• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Restaurants facing a lack of cooks

Fenixgoon

Lifer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...reaking-out-about/?postshare=8701439528674263

One of the clearest obstacles to hiring a good cook, let alone someone willing to work the kitchen these days, is that living in this country’s biggest cities is increasingly unaffordable. In New York, for instance, where a cook can expect to make between $10 and $12 per hour, and the median rent runs upward of $1,200 a month, living in the city is a near impossibility. As a result, people end up living far from the restaurants where they work. Add to that how late dinner shifts can end, causing people to arrive home well into the night.

“Improving economy, declining immigration and higher rents — those are the three main things creating the shortage of cooks,” Cowen said.


Who would have guessed that paying $10 an hour to work in a hot, cramped, stressful environment in some of the most expensive cities in the United States is considered undesirable?

And god forbid restaurants decide to pay cooks more. Can't have that.
 
Ahh the logical liberal solution - more illegals. Story uses some outdated immigration numbers.

And theres no problem here. Lack of cooks @ 10 dollars an hour, well raise the salary, cant make it paying a cook more, then its closing time.
 
^ right. my point was, nowhere in the article was raising the wage of the cooks mentioned. it just said the pay isn't there and there aren't as many immigrants to cook anymore.

that's what i found hilarious/sad/disturbing.
 
Maybe, you know, trying paying more money? Another one of those jobs that americans won't do for bullshit money.
 
Ahh the logical liberal solution - more illegals. Story uses some outdated immigration numbers.

And theres no problem here. Lack of cooks @ 10 dollars an hour, well raise the salary, cant make it paying a cook more, then its closing time.


this dude just because liberals high demand for cooks. Your brain is fucked.
 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...reaking-out-about/?postshare=8701439528674263

Who would have guessed that paying $10 an hour to work in a hot, cramped, stressful environment in some of the most expensive cities in the United States is considered undesirable?

And god forbid restaurants decide to pay cooks more. Can't have that.

Wasn't there just a recent thread about "Fast Food" workers get $15/hr min. wage?

But a cook only gets $10-12? You gotta be kidding me.
 
There is a shortage here in Chicago but most people are attributing it to the short attention span of millennials entering the culinary workforce, a raging food scene that has tons of new places opening, and an overall uptick across the board of the hospitality industry. Even world renowned restaurants are having trouble hiring and holding onto good cooks.
 
culinary institute of america does this. Those are top programs though.

Culinary school might give you a better chance to get in with a fine dining establishment without any experience. The other path is working your way up. But really, culinary school is not the major determinant. I have a friend who's a chef. She didn't go to culinary school but had done catering for a few years, then applied to a high end restaurant. She said they asked her a couple questions about catering, then moved on to the main part of the interview, which was "go into our kitchen and cook us 2 dishes that you created yourself, then bring them back here." They liked her food, hired her as head chef, and put one of the two dishes on their menu.

It's kind of like with software engineering these days. A degree helps a little, but what they really want to know is, can you code.
 
Any time a company or industry claims there is a shortage of employees for job X, it really means there is a shortage of employees for job X willing work for what those companies are willing to pay.
 
Depends on why they aren't paying enough. If they aren't paying enough because they can't afford to, then it sounds like there are too many restaurants. Some may close down if they aren't doing well enough. This will reduce the demand for cooks but also permit surviving restaurants to pay more, as they absorb the business of the ones which closed. I don't think the market can solve any and all problems, but this sounds an awful lot like a problem the market can sort out on its own.
 
Depends on why they aren't paying enough. If they aren't paying enough because they can't afford to, then it sounds like there are too many restaurants. Some may close down if they aren't doing well enough. This will reduce the demand for cooks but also permit surviving restaurants to pay more, as they absorb the business of the ones which closed. I don't think the market can solve any and all problems, but this sounds an awful lot like a problem the market can sort out on its own.

You pretty much nailed it in terms of viewing the problem from a angle that is not locked into a false black and white dichotomy of wedge issues. In the end this problem will sort itself out if the marketplace (the interaction of consumers, providers, producers, etc who are responding to supply and demand) is allowed to work so that it can determine which businesses can survive and thrive while pruning the inefficient, redundant dead branches.
 
Restaurants are hard enough to run to begin with, my wife has a few people in here family have ran a few good ones in NY for a long time now.

My Grandparents moved to the Tampa Bay area in 1969, he wasn't a cook but he was an Artist and painted murals and decorated many things in the area, we used to walk into a lot of places when I was growing up even back then and he was treated almost like royalty. He knew the owners and would get us sited immediately, it was almost like something out of Goodfellas.

My Grandmother always commented over the years how so any places would go in and out of business so often in this area, you'd see one place named something else a couple months later as everyone thought they could make one run in a high tourist area and they would fail.

There were many good places here that aren't around anymore.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top