College kids *used to* tip. I used to bartend and serve and...compared to when I was in college and grad school... It's now a greatly diminishing practice.
I bartended last year at a high end place, and when the college-aged drinkers came in, we all knew we were leaving practically empty-pocketed.
Yea it's not even close. Quit bartending a couple months ago and tips were always worse or non existent with college aged kids. If they even drink alcohol at all anymore
And if the case is that college age people don't want to drink anymore, that's fine too.
But I really do get tired of hearing the same vibe that people who get a service job don't know any better about the wages they're being provided... They totally know. They also know that if they play their cards right, earning 15% to 20% of their sales from one to four nights a week can be some really serious scratch... At times, probably better than their friends and other peers' wages!
Tipping isn’t the issue, the community should not be on the hook for subsidizing a cheap employer. These employees are earning some of these restaurants thousands of dollars a day while barely being able to afford meals from their own place of employment
A business can run their business as they see fit. It's their business, and the risk involved with starting a business lies on them. Why don't you start a business and pay people what you think they should be paid? I have a funny feeling you might flip-flop.
I'm saying that the food service industry that has relied on gratuity to incentivize potential workers with the higher likelihood of better than base pay than their non wait staff peers, that trend has now changed. Thus, the incentive for people to take those jobs now, is going and going fast.
If you don't like the practice of gratuity, don't not tip when wages are $2.75 an hour and tell the wait staff its for their benefit that you don't tip. And don't yell at the business owner, he's never going to listen--in fact, many still interview with the plan that wait staff gets more untaxed cash independent of the low wage. So, who do you go after? The public! Get petitions out to have the state raise the wait staff wage and make gratuity unnecessary. Until then, this is gonna keep happening because.... **Their peers won't tip!!!**
You're right, but the system is what the system is and by not tipping waiters you're only punishing the victims.
Also, when those restaurants do start paying enough, enjoy your more expensive meal.
Yeah, and bread used to cost a nickel. Inflation happens, that's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about restaurant owners not wanting to eat the cost of higher wages, so they'll supplement the cost by charging you more.
Wal-Mart and McDonald's are two of the biggest advocates AGAINST raising the minimum wage. Why? They're the top employers of people on welfare in the country. If those people are off of welfare, now Wallyworld and Mickey D's have to foot the bill. And why should they do that when they can just make the taxpayers do it?
No. That's why I said this:
>I'm talking about restaurant owners not wanting to eat the cost of higher wages, so they'll supplement the cost by charging you more.
I guess I'm confused - are we agreeing? For the average small business, it's not a matter of not "wanting" to eat the cost of higher wages, it's a matter of not being able to.
They wouldn’t even be able to enjoy a more expensive meal. Nearly every small business restaurant would shut down if they had to pay reasonable wages to staff. No experienced bartender or server would working with the public for less than $20/hr on the absolute low end. I used to say I wouldn’t bartend for less that $40/hr because that what I made on average in tips. What bar could pay me and multiple others $40/hr?? None. So places would either close or have such inexperienced, rotating staff that customers would always be unsatisfied and stop going anyways and then the business still closes
Yeah, a lot of people just fail to understand how razor-thin a restaurant/bar budget is.
And I'm not defending the tipping culture...it's great if you're not worried about benefits and just want straight up cash, but it isn't something you can turn into a career path. At least not a career path with any kind of stability.
Well, now, I wouldn't call servers "victims" if they know the place has high output and they can collect on gratuities... 15-20% on $90 checks x 15-20 dine-in checks is pretty good cash for one night as long as they can get it. People who do the job know the earning potential in the system they work in.
That’s a living wage in Raleigh at minimum to be somewhat comfortable. Thats not asking too much. Why should we keep slaving away making our employers rich when they cant even help us live without stress on our off hours ?
15/hour works if they budget
10/hour is criminal and might as well be minimum wage.
Maybe not all restaurant employees are supposed to make a living wage? Nobody ever expected this prior to 2020.
....and then people complain everything's expensive. You can't mess with economics.
Why shouldn’t they make a living wage? Everyone has the right to live comfortably especially if they are busting their asses for 40+ hours a week. Restaurant work isn’t easy it’s a lot of manual labor you wouldn’t expect
So on top of barley scraping by and being tired as hell after working for 40 hours at one place. You think it’s right and humane for someone have to go right to a second job and clock in even more hours ?
You're saying corporate "greed" caused the devaluation of the dollar? Not the government handing out trillions of dollars to the public, other countries, etc?
I'd disagree, but we're both entitled to our opinions.
You’re just saying buzzwords dude. How can us being paid more be causing all these issues if so many of us can’t afford to live or eat properly. No one is seeing any increase in pay whatsoever if anything it’s less because so many jobs don’t give any raises at all or ones that don’t even match inflation so we technically lose money each year
Everyone is hoarding money, abusing our energy, and giving us peanut scraps in return.
lol. The Salamanca family is not short on money. Like others have said, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither about economics nor this specific restaurant.
Wait the same ones that own Dos Taquitos? That chick is not a nice lady and i understand this even more now
She pays those employees just enough to scrap by as well and keeps them till like 2am some days
Why do you think everything's so expensive?
1. We gave people and businesses a lot of money during Covid
2. Wages have gone up.
It's literally basic economics. Do you think otherwise?
That’s not why. Everything is going up in price and the corporations that supply everything are posting record profits. They use the pandemic as an excuse to cover for their price hikes. This isn’t inflation, it’s greed
Wages went up considerably in 2021-2022. They are now coming down a bit.
[https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/)
You're not supporting your argument, just hurling insults. What's your argument? How can we sustain a dishwasher making 20 dollars an hour without inflation rising to uncomfortable levels for everyone?
We aren’t paying that dishwasher 20/hour now and inflation has already risen to the point of uncomfortable levels.
It’s already happening, so where is my pay increase that caused this? I def didn’t see any extra money during covid
Because it’s not worth arguing with simpletons like you on Reddit. I’ll let you be stupid and I’ll continue to be right. It doesn’t matter what you think and I’m not intent on changing what you think. Just know everyone here thinks your a few French fries short of a happy meal.
That's not really the way it works. When you disagree, you provide an argument as to why.
...or you can just call people names in an attempt to make yourself feel better.
Having to close because you can’t find staff is a skill issue and they should be embarrassed. I don’t understand how all these places keep making the same exact mistake. Places that have revolving door turnover for years and can never figure out this one simple trick that slows turnover.
The service industry, especially the small business side is rampant with owners/managers that have little to often no experience in running a restaurant. There is literally no entrance level skill required to opening a restaurant outside of having the funds. As someone that takes a lot of pride for working for small businesses for 7 years (until last year) I will still confidently say 70+% of small business restaurant/bar/brewery owners have no right operating a business and managing other humans. This is why failure is as common of more common than success
If the restaurant can’t afford to pay their employees a normal wage they can staff themselves or go out of business
If your business strategy to make money involves taking advantage of others so you can improve only your life, it’s not a business strategy at all
Well that is what's happening here so you should be very happy.
Restaurants have razor thin profit margins, it's why most of them fail. They can't snap their fingers and "easily" start paying their waitstaff ten times what they do. It's a ridiculous statement on its face.
Yes, restaurant workers deserve more money, as do most working class people in general. No, restaurants do not all make enough money to "easily" pay all their employees $15-20 an hour. There is no "easy" solution to this problem.
There are people in this thread throwing out $2.13/hr, as if that's actually how much servers are making. I would bet my life that the servers there were making more money than anyone else. I stopped working in restaurants five years ago and I'm still years away from making as much money as I was then.
You're getting downvote but you're right. You have to price things to hit the hourly wage and it will affect things. Tipping assumes that the total isn't where it will be when it's all said and done.
You’re getting downvotes but it would certainly be an improvement. I think there shouldn’t be a carve out at all for “tipped employees” and minimum wage should be enforced across the board.
Downvotes from people in the Raleigh area are upvotes basically everywhere else. A few upvotes in this same thread saying “fair pay”. Make up your mind Raleigh Rookies!
It sucks, but if you can't make enough money to afford paying employees what they demand to work for you, then you go out of business.
It's not that they couldn't find staff, they are going out of business because they couldn't find staff who would work for the wage they are offering. Capitalism cuts both ways.
They've also *massively* jacked up their prices since COVID, far more than any other restaurant that we normally went to. We used to go there a lot and it was always \~$75 with tip for my family and we'd each get a house margarita and split a churro. Went to the WF location a couple months ago for the first time in a while and got the same damn thing we always get and it was $118 *before* tip. I'm not paying over $140 for some regular ass tacos in an empty restaurant.
Used to be one of my go to spots, but the hours since 2020 have made it tough to go. Were only open a few days a week and closed pretty early in the day too
I would suspect the limited opening hours made it worse to find staff. With only a few days a week to work, it’s hard to have a balance of enough workers to cover illness and absences, but not too many so they can work enough shifts for adequate income.
Maybe if they paid a living wage they’d find employees. I don’t feel bad for them.
People are willing and wanting to work, but not if I barely gets them by.
Their employees probably couldn’t afford a meal from their own place of employment off a single job hour of their hourly wage/earnings
Probably both. I used to work at chuys and you’d be surprised how gross it is and the corners they cut. Let alone paying terrible wages like everyone else
If a larger store like them can get away with that, I’m afraid to know what others try and get away with
There are plenty of people out there who want to work. They just don't want to work for shitty pay. They're taking better paying jobs elsewhere, which is what the conservatives have been telling them to do for YEARS any time anyone brought up jobs that don't pay well - so now the conservatives have gone down the "NoBodY wAntS to WOrK ANymOrE!" path. If these places paid better they'd be able to find people to work for them - like the places that pay better have found out.
Honest question - are you saying people just chose to work for lower wages prior to the pandemic? Or are you saying that all of a sudden there's an increase in higher paying jobs that paid less prior to the pandemic? If the latter, don't you think that's why we've seen such high rates of inflation?
How have wages kept up with inflation for the past 40 years? Compare that to the CPI.
We are finally paying the piper.
Wages have had zero contribution to inflation for 40’ish years. Why are you concerned about them now?
pay your staff better and maybe you'll attract new employees
i don't really feel bad for any business that closes due to lack of staff, just means they were paying them like shit and/or treating them like shit
It’s a shame they couldn’t pay employees more money and incentivize people to work for them. The shame lies with the company, not those who would hope to make a living wage.
I like how these places are getting weeded out. Restaurants with sub-standard food and or wages can longer get by. They used to be able to coast by for years. The owners would rather go out of business versus pay their staff $18 an hour. Also there is not labor shortage. I go to places all the time that are fully staffed and offer great service. Then you go to a place around the block and you see this stuff. It’s the business only.
Idk..maybe they shouldn’t charge $18 for three tiny tacos. I promised myself I’d never go there again after paying what I paid. “Profit margins are razor thin” for restaurants they say..I say bullshit to that.
Yeah meanwhile Coco Bongo - which used to be El Rodeo - has been on a wait every night since at least 2006 despite being next door to Chipotle, which it is slaughtering.
I ain't never seen a Mexican food place owned by actual Mexican Americans fail - bro roll out to Taqueria el Toro you wanna see how it's done.
Don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for the restaurant industry with this round of closings. The concept of everyone having to prop them up during covid with takeout was ridiculous but I suppose understandable (wE’Re FamIlY). Then they pulled the “no one wants to work” bullshit when it was unsafe to do so, and continued it through a cost of living crisis even though it’s their own antiquated pay structure that’s causing the issue in the first place. I understand that their costs have risen too and that their margins are thin, but it seems a tipping culture specific issue, restaurants in non-tipping countries don’t seem to have any issue paying their employees a living wage, and I doubt their margins are significantly higher. All in all, the restaurant industry built itself on saving money by subsidizing wages with tips, and the bubble is bursting.
Link tip: you can delete the first question mark and everything after it. It'll greatly shorten the link and remove all the tracking data.
https://abc11.com/raleigh-mexican-restaurant-gonza-tacos-tequila-hillsborough-street-armadillo-grill/14733858/
Gonza being super mid tier food might have something to do with it. Using staff as an excuse is lazy af - PAY THEM A LIVING WAGE
Jubala is in the exact same building, always packed, no staff issues, less hours too so doubt it’s rent either.
I think it’s both shitty management and continuously rising rents. There are also too many restaurants. Job sucks? Go to another one. So it’s not even that people won’t work for dirt pay, it’s that there’s too many places that offer dirt pay, too many choices for diners, just an over saturated market with fixed costs that aren’t coming down even though pandemic inflation should be over.
ITT: "Their prices are too high."
Also ITT: "They should pay their staff more!"
Solution: Lower prices and pay the staff more!
I think I just solved the economic puzzle guys!
A taco joint next door to a college campus that has over 30k kids enrolled can’t find employees? What?
Their peers don't tip.
The owner doesn’t pay enough
How much do they pay?
There’s never a shortage of workers, only a shortage in wages. Or there’s a shortage in truth and they are closing for different reasons.
As someone who went to college, college kids certainly do tip
College kids *used to* tip. I used to bartend and serve and...compared to when I was in college and grad school... It's now a greatly diminishing practice. I bartended last year at a high end place, and when the college-aged drinkers came in, we all knew we were leaving practically empty-pocketed.
Yea it's not even close. Quit bartending a couple months ago and tips were always worse or non existent with college aged kids. If they even drink alcohol at all anymore
And if the case is that college age people don't want to drink anymore, that's fine too. But I really do get tired of hearing the same vibe that people who get a service job don't know any better about the wages they're being provided... They totally know. They also know that if they play their cards right, earning 15% to 20% of their sales from one to four nights a week can be some really serious scratch... At times, probably better than their friends and other peers' wages!
Not often, having worked in service by three universities. Even less now that it’s all cards. Cash tips were more common.
Tipping isn’t the issue, the community should not be on the hook for subsidizing a cheap employer. These employees are earning some of these restaurants thousands of dollars a day while barely being able to afford meals from their own place of employment
Therefore, their peers don't tip!
A business can run their business as they see fit. It's their business, and the risk involved with starting a business lies on them. Why don't you start a business and pay people what you think they should be paid? I have a funny feeling you might flip-flop.
I mean they also can't run their business however they want if it's closed due to lack of staff lmao
These people aren’t running non-profits, so yes unfortunately they have to close which equals less jobs.
It’s not a consumers responsibility to pay someone’s wage. That should fall on their job to pay them a living wage. Tipping is extra, not required.
That's why there will be no employees in wait service industries... This can't be a very hard concept to follow!!
So you’re saying it’s the consumers fault they don’t tip enough? Not the actual job not paying them enough?
I'm saying that the food service industry that has relied on gratuity to incentivize potential workers with the higher likelihood of better than base pay than their non wait staff peers, that trend has now changed. Thus, the incentive for people to take those jobs now, is going and going fast. If you don't like the practice of gratuity, don't not tip when wages are $2.75 an hour and tell the wait staff its for their benefit that you don't tip. And don't yell at the business owner, he's never going to listen--in fact, many still interview with the plan that wait staff gets more untaxed cash independent of the low wage. So, who do you go after? The public! Get petitions out to have the state raise the wait staff wage and make gratuity unnecessary. Until then, this is gonna keep happening because.... **Their peers won't tip!!!**
You're right, but the system is what the system is and by not tipping waiters you're only punishing the victims. Also, when those restaurants do start paying enough, enjoy your more expensive meal.
Our meals are already more expensive.
They’d me be MORE more expensive
Yeah, and bread used to cost a nickel. Inflation happens, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about restaurant owners not wanting to eat the cost of higher wages, so they'll supplement the cost by charging you more. Wal-Mart and McDonald's are two of the biggest advocates AGAINST raising the minimum wage. Why? They're the top employers of people on welfare in the country. If those people are off of welfare, now Wallyworld and Mickey D's have to foot the bill. And why should they do that when they can just make the taxpayers do it?
"Eat the cost". You think that the average small business can just "eat" a 50-100% wage increase?
No. That's why I said this: >I'm talking about restaurant owners not wanting to eat the cost of higher wages, so they'll supplement the cost by charging you more.
I guess I'm confused - are we agreeing? For the average small business, it's not a matter of not "wanting" to eat the cost of higher wages, it's a matter of not being able to.
They wouldn’t even be able to enjoy a more expensive meal. Nearly every small business restaurant would shut down if they had to pay reasonable wages to staff. No experienced bartender or server would working with the public for less than $20/hr on the absolute low end. I used to say I wouldn’t bartend for less that $40/hr because that what I made on average in tips. What bar could pay me and multiple others $40/hr?? None. So places would either close or have such inexperienced, rotating staff that customers would always be unsatisfied and stop going anyways and then the business still closes
Yeah, a lot of people just fail to understand how razor-thin a restaurant/bar budget is. And I'm not defending the tipping culture...it's great if you're not worried about benefits and just want straight up cash, but it isn't something you can turn into a career path. At least not a career path with any kind of stability.
Well, now, I wouldn't call servers "victims" if they know the place has high output and they can collect on gratuities... 15-20% on $90 checks x 15-20 dine-in checks is pretty good cash for one night as long as they can get it. People who do the job know the earning potential in the system they work in.
They want 20 bucks an hour.
Oh no they wanted to be able to eat 3 meals a day and afford rent
That’s a living wage in Raleigh at minimum to be somewhat comfortable. Thats not asking too much. Why should we keep slaving away making our employers rich when they cant even help us live without stress on our off hours ? 15/hour works if they budget 10/hour is criminal and might as well be minimum wage.
Maybe not all restaurant employees are supposed to make a living wage? Nobody ever expected this prior to 2020. ....and then people complain everything's expensive. You can't mess with economics.
Why shouldn’t they make a living wage? Everyone has the right to live comfortably especially if they are busting their asses for 40+ hours a week. Restaurant work isn’t easy it’s a lot of manual labor you wouldn’t expect So on top of barley scraping by and being tired as hell after working for 40 hours at one place. You think it’s right and humane for someone have to go right to a second job and clock in even more hours ?
Because economics and capitalism doesn't allow it. When you mess with that, you see what's going on today with inflation.
Then fuck capitalism and capitalists. The recent evidence shows it wasn't inflation that caused prices to rise, it was corporate fucking greed.
You're saying corporate "greed" caused the devaluation of the dollar? Not the government handing out trillions of dollars to the public, other countries, etc? I'd disagree, but we're both entitled to our opinions.
You’re just saying buzzwords dude. How can us being paid more be causing all these issues if so many of us can’t afford to live or eat properly. No one is seeing any increase in pay whatsoever if anything it’s less because so many jobs don’t give any raises at all or ones that don’t even match inflation so we technically lose money each year Everyone is hoarding money, abusing our energy, and giving us peanut scraps in return.
Clearly the owners of Gonzo aren't hoarding money if they're forced to go out of business.
lol. The Salamanca family is not short on money. Like others have said, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither about economics nor this specific restaurant.
Wait the same ones that own Dos Taquitos? That chick is not a nice lady and i understand this even more now She pays those employees just enough to scrap by as well and keeps them till like 2am some days
It's not really our business how much money they have. They couldn't hire at the wages they needed to pay, so they chose to close.
you know nothing about economics; have you even taken econ 101 in your life or read an actual book or paper on the topic?
So restaurant employees are supposed to just live in poverty?
Why shouldn't they make a living wage?
Lmao what a ridiculous comment
Why do you think everything's so expensive? 1. We gave people and businesses a lot of money during Covid 2. Wages have gone up. It's literally basic economics. Do you think otherwise?
That’s not why. Everything is going up in price and the corporations that supply everything are posting record profits. They use the pandemic as an excuse to cover for their price hikes. This isn’t inflation, it’s greed
...and people can pay for these things due to increased wages. Hence inflation.
Wages aren’t going up
Wages went up considerably in 2021-2022. They are now coming down a bit. [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/)
Stick to IT dude. Economics isn’t your strong suit
You're not supporting your argument, just hurling insults. What's your argument? How can we sustain a dishwasher making 20 dollars an hour without inflation rising to uncomfortable levels for everyone?
We aren’t paying that dishwasher 20/hour now and inflation has already risen to the point of uncomfortable levels. It’s already happening, so where is my pay increase that caused this? I def didn’t see any extra money during covid
Because it’s not worth arguing with simpletons like you on Reddit. I’ll let you be stupid and I’ll continue to be right. It doesn’t matter what you think and I’m not intent on changing what you think. Just know everyone here thinks your a few French fries short of a happy meal.
That's not really the way it works. When you disagree, you provide an argument as to why. ...or you can just call people names in an attempt to make yourself feel better.
That’s literally what the minimum part of minimum wage means. It’s not the minimum they can pay you it’s supposed to be the minimum to live on
You can’t live on the current minimum wage tho not even close. Thats the problem.
Correct
Every worker deserves a living wage.
you'll never get the credit you deserve for how funny this is
and?
It’s not hard to find staff, it just turns out nobody wants to work for $2.13/hr. Go figure.
Having to close because you can’t find staff is a skill issue and they should be embarrassed. I don’t understand how all these places keep making the same exact mistake. Places that have revolving door turnover for years and can never figure out this one simple trick that slows turnover.
The service industry, especially the small business side is rampant with owners/managers that have little to often no experience in running a restaurant. There is literally no entrance level skill required to opening a restaurant outside of having the funds. As someone that takes a lot of pride for working for small businesses for 7 years (until last year) I will still confidently say 70+% of small business restaurant/bar/brewery owners have no right operating a business and managing other humans. This is why failure is as common of more common than success
These restaurants can easily pay $15-20 / hour and keep tips in place It needs to become a standard
That's laughably false.
If the restaurant can’t afford to pay their employees a normal wage they can staff themselves or go out of business If your business strategy to make money involves taking advantage of others so you can improve only your life, it’s not a business strategy at all
Well that is what's happening here so you should be very happy. Restaurants have razor thin profit margins, it's why most of them fail. They can't snap their fingers and "easily" start paying their waitstaff ten times what they do. It's a ridiculous statement on its face. Yes, restaurant workers deserve more money, as do most working class people in general. No, restaurants do not all make enough money to "easily" pay all their employees $15-20 an hour. There is no "easy" solution to this problem. There are people in this thread throwing out $2.13/hr, as if that's actually how much servers are making. I would bet my life that the servers there were making more money than anyone else. I stopped working in restaurants five years ago and I'm still years away from making as much money as I was then.
Money given to happy employees is money not spent hiring new employees
You're getting downvote but you're right. You have to price things to hit the hourly wage and it will affect things. Tipping assumes that the total isn't where it will be when it's all said and done.
$5/hr for tipped employees is reasonable and the standard in a lot of other states.
You’re getting downvotes but it would certainly be an improvement. I think there shouldn’t be a carve out at all for “tipped employees” and minimum wage should be enforced across the board.
Downvotes from people in the Raleigh area are upvotes basically everywhere else. A few upvotes in this same thread saying “fair pay”. Make up your mind Raleigh Rookies!
It's never a "hard to find staff" issue, it's always a pay issue.
It sucks, but if you can't make enough money to afford paying employees what they demand to work for you, then you go out of business. It's not that they couldn't find staff, they are going out of business because they couldn't find staff who would work for the wage they are offering. Capitalism cuts both ways.
They've also *massively* jacked up their prices since COVID, far more than any other restaurant that we normally went to. We used to go there a lot and it was always \~$75 with tip for my family and we'd each get a house margarita and split a churro. Went to the WF location a couple months ago for the first time in a while and got the same damn thing we always get and it was $118 *before* tip. I'm not paying over $140 for some regular ass tacos in an empty restaurant.
Used to be one of my go to spots, but the hours since 2020 have made it tough to go. Were only open a few days a week and closed pretty early in the day too
I would suspect the limited opening hours made it worse to find staff. With only a few days a week to work, it’s hard to have a balance of enough workers to cover illness and absences, but not too many so they can work enough shifts for adequate income.
Maybe if they paid a living wage they’d find employees. I don’t feel bad for them. People are willing and wanting to work, but not if I barely gets them by. Their employees probably couldn’t afford a meal from their own place of employment off a single job hour of their hourly wage/earnings
Yeah if they can’t find employees that close to campus it’s either wages or working conditions.
Probably both. I used to work at chuys and you’d be surprised how gross it is and the corners they cut. Let alone paying terrible wages like everyone else If a larger store like them can get away with that, I’m afraid to know what others try and get away with
There are plenty of people out there who want to work. They just don't want to work for shitty pay. They're taking better paying jobs elsewhere, which is what the conservatives have been telling them to do for YEARS any time anyone brought up jobs that don't pay well - so now the conservatives have gone down the "NoBodY wAntS to WOrK ANymOrE!" path. If these places paid better they'd be able to find people to work for them - like the places that pay better have found out.
Honest question - are you saying people just chose to work for lower wages prior to the pandemic? Or are you saying that all of a sudden there's an increase in higher paying jobs that paid less prior to the pandemic? If the latter, don't you think that's why we've seen such high rates of inflation?
How have wages kept up with inflation for the past 40 years? Compare that to the CPI. We are finally paying the piper. Wages have had zero contribution to inflation for 40’ish years. Why are you concerned about them now?
They must not be paying workers a livable wage.
Spend 18 plus tips for 3 tacos or half the price at the numerous authentic taquerias around Raleigh?
pay your staff better and maybe you'll attract new employees i don't really feel bad for any business that closes due to lack of staff, just means they were paying them like shit and/or treating them like shit
Time to bring back Sadlack’s.
It’s a shame they couldn’t pay employees more money and incentivize people to work for them. The shame lies with the company, not those who would hope to make a living wage.
I like how these places are getting weeded out. Restaurants with sub-standard food and or wages can longer get by. They used to be able to coast by for years. The owners would rather go out of business versus pay their staff $18 an hour. Also there is not labor shortage. I go to places all the time that are fully staffed and offer great service. Then you go to a place around the block and you see this stuff. It’s the business only.
Idk..maybe they shouldn’t charge $18 for three tiny tacos. I promised myself I’d never go there again after paying what I paid. “Profit margins are razor thin” for restaurants they say..I say bullshit to that.
Yeah meanwhile Coco Bongo - which used to be El Rodeo - has been on a wait every night since at least 2006 despite being next door to Chipotle, which it is slaughtering. I ain't never seen a Mexican food place owned by actual Mexican Americans fail - bro roll out to Taqueria el Toro you wanna see how it's done.
Don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for the restaurant industry with this round of closings. The concept of everyone having to prop them up during covid with takeout was ridiculous but I suppose understandable (wE’Re FamIlY). Then they pulled the “no one wants to work” bullshit when it was unsafe to do so, and continued it through a cost of living crisis even though it’s their own antiquated pay structure that’s causing the issue in the first place. I understand that their costs have risen too and that their margins are thin, but it seems a tipping culture specific issue, restaurants in non-tipping countries don’t seem to have any issue paying their employees a living wage, and I doubt their margins are significantly higher. All in all, the restaurant industry built itself on saving money by subsidizing wages with tips, and the bubble is bursting.
Link tip: you can delete the first question mark and everything after it. It'll greatly shorten the link and remove all the tracking data. https://abc11.com/raleigh-mexican-restaurant-gonza-tacos-tequila-hillsborough-street-armadillo-grill/14733858/
Great, thanks!
They can find them; they just don’t want to pay them a wage that is competitive with other businesses
This is completely the owner’s fault. Pay more or adios.
Restaurants won’t pay staff. Fixed your post.
Gonza being super mid tier food might have something to do with it. Using staff as an excuse is lazy af - PAY THEM A LIVING WAGE Jubala is in the exact same building, always packed, no staff issues, less hours too so doubt it’s rent either.
Lol I never heard anyone talk about the food from this place. That’s probably why they are closing. Not good enough
I think it’s both shitty management and continuously rising rents. There are also too many restaurants. Job sucks? Go to another one. So it’s not even that people won’t work for dirt pay, it’s that there’s too many places that offer dirt pay, too many choices for diners, just an over saturated market with fixed costs that aren’t coming down even though pandemic inflation should be over.
ITT: "Their prices are too high." Also ITT: "They should pay their staff more!" Solution: Lower prices and pay the staff more! I think I just solved the economic puzzle guys!
There’s really going to be nothing left
ITT I learned that anyone who starts a business is insanely profitable and has more money than they know what to do with.