Cheftimony Episode 006 – I’m Outta Here
Have a look the next time you’re walking into a restaurant and see if you notice something in the window. In recent days and in three different cities in British Columbia, I’ve seen the same thing over and over again: a sign. That sign says “Cooks Wanted”. I’ve seen that sign in Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast, I’ve seen it in Tofino on the western coast of Vancouver Island and I’ve seen a whole lot of that sign in Vancouver. Restaurants need more cooks.
In some cases, restaurants are having to close for hours and days that they’d rather be open, but they can’t open… because there aren’t enough people to cook the food. Why is that? Cooking must be more popular now than it’s ever been. The attention of the media – traditional and social – is intense and growing. And there’s no shortage of people posting endless photographs of their restaurant experiences. So why is it that not enough people want to cook professionally? At least not for the long term?
I’ve got a few theories, which can be distilled to this: as a career, cooking asks too much and it pays too little. Please understand I’m not saying that the career gives too little. Cooking professionally is immensely rewarding. It’s challenging, creative, social and fun. It’s great. But for more and more people, and for more and more restaurants, the economics don’t make sense. And it’s the economics leading some people to make tough decisions about what’s best for their lives.
The truth is that restaurants, even if they’re lucky enough to be successful, operate on very thin margins. David Chang, a successful chef based in New York and someone I’ve mentioned on the show before, wrote an article in GQ on this point. Here are the opening sentences:
Razor-thin does not even begin to describe just how slender the margins are in the restaurant business, and that’s if you’re one of the fortunate few that don’t go under in the first year. If you’re lucky, small single digits. Like, the smallest single digits. It’s legitimately one of the dumbest businesses you could possibly get into.
Danny Meyer of the Union Square Hospitality Group in New York makes much the same point in an episode of the Freakonomics podcast. So, if Chef Chang and Mr. Meyer are right, and I believe they are, how can restaurants possibly pay their cooks well? If you’re living in a city like, say, New York or Vancouver where the cost of living is through the roof, how long can you survive as a cook, following the passion that led you into a restaurant kitchen in the first place?
My first guest on today’s show is Will Beere, a friend from my days at Burdock & Co. Will was our Sous Chef for much of my time at the restaurant, and it was a privilege to work with him. Will is a talented cook and a thoughtful chef, capable of creating beautiful meals and bringing mathematical rigour to food costing. Will and I spoke about the differences between the reality of cooking professionally and the rosy notions many people bring to the job. Passion for food is quite common, but the drive to prepare it well, every single time, no matter how intense the environment – that’s something different. Will maintained his very high standards over a culinary career spanning 17 years, but recently, he left the business to pursue another passion – auto mechanics. Will and I talk about why he made the switch.
After speaking with Will, I met up with another friend and Burdock alumnus who has left professional cooking behind him, Greg Sugiyama. Greg is a great cook and an all-round interesting person - he’s the guy at Burdock who would regularly talk about literature, philosophy and economics while we were immersed in prep work. And on those mornings I showed up really early to the restaurant, there I’d find Greg, happily working alone with heavy metal blasting through the restaurant’s stereo.
Like many of us in the industry, Greg has felt a frustration that a lot of people don’t understand, or don’t really understand, just how thin restaurant margins are, just how much restaurants are paying for outstanding ingredients to provide to their customers. Ultimately, Greg chose to make a change. Even though he has stepped away from professional culinary work to pursue a career in software, Greg continues to express himself through incredible, naturally-fermented bread. Greg is beyond an enthusiast here, and he’s an inspiration to those of us who are more casual bakers. Follow Greg @stretchandfold to see what he’s up to.
To the interviews now, and thanks for joining me here for Cheftimony.