The son we have staying with us here works in the restaurant industry. That's been his job of choice for many years now. He works in a pizza joint in another state, and has to drive an hour and a half each way to get there and back.
He applied for several places closer to home, but out of all the applications he got only one bite. They're just not hiring around here. I chalk that up to Virginia raising it's minimum wage to 12.50 an hour - they just can't afford to hire staff at those rates. They've had to raise prices to cover the shortfall resulting from wage outlay and increased stocking prices, and can't afford to increase the wage outlay even at that. The one place he could find to work locally capped him off at 15 hours a week due to the wage increase, and he couldn't afford to work for that, so back to Kentucky he went.
Regarding the work ethic, he's now a manager there, and has the same complaints I had when I was a manager in a non-restaurant industry. Kids these day just aren't interested in working for their pay, and seem to think they are owed a paycheck for simply showing up... or even not showing up, as the case often is. With workers like that, service is sub-standard unless you can put the fear of God into them and get them motivated to lay their fucking phones down and get on to doing their damn jobs. Service like that will cost customers, and exacerbate the problems caused by increased wages.
His restaurant does about 1600 to 2000 dollars an evening, and the one across town - same chain, same pricing - only does half or less than that, usually around 600 bucks a night, barely enough to pay the bills and keep the doors open. I expect it will go belly-up before long.
Lately, I've had a craving flung on me for fish and chips. There used to be a fish and chip chain in America called "Arthur Treacher's", so I went to research where the nearest location to me was. Turns out the nearest location is now in the Cleveland-Akron Ohio area, roughly 480 miles away. The chain used to have about 820 locations nation-wide, but no more. Now they are down to 2 original locations, both in the northeast Ohio corridor, and one attempt at revival by another chain trying to sell Arthur Treacher products in addition to their usual fare, somewhere in New Jersey which only recently opened. I've still got the craving, but it's not a "hell yeah, let me drive 480 miles to satisfy it!" craving.
I wonder if Door Dash would air drop an order from Bell's Fish and Chips in England for me? I've kinda got my doubts about that...
Arthur Treacher's went belly-up in the early 80's, so can't really be blamed on this current crisis. It was founded in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio. Dave Thomas, of Wendy's fame, was in on the ground floor of it. By the nid-70's they had 820 or so locations nation-wide. In 1979, "Mrs. Paul's" frozen seafood brand bought out the Arthur Treacher's franchise. During those times, there was unrest in Poland (Solidarnosc movement) which peripherally affected their business. Mrs. Paul's made a disastrous decision - they insisted that Arthur Treacher's source their fish ONLY from Mrs' Paul's and further, insisted that instead of the more expensive Icelandic Cod fillets, Treacher's start using Mrs. Paul's less expensive Alaskan Pollock fillets. Quality went down, and the franchisees rebelled... but too late. Combined with the Polish fishing fleet no longer able to supply the required amounts of fish due to Solidarnosc problems, Treacher's got stuck with the lower quality Alaskan Pollock, and folks stopped buying there.
Within 2 years, the franchise locations had been cut in half, to under 400 joints. The decline continued, right to the current day, with only two locations remaining open and a third experimental outlet recently being opened.
So, in addition to labor woes, at least some restaurants are getting it stuck to them by piss-poor management and supply chain woes, and with the price increases, they are seeing less traffic in part down to lowered service expectations.
Frankly, I'm amazed that any of them can remain open in this day and age.
We've had a lot of mom-and-pop shops close down here during and in the aftermath of covid, adding to their woes. "The Rainbow", which used to be a meeting spot for dinner meetings and drawing clientele from far and wide had to close during the scamdemic, and has never re-opened, for example... and it was a pretty popular place. Quite a number of other mom-and-pop shops locally suffered the same fate, and the ones who are left are struggling mightily to stay afloat because of all the challenges being thrown at them in the modern day.
Before much longer, I fear that if you want someone else to do your cooking, you'll either have to get married, hire a maid, or wait for a local pot-luck to happen, as the restaurants will either all be gone, or the remaining ones so far away that you'd starve driving to them.
.
He applied for several places closer to home, but out of all the applications he got only one bite. They're just not hiring around here. I chalk that up to Virginia raising it's minimum wage to 12.50 an hour - they just can't afford to hire staff at those rates. They've had to raise prices to cover the shortfall resulting from wage outlay and increased stocking prices, and can't afford to increase the wage outlay even at that. The one place he could find to work locally capped him off at 15 hours a week due to the wage increase, and he couldn't afford to work for that, so back to Kentucky he went.
Regarding the work ethic, he's now a manager there, and has the same complaints I had when I was a manager in a non-restaurant industry. Kids these day just aren't interested in working for their pay, and seem to think they are owed a paycheck for simply showing up... or even not showing up, as the case often is. With workers like that, service is sub-standard unless you can put the fear of God into them and get them motivated to lay their fucking phones down and get on to doing their damn jobs. Service like that will cost customers, and exacerbate the problems caused by increased wages.
His restaurant does about 1600 to 2000 dollars an evening, and the one across town - same chain, same pricing - only does half or less than that, usually around 600 bucks a night, barely enough to pay the bills and keep the doors open. I expect it will go belly-up before long.
Lately, I've had a craving flung on me for fish and chips. There used to be a fish and chip chain in America called "Arthur Treacher's", so I went to research where the nearest location to me was. Turns out the nearest location is now in the Cleveland-Akron Ohio area, roughly 480 miles away. The chain used to have about 820 locations nation-wide, but no more. Now they are down to 2 original locations, both in the northeast Ohio corridor, and one attempt at revival by another chain trying to sell Arthur Treacher products in addition to their usual fare, somewhere in New Jersey which only recently opened. I've still got the craving, but it's not a "hell yeah, let me drive 480 miles to satisfy it!" craving.
I wonder if Door Dash would air drop an order from Bell's Fish and Chips in England for me? I've kinda got my doubts about that...
Arthur Treacher's went belly-up in the early 80's, so can't really be blamed on this current crisis. It was founded in 1969 in Columbus, Ohio. Dave Thomas, of Wendy's fame, was in on the ground floor of it. By the nid-70's they had 820 or so locations nation-wide. In 1979, "Mrs. Paul's" frozen seafood brand bought out the Arthur Treacher's franchise. During those times, there was unrest in Poland (Solidarnosc movement) which peripherally affected their business. Mrs. Paul's made a disastrous decision - they insisted that Arthur Treacher's source their fish ONLY from Mrs' Paul's and further, insisted that instead of the more expensive Icelandic Cod fillets, Treacher's start using Mrs. Paul's less expensive Alaskan Pollock fillets. Quality went down, and the franchisees rebelled... but too late. Combined with the Polish fishing fleet no longer able to supply the required amounts of fish due to Solidarnosc problems, Treacher's got stuck with the lower quality Alaskan Pollock, and folks stopped buying there.
Within 2 years, the franchise locations had been cut in half, to under 400 joints. The decline continued, right to the current day, with only two locations remaining open and a third experimental outlet recently being opened.
So, in addition to labor woes, at least some restaurants are getting it stuck to them by piss-poor management and supply chain woes, and with the price increases, they are seeing less traffic in part down to lowered service expectations.
Frankly, I'm amazed that any of them can remain open in this day and age.
We've had a lot of mom-and-pop shops close down here during and in the aftermath of covid, adding to their woes. "The Rainbow", which used to be a meeting spot for dinner meetings and drawing clientele from far and wide had to close during the scamdemic, and has never re-opened, for example... and it was a pretty popular place. Quite a number of other mom-and-pop shops locally suffered the same fate, and the ones who are left are struggling mightily to stay afloat because of all the challenges being thrown at them in the modern day.
Before much longer, I fear that if you want someone else to do your cooking, you'll either have to get married, hire a maid, or wait for a local pot-luck to happen, as the restaurants will either all be gone, or the remaining ones so far away that you'd starve driving to them.
.