Monday, November 12, 2007

Good Kitchen Help in San Francisco

It really pains me that the people who are creating all the food that actually bring customers into a restaurant are not being compensated correctly. Why is it that the front of the house gets all the credit but the back doesn't see it?

I am referencing this article in the SF Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/12/MN1DSNR7D.DTL&tsp=1

I too have worked in the kitchen of a Bay Area restaurant, the now closed Roxanne's in Larkspur. When i was working for her I was making a whopping $12.50 an hour. I would get to the kitchen by 5:00am and stand on my feet until 5:00pm or longer. It made me sick to see how little I got paid for the work I performed. It was this very reason I chose to leave the restaurant industry and get back into the corporate world and please my passion in other ways.

I too was one of those people graduating from the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. At that time I paid $40,000 for a 15 month program. I am still paying that loan off and struggle to do so each month and I am making much more than a chef. Shouldn't the restaurant owner take on some responsibility and provide more salary to the kitchen help? The Golden Gate Restaurant association is suing the city of SF because they are trying to provide access to health care www.healthysanfrancisco.org to the uninsured. But does that make sense to sue when you have $12 per hour kitchen staff working between 8 and 12 hours per shift with no way to get preventative care to help fend off a more serious illness?

Come on people get it right! Yes I understand that waiters have face to face contact with the customer but they are making far more money and less hours. That wealth needs to be shared with the back of the house. If it wasn't for the good food coming out of some of these Bay Area kitchens then the front of the house wouldn't have anyone to service.

It just doesn't seem right. I really hope the Golden Gate Restaurant Association wins their law suit and then all the great chefs leave San Francisco. Good luck to the restaurants. I bet they will then start paying to woo these talented young chefs back.

1 comment:

LaDivaCucina said...

Hi KB, I wasn't able to read the article, the link was invalid for some reason. However, let's take this conversation a step further. Why is it up to DINERS to pay the salary of the wait staff at all? When did this "tipping" thing start?

A friend of mine in the tourism business asked me once: "Why are Australians so cheap when it comes to tipping?" (I've lived in Australia for 10 years) I said, because in Australia, a bartender or waiter actually gets a living wage and the Aussie doesn't feel he should be paying the employee's salary, the employer should.

When I worked in Australia, I was paid by the hour whether I got tipped or not. To get a 10% tip was a rare treat and reserved for those giving only outstanding service. Australia is a country of socialized medicine, so private health insurance is not so much of an issue. Also, you'll find when you sit down at a restaurant in Australia, you don't get free bread, butter, endless water re-fills, tortilla chips, salsa, salad, soup, et al. There are not many busboys either and the waiters usually clear their own tables.

Some waiters and bartenders who make a fortune here will balk at this. But, what about the poor waitress at the corner cafe that works her butt off to make a dollar or two each table? Or the waiter that doesn't get the good section? Or the waiter that works the out side tables on a rainy day? Or how about when I worked as a bartender and my take home pay is contingent upon some drunk?

And...what about the disgusting and exploitive practice of having a "bathroom attendant?" I find that deplorable, usually some poor immigrant sitting in a stinky bathroom, getting a dollar here or there for handing out a towel. They get no wage from the owner and the owner "thinks" he's providing an extra service to his customer when it makes me feel guilty if I don't tip or like extortion if I do.

And my final pet peeve: lack of on the job training. So many interviews I've been on where the proprietor wants you to know everything about wine, every cocktail, know all his food (but you've never tasted it) wants the blood of your first born and for that you get....$5 an hour!!!! That kills me the most!

It's obvious the hospitality industry must change in this country.