On hospitality – Vivian Howard in NYT:

‘When René Redzepi announced he would close Noma, his Michelin three-star restaurant/work camp in Copenhagen, food magazines and newspapers treated the inability to run a profitable business as Mr. Redzepi’s problem. That is, a problem that emerges only when you call your kitchen a lab and your cooks will work without pay, just to have your name on their résumé. But extremist fine dining’s challenges are just the amuse-bouche in a multicourse menu of the rotting state of the restaurant business.
A large part of the hospitality industry is ravaged, thanks to the pandemic and its fallout. Even spots that pivoted through the initial crisis were soon suffocated by labor shortages or a mucked-up supply chain.’

(…)
‘I recently closed my flagship restaurant in Kinston, N.C. For more than 15 years, Chef & the Farmer was a star in the farm-to-table sky. Our food exalted my region’s little-known cuisine, and the level of service we provided was an anomaly for miles. Chef & the Farmer wasn’t Noma. Our average check hovered around $60 per person (At Mr. Redzepi’s? It’s $500 a pop). We did not bury, dehydrate or reconcentrate things in our kitchen, but everyone — even the interns — got paid.’

(…)

‘Paper-thin margins make a career in this industry either a distinct choice or a dead end. Restaurateurs depend on alcohol sales to pay a large portion of our staff, and we rely largely on our guests’ tips to pay everyone else. Even when sales couldn’t be better, many independently owned restaurants have to overwork salaried employees and underpay hourly ones. It’s all but impossible to offer meaningful benefits like health insurance or paid leave. That’s perhaps why you so rarely hear a parent say: “You should get into the restaurant business. It looks like a nice life.”

(…)

‘I did it myself, twice. After five years, Chef & the Farmer had grown quite popular. We were about as busy as we could be, but staying open was a balancing act between making money and losing it. We had staff to promote to management but nowhere for them to go, so with a dose of hubris we opened a burger spot called the Boiler Room right across the street. Five more years later, we opened a pizza place more than an hour away.
For us, any culturally appropriate concept would have done as long as it involved less service, labor, square footage — really less of everything than its demanding, insatiable money pit of a big sister. All we needed was volume. The goal was to make enough profit from burgers and pizza to ensure the future of the mother ship, Chef & the Farmer. That’s a lot of investment to try and make money off the original.’

(…)

‘Chefs who have graduated from nights on the line to quiet days in the kitchen will cook meals to stock the restaurant’s small collection of free-standing, strategically located smart fridges. Covid gave us many horrible things, but it also birthed a new and relatively inexpensive way to enjoy food tapped by a chef’s magic wand at home. Next-level take-and-bakes, chef-prepared assemble-and-eats and pasta deliveries, when coupled with an already operating kitchen, will help make us whole.
It may sound far-fetched and parts of it may not work, but our industry needs to do more with less.’

Read the article here.

Thanks to Covid we have ‘a new and relatively inexpensive way to enjoy food tapped by a chef’s magic wand at home.’ Well, in the realm of d-more-with-less, why not bring your own food to the restautant or the chef’s home so he can prepare a decent meal for you?

Also, I’d love to go to a restaurant where the diners are each other's waiters. I'll wait your table if you wait mine. Serve and being served. More for less.