Burnt Hands Perspective
This is a raw and unfiltered look into the state of the restaurant industry as a whole, powered by longtime friends Chef/Owner Antonio Caruana and former bartender turned News Anchor/TV Host Kristen Crowley.
Representing all aspects of the industry from the front to the back of the house we will dig into the juiciest stories and pull from decades of experience in one of the sexiest and most exciting industries in the world...the food and beverage industry.
From international chefs, sommeliers, industry pros, and so much more, this show will cover all of it without a filter. You turn up the volume; we'll turn up the heat.
Support the show here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2388325/support
Burnt Hands Perspective
EP 39: Money Talks: The Hard Truth About Restaurant Pay - Are you worth what you're asking for?
So what should you expect going into the kitchen? Chef Tony and KC get real on what the current pay scale is and how that has changed over the decades in the business. If you are a new chef, line cook, dishwasher...listen up!
The harsh realities of restaurant economics create a ceiling on staff compensation, described as "squeezing water from a rock," with limits on what businesses can reasonably pay. Regional variations, experience levels, position types, and restaurant categories all significantly impact earning potential in the industry. Plus, the current mindset of doing less for more and my mental health means not stressing out ever bullsh!t has created more demand for good talent and opened the door for those that DO want to work.
Here's a quick breakdown of the convo:
• Fast food chains paying $16-18 hourly create recruitment challenges for traditional restaurants
• Line cooks with 4-5 years of experience should expect around $18-20 hourly in mid-market regions
• Front-of-house positions like bartending or serving can yield anywhere from $100 to $1,000+ nightly
• Job descriptions represent only the bare minimum expectations (never do the bare minimum!)
• Raises aren't automatic based on time served but require demonstrating additional value
• Professional certifications (ServSafe, ACF, wine education) significantly increase earning potential
• Current industry conditions create opportunity for ambitious workers, as many expect more for less
Want to make more money in restaurants? Go beyond basic expectations, pursue professional certifications, and make yourself "unobtainable" through education and excellence.
What are you seeing in YOUR area? Please share below so we can continue this conversation and help those coming up in the restaurant industry manage expectations!
Welcome to the show! Burnt Hands Perspective
VIRTUAL TIP JAR: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2388325/support
CONTACT US:
www.burnthandsperspective.com
info@reframeyourbrand.com
IG @Theburnthandsperspective
Thank you to our location sponsor, Luce Secondo, located in Summit Pointe in Chesapeake, VA www.lucesecondo.com
For sponsorship opportunities, don't hesitate to get in touch with us directly.
*The views and opinions on this show are meant for entertainment purposes only. They do not reflect the views of our sponsors. We are not here to babysit your feelings, if you are a true industry pro, you will know that what we say is meant to make you laugh and have a great time. If you don't get that, this is not the podcast for you. You've been warned. Enjoy the ride!
Action.
Speaker 2:Blacked out today. I know we are blacked out.
Speaker 1:It's a blackout, it works. You know why?
Speaker 2:Because we're talking about money today.
Speaker 1:We are talking about money. We're talking about money. We're talking about the darkness. The darkness of the industry, the darkness of people's emotional strain.
Speaker 2:The depths of the money.
Speaker 1:The money, Money, money money.
Speaker 2:Can we play that while this is playing?
Speaker 1:We got to pay for it.
Speaker 2:If someone wants to sponsor the music.
Speaker 1:Please let us know how about.
Speaker 2:Fuck Bitches Get Money, can we play?
Speaker 1:that. I love that too. Sure, Get money. So the topic of today's discussion is the industry in general Pay scales, what people can expect coming into it, what's good, what's bad, how it's changed. So I think, what Is that all of it? Are you cutting me?
Speaker 2:off. No, I'm saying that's the cut. Like money just sucks. Cutting is death. He's trying to cut me off already. I don't know why I'm doing it. I'm just like I don't like it, you don't like it, I don't like it.
Speaker 1:Well, it's a part of life. It's part of life regular, you know, nine to fives. They don't. They're then paying taxes, different things, and they're not making as much. So I think it'll be good for people who want to come into the industry. So we can focus on the kitchen part of it first oh yeah, let's do it what do you want to?
Speaker 1:what do you want to tell the newcomers or the, you know, the wannabes coming up that are expecting the moon when they they get out of school or they graduate or they get their first job?
Speaker 2:and they don't want to do work. It's not even graduating. Yeah, it starts right at high school kids coming in all the way up through the chains, the ranks.
Speaker 2:I think the only ones who understand where it really is are those who've been in the industry long enough, have like a tenure in it, you know, yeah, Because they understand the reality of it, of it. I don't know where or how or why people think that a restaurant can produce so much money that it's going to pay them these outrageous salaries that they think they're going to get. There's only so much, right. We have a cap for everything. Each category has a percentage we have to operate, whether it's wine sales, the bar, the food, the miscellaneous, all that shit it all has its own. It's a rock and it has so much water in it, right? And you can only squeeze so much water out of that rock.
Speaker 2:So when people are coming into this industry and they want all these astronomical figures dishwashers wanting $20 an hour, line cooks with no experience at all wanting $18, $20, $30 an hour it's unrealistic. It's unrealistic. It's unrealistic. You don't know what the fuck you're doing. First of all, let's just start there. Just because you show up at a job doesn't mean you're worth the fucking time. It's not. Not in this industry. Now there's other industries that we're up against the corner. That's why I'm wearing black today.
Speaker 1:You're mourning, are you in mourning?
Speaker 2:Well, I want to say this first I wish I was in a position to pay everybody the absolute maximum. That's what I really wish, because everybody would come to work happy. We'd all be happy, we'd be a big thing. It would be, everybody would. The fruits of the labor would be out there, everything would be great.
Speaker 1:But doors would be closed. Everything would be a very short amount of time there so what's safe to say?
Speaker 2:I mean, look, people want raises for out for not doing more. People want more for not even doing anything. Yeah, people want to walk in the door with these astronomical figures of well, I'm looking to make 70 grand a year. Wait a minute, you're 20. Yeah, you're 20. And where are you making that? Now? What are you comparing this to? I understand, I want to make $170. I want to make $200,000 a year. What the fuck does that mean? Right?
Speaker 1:And it's also regional, so we should say we're in Virginia. So I mean this obviously varies, like New York cost of living, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Like there's always scales on this. Yeah, of course, right, right. So when I was young, I remember getting my first sous chef position and I was so fucking excited. I was offered 38 000 a year. Okay, couldn't have been happier that was, and that was a little.
Speaker 1:That was a lot of money back then, yeah, and I made it.
Speaker 2:I didn't even need to go to executive chef. At this point. I was like fucking loving life, right. I didn't love it after about six months because it just became the same zeros behind it in the same. I just added everything I was broke for before. I just ran right back up to that same level because you're young and immature anyway, so you're never satisfying your money right.
Speaker 2:So, you know, I went to the owner and I said look, I need more money. Um, I would like to have a raise. I've been here doing this for six months. Everything's going good. And he looked at me and says no, that's not even an option, dude, that wasn't part of the agreement. You know, the agreement was you'd work for this. This is what I was raising you up to. This is what I hired you for. That's what the position offers. Yeah, and at the time I didn't understand. I thought he was taking advantage of me, I was being an asshole, so on and so forth, working 60 70 hours a week. That was just what it was, and I was grateful for making that money when I first got it. But when I ran through it, I expected more for nothing. I really didn't do anything more.
Speaker 1:You weren't going above and beyond. I didn't do nothing more, If anything. I learned how to be late. I learned how, yeah, I can admit it now you have to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a lot of people don't admit it. You just learn how to get to work late. You learn when to go out and take a break longer. You learn how to put off tomorrow's prep for today. Those are all the things you learn in the restaurant industry, and the younger you are, the faster you learn that part. It's very rare that someone exceeds so much that you look at them and say, hey, you're worth another five grand a year. Right now no one wants to say that because it's it's hard. You really have to work hard at that. But what do you expect when you walk into a place in this industry? I mean, what do you think? Kids? You have a kid, a child that works here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my daughter works here and so pay scale-wise, yeah, I mean it's on par with everything in the area. But other people have become more competitive because it is harder to get people to stay at work, so they're upping it to, you know, 15, 16 bucks an hour. You know, since it fell through, minimum wage didn't get raised to that. You know it's still minimum wage for most people, obviously. Well, minimum wage when you started with your first job, what was minimum wage then?
Speaker 2:$4. $4, and I think it was $3.87. It moved up to $4.25.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mine was $3.75, $3.75 for my first job and that was what I got paid hourly.
Speaker 2:That was hourly.
Speaker 1:Now, that's kind of server pay.
Speaker 2:You know you're expecting that you didn't have to live on that back then, because back then most kids making that money were kids.
Speaker 1:It was kids. For the most part, it was Because even back then it was very rare.
Speaker 2:So when made minimum wage because it was so low, right, Kids did, of course, but adults still. They made seven, six $7 an hour, which still isn't shit, but it was double minimum wage back then. Yeah, and this is again, this is in the nineties Like.
Speaker 1:this is when you know it started to cost a living, started going up a little bit and then they slowly raised it, but in the restaurant. So I think, as it is, it varies greatly based on type of restaurant, the amount of work you want to put into it. If you're front of house, back of house, I mean, I can say the variations in nightly money that I brought in bartending varied anywhere from working at Hooters where some shifts you only made $100, $200, to nights where most of my average nights were $350 to $550 a night. That was my average of what I was taking home after working. Some nights you made thousands. I mean, it just depended on which type of restaurant. But I always made more money in a better quality clientele versus turn and burn where I was ringing $3,500 and only walking out with $300, $400 because I had to split it with everybody.
Speaker 2:What hurts us now is the fast food world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they have upped hourly quite a bit.
Speaker 2:They're getting $16 to $18 an hour. This is not a joke. These are kids. They're killing it and those places are killing us because they walk in here now saying, well, I can just go work at so-and-so Okay.
Speaker 1:And just stand in one spot.
Speaker 2:You're not wrong, you could. But what you got to realize is these fast food chains majority of them all are using. They're making so much money now, more than they ever did, because now they're getting away with murder. Literally they're killing people with the food they're serving. The food is at the absolute worst, the quality is at the absolute lowest, the process of making the foods they're selling is pretty much in a factory right and they're making hamburger patties for pennies and serving them for more than they have ever sold them for ever. So of course, you can pay a kid $18 an hour now, because it's not even fair what they're doing to the human race, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1:Well, what if people for regular restaurants versus fast food right now? What's the average of people coming in Like as far as starting base, you know, hourly and salary, okay good, good call.
Speaker 2:So look, if you're a line cook and you're coming in with about four or five years experience, you're worth to me about $18, $20 if you can toss things around. That's the first entry level. That's what it can pretty much afford. That's really where you're at. Sorry, that's where you're at and that's a lot. Some people are gonna look at me and say you're crazy.
Speaker 2:I know a lot of people, sorry, paying line cooks $14 to $18 an hour, right, and you cannot survive that way. I get it, but you know that's unfortunately where it's at. You know you come into a restaurant like mine. You're going to start off typically on salary here in my place. But you know, even the hourly people most of my people are $20 an hour and up, right, but I vet them to make sure they're worth that money and they can produce and they have a passion. I'm paying them for a service and they're all working overtime hours. They're all making a decent living and they all raise up and they all move forward when they when, if they're and when they're right. You know, if their eval comes around and they're the same person in the same mud hole that they were when they started and haven't moved themselves up. They're gonna, they're gonna remain there and they go through a few evals, a few sessions, sessions or a few um a year or whatever, and I realized they're not going to. They're holding back the rest of the team, Right, but the average person coming in a dishwasher man if you're, if you're pulling in 14 to $17 an hour, you're doing good here.
Speaker 2:I pay more than that because they're valuable, right? You have two different things you got to look at. When someone hires people who are hiring that are producing money and people who are a cost. Okay, a cook who is good is going to help you produce money. They're going to put the food on the table. That's what people are there to buy. A dishwasher is going to clean the plate. We need it. It needs to be done it's a necessity but what they're doing is not generating money.
Speaker 2:It's costing money to have that service. Almost like linens they look, look good, they're nice, but they just cost money. They cost a lot of money.
Speaker 2:So for them to do their job, they just have to sit there For a dishwasher to do their job. They have to do a lot of work. They're very important, they're necessary, but all in all, the job they're doing isn't bringing money on the table right. It's an expense, so we have to be careful of that. It's easier to give more money to people who are creating more money. A good bar team, a good staff, a sommelier with a high end rate of pay Based on sales, based on sales and you get a percentage of sales.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they are bringing the sales in, so it's easier to pay them based off of what they're doing, off of the court number offended. If you walk into a restaurant, look at, read the room, read your situation, read your, read your rank, right. If you walk in and you're not really, if you're a maintenance person in the building, um, again, that's an expense. We need it, it's necessary, it has to be done, but it could be budgeted and it could be brought to someone else who can do it for cheaper. That's one of those things. What you're doing is not generating money.
Speaker 1:It's not going to generate extra revenue based on those necessities, right? So anybody else that can generate extra revenue can make more money off of that revenue.
Speaker 2:If you're a line cook going to get a job, you need to accept the job where you want to be, but you need to work hard, and I'm using the word line cook.
Speaker 1:But again let's redefine what work hard means, because people think that if you're here, you know 10 hour shift, that's working hard.
Speaker 2:That's what people think, that's what they think yeah. But they're not working shit. They're just here for 10 hours and they think that's my problem. You're getting paid for it. The compensation's there. What you do in that 10 hours is the whole difference of where you're going to be next year. You know what I mean. If you come in, put your coffee down, get your coffee. I'll use that hypothetically.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Put your knife roll down, put your chef coat on, get everything ready, okay, and within 10 minutes you're already working, prepping. You have your checklist. You walk in with a bus tub or something, or your apron, and you fill it with the majority of what you need already. Bring it back, start your prep. Get your list done. Now you're now. You're cocked Now. You're now. You're cooking. Right Now.
Speaker 2:You're the type of person who's working smart, which is also working hard to me, okay, working hard and smarter. The same type of thing you know you can work harder than others physically but smartly is you're going to do it right. Yeah, how many times are you going to do that? When you're done your prep list, what are you doing for the next person? What are you doing to set yourself up for when we close down? What are you doing to make this product better? Anything you can do to help the sous chef or anything else.
Speaker 2:Those are things that are going to get you paid more when you come in and just do your prep because you're so routine. You just want to get it done. You want to go outside and smoke cigarettes. You. You want to go out and talk to your girlfriend on the phone. You got your air pod in because that's more important than what you're doing. You're bitching about the other guy next to you, or you stop cutting mushrooms every time, every fourth mushroom to talk about the game last night. Productivity, productivity. Those are all the things that are going to hold you back. So don't be mad when you don't get your raise because you've been somewhere.
Speaker 2:You're not going to get a raise from me just because you were here. What you do while you're here.
Speaker 1:Or just because of an amount of time, like people expect. Every year they do a raise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been here for a year and I'm still making the same money. No, you've been here for a year and you're still doing the same shit.
Speaker 1:You haven't done anything above and beyond. So let's clarify that your job description is the bare minimum, the bare minimum. I think that's what people need to understand. Your job description is the bare minimum.
Speaker 2:So when you walk into a kitchen and you sit down and you have that interview or your second interview and you finally get on, if you go through a stage or something, everyone's excited and happy yeah, I can't wait, it's going to be great. So much better than my other place. We know the story right. So if you come in, in and you sign the agreement, here we are, I'm going to give you X amount. There's room to move. Trust me, it's all that depends on you. Yes, I love it. Thank you, chef, yes, chef, yes, chef, yes, chef.
Speaker 2:And they come in and they continuously do exactly what we talked about. I don't care if you're doing that for two years. You're doing exactly what we agreed upon. So until you do more than what we agreed upon, I'm not going to give you more than what we agreed upon. So until you do more than what we agreed upon, I'm not going to give you more than what we agreed upon. It's that simple. So don't get so mad every time a chef or an owner or something just you think they're being taken advantage of. Honestly assess what you're doing. Honestly assess, prove to them. Show a log, show a journal, have something. You know what I mean. Have something.
Speaker 1:I think it's like when you talk about every business for employee development should have some type of KPIs in place. So you need key performance indicators and whatever that strategy may be. So if it's for front of house easier because wine sales okay yeah, I, this is. This is what your KPIs are. This is the numbers you need to hit monthly. Anything over that generates this percent, anything over like those are easier to track right. So output and just general, like you know, just going above and beyond, are your kind of kpis in the kitchen right, so it's a little bit different, but and it's harder to track sometimes because you're not seeing everything it's not hard to track if they take incentives.
Speaker 2:So initiative rather. So if, look, I get certified all the time for things. I don't even need them. I've got what I need. I've worked my ass off, but there are programs out there. You can go get certified all the time for things. I don't even need them. I've got what I need. I've worked my ass off, but there are programs out there. You can go get certified in ServeSafe. You can get food manager qualifications. You can get qualified to actually teach. You can go to the ACF and get certified as a sous chef or a kitchen call me. You can get certified as an executive.
Speaker 2:There are certifications upon certifications that you can go get while you're working, and if you bring those to your employer, right, they're going to look at you and see you have motivation. If you stay stagnant all the time and then expect more, you're never going to get it. But in the time you were working for me, if you come to me with three or four different certificates that you went out on your own, you are now valuable to me, true? If you go off somewhere else, you are now going to be my competition. So If you go off somewhere else, you are now going to be my competition, so I'm going to keep you here. Because of your certifications, you know what I mean and that's the type of person that's going to get the money and get the raise, get the education. I went and got my wine level one quarter masters just because I wanted to have what it is.
Speaker 2:I expect my staff to do you wanted an understanding of it, I want to understand it and I want to actually do it too.
Speaker 1:these are things you need to go get even as a server.
Speaker 2:If you get your, you know you go and get your level one or you work in this just to learn more about the product you're selling you will, in turn, sell more and you will generate more sales and you have your desired and you and you have um, there's something about you that people want to have, right, so so that's where it's at. If you want more money in the chef industry or the culinary industry, you need to go again. You need to go get stuff yourself to make yourself almost unobtainable by other people. You need to make yourself. So I have you, I want you, I need you here.
Speaker 2:But if you're just sitting around thinking that because you've been here for a year and a half, you're supposed to get more no, I was supposed to get more. This is a two-way street, man. It's a twoway fucking street. And if you're still slinging the same saute pan with the same sloppy apron and the same dirty shoes, that is not going to get you more. It's only going to get you in. You're here, we have an understanding. Okay, let's do it. That's cool. I'll pay your paycheck, you do my work, and until one of us had enough of each other it's going to continue that.
Speaker 2:But if you want to make more money in this industry, which you absolutely can make yourself seem unobtainable, go, get more. Get more, make yourself valuable. That's what I got to say about that.
Speaker 1:No, I think that's a great point. I think that it's just that generationally, like we've seen, you know, and we don't like to, it's not generalizing, we don't dog on everybody, but as an overall, everybody right now is expecting a lot more money for less because they think they can go do it online. Well then, go start your OnlyFans and do it that way then, because this is not the work that you need to be doing.
Speaker 1:If you want easy money that you don't have to do shit for, go start OnlyFans Chef Edition. I don't know what the hell.
Speaker 2:There are people who do that shit? They cook naked, they do all sorts of OnlyPans. Can we copyright that?
Speaker 1:if it's on the podcast, so, so we said it first, so it's copyright today is yeah, so this is april 2025.
Speaker 2:We have copyrighted only fans so listen, if you want to make more money and you have to do more work, you have to make yourself more valuable. Yeah, everyone out there wants more, more and more and more. The problem is, so many people want more for less that we have a lot more to offer people who go get it. They're just not. You're not going to entice me. I'm going to give you exactly what we agreed upon. If you don't do anything more, you're not getting anything more. If you go get a little bit more right now, you're going to get more because nobody is doing it. You have no competition. Get off your lazy ass and you will be the best because there's no competition out there. Nobody's doing it. Make yourself better today, dot com.
Speaker 1:Dot com. You could stand out more today than you could ever in the past because of that Because people just don't want to do fucking work.
Speaker 2:Everything's still there. The avenues are still wide open.
Speaker 1:Still there.
Speaker 2:Just get off your ass and go get it. That's how you're going to make more money in the chef world. That's it. That's all I got. That's what you got on pay.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's it. Yeah, all right, should we just end it with that?
Speaker 2:Is that the end? That's it, I'm done.
Speaker 1:Okay, he's finished everybody.
Speaker 2:I'm going to put on a white shirt. Work more, work more, get another job.
Speaker 1:Stop squeezing water out of a fucking rock man. Squeeze it, Squeeze it.
Speaker 2:Keep squeezing, nothing's coming out. Replace the rock man, get a wet one. Ciao for now. Ciao.
