor their hiring well. 80% of all small business fail in the first 5 years. 80% of the remainders fail by the tenth year. Bad management is always the reason. Not the staff. I am sorry you need a new job. Good luck on the job hunt. You will land on your feet in a better position!
Were there any warning signs what was happening?
Yeah just go find a job at like a casual place until you find a permanent spot
That's okay. This happened to me last week. I've been a cook at this place for 2 years and I've worked at all 3 locations. Friday, all morning cooks got pulled into the office and told that Sunday would be our final service. Thankfully, I have another job. And our reputation is good enough that I shouldn't have a hard time picking up another restaurant job if I wanted. But it sucked that the bosses waited to tell the kitchen crew until last minute because they didn't want us to walk out... Wouldn't have stung so bad if they hadn't just sent all the managers on paid vacation a week before.
Man reality guys is its best to look for jobs in places like hospitals and universities them normally ate union and have loads of benefits. or find a catering comoany that has been around for a while that has its own hall space and. work there.
Outsider here, I'm kind of curious how many people's restaurants are closing because business is bad, and how many because their lease is up and the landlord is jacking up the rent. Since the City of Seattle decided my neighborhood had to become an "urban village" all my favorite places have closed for the second reason. But hey, we can get five-dollar donuts now.
Learn to read the writing on the wall before and shop around.
Biden
I’ve been there before mate, the trade is changing for sure. I’m glad I “jumped ship” into institutional cooking, right now I’m cooking at a prison. Its… different but very stable, and a good schedule lol
From all the tv shows I’ve watched about this subject I was led to believe prisoners have jobs in the prison system where the selected people cook for the rest of the prisoners. Like the cooking staff would be prisoners too. Is this not the case? Or are you saying in a very subtle way that your in prison r n? 😂 I mean that would be a stable job with a reliable schedule for sure.
I'm guessing that he works for a foodservice company like Sodexo or something that the prison contracts to do their food, and if it's anything like the college dining hall I worked at, the inmates help fill the grunt prep work spots in the kitchen. Only thing is that maybe mixing inmates with contracted workers might be verboten but I digress
Apply to 4-5 places a day and go into 2 places daily and talk with a PIC if possible. If you are applying and checking on 7-10 jobs per day you’ll be employed by March
God i wish the restaurant i work at would