LEADERSHIP: 6 Things Restaurant Managers Can Do to Help the Kitchen
Being a line cook comes with a lot of stress and, in all likelihood, you’re causing quite a bit of that strain. It’s not your fault, though. Your job is to maximize check sizes and turn tables as quickly as possible. One of the best ways to do that is asking those superhuman feats from people armed only with tongs, spatulas, and very, very sharp knives. There are, however, several ways you can keep those knife-wielders happy and your restaurant humming.
DID YOU KNOWS…
From Dusk to Udon
Ever have trouble falling asleep? Well, Japan thinks it has the answer with its noodle blanket. It’s not made of actual noodles, sadly. The “Udon for Sleeping Blanket” is a blanket made to be pulled apart and embraced in ways that helps the individual sleeper find their perfect sleeping position. But you do look like you’re sleeping on a bed of Udon.
US Degrees That Pay
Student loans are the pits, so if you’re gonna get stuck with 100K+ in a metaphorical ball & chain, you might as well have it work for you. PayScale has released its annual College Salary Report, which analyzed data to determine the best institutions for expected salary along with the most lucrative majors. Focusing on the latter, petroleum engineering is once again America's best bachelor degree by salary with early career median pay (alumni with 0-5 years of experience) amounting to $94,500. When alumni are much further into their career a decade down the road, the median salary would increase to $176,900.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
The cruel history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade begins much earlier than the first arrival in Virginia and goes on much longer – an astonishing 350 years. In fact, many slaves lived in the English colonies in North America before that date. They came to the present-day U.S. via Spanish and Portuguese colonies, where slaves arrived as early as 1501, or were transferred as bounty from Spanish or Portuguese ships.
HE DID WHAT?
Why it matters to you: Protecting your staff from harassment is a serious management responsibility.
When searching for stories to discuss on The Daily Rail we see some repugnant stuff, but the behavior of a Florida man (but of course he's a "Florida Man") is definitely hall of shame worthy. This nut job not only stiffed the server on the tip for his meal, but also felt compelled to write a comment on the guest check explaining that "if he wasn't gay" was his reason. When the restaurant manager walked outside to confront him, he tore up the check and then pulled at the managers collar and forced the remains of the check he just ripped up down her shirt.
Ok, so there's lots to unpack here. To start, clearly from his picture he looks intoxicated. That isn't an excuse, but it does explain how empowered he felt to disrespect everyone in that restaurant. Whether his server was gay or not clearly should not be relevant to his tipping decisions, but we just don't know what the beliefs of our guests are and that can be scary. In the end, it's your job as a manager to address this kind of callous and terrible behavior. Unfortunately for the manager that was hazardous duty, but that's our role, even when it's unpleasant.
[Source: Yahoo Lifestyle]
IT COULD BE WORSE
Why it matters to you: It turns out a rising minimum wage isn't hurting restaurants in NYC.
Over the past five years New York City has seen an almost doubling of the required minimum wage paid to hourly employees. Our industry feared that these increases would make it impossible for restaurants to keep their prices level and pay for their cost of labor. Fortunately, those fears have not been realized. In fact, a study conducted by the liberal-minded New School Center for New York City Affairs and the National Employment Law Project suggests that restaurant profits were more negatively impacted by the delivery fees charged by third-party services and skyrocketing occupancy costs than they were by the mandated pay increases. "In some cases, restaurants have been hit with steep rent hikes of 20%-50%," it states.
What we know is that increase minimum wage hasn’t lead to $20 Big Macs and wide restaurant closures. Now, New York is an exceptional market, but its various boroughs are more diverse. These changes in wages have not adversely affected Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx but has helped the lives of hourly workers in those neighborhoods. This isn't to say that rising wages aren't a dangerous circumstance; thus far some hours have been reduced, but more people have been hired in the last five years in NYC. Depending on your market, you won't need to worry about the Fight for $15 quite yet, but the good news i, it's likely to have less impact than our industry fears would predict.
[Source: Restaurant Business Online]
