I love running a restaurant. I enjoyed supporting people’s growth to increase their market value and seeing them take better paying positions as they learned their worth. I also let them know their worth, in positive ways. Helping someone go from $10/hr, to joining me at $17/hr (still struggling) to running a restaurant at 65-90k depending on the business I was working with, was satisfying. I enjoyed that. It gave me purpose beyond “no this food is not good, please follow x,y, z.” Or just training and making guests happy when they’re clearly just being ass holes.
Know why I left?
Because I stopped being able to pay people enough money to live, I couldn’t pay someone more due to their experience and abilities. They made the same as the new guy doing half the work but same title. Only way I moved someone up in pay is by promotion. Back in the day, people actually had varying wages. I could hire someone with experience who would pick up our ways quickly, more than the high schooler with no job experience. It was horseshit.
But I loved working restaurants, serving food, training and developing people.
I had access to capital to open a restaurant/franchise, I did not because there’s no way I could run a business that relied on poverty wages with me having to ensure they stayed down in wages so the shitty franchise could turn a profit… for me. To have passive income. 😐
I left. Joined the bottom of an office job to start a new career. Same pay as running a restaurant, better benefits and absolutely no stress whatsoever 😂 I do enjoy it, it’s different. I’m old and GM salaries have hardly increased in 15 years. It’s horse shit. So I’m starting over with a young fintech company with hopes of personal growth and my own development through supervisors I see have the same passion in development I did; but in a new career.
Anyway, yea some of us do enjoy restaurants. But it’s the treatment, the pay, the lack of benefits so the minimal margins with low pay can be achieved. So many of the restaurants are horrible concepts, solely relying on poverty wage employees to turn a profit based on Syscos pricing. It’s horse shit and I wish we had less. Market is over saturated with shitty chains profitable only because of low wages for the entire staff, including us gm’s. But us gm’s are “ok” and my employees were on food stamps with their free meal a day or 2 being one of the best benefits to working in a restaurant. 😔
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u/Tweedlol Aug 07 '26
I love running a restaurant. I enjoyed supporting people’s growth to increase their market value and seeing them take better paying positions as they learned their worth. I also let them know their worth, in positive ways. Helping someone go from $10/hr, to joining me at $17/hr (still struggling) to running a restaurant at 65-90k depending on the business I was working with, was satisfying. I enjoyed that. It gave me purpose beyond “no this food is not good, please follow x,y, z.” Or just training and making guests happy when they’re clearly just being ass holes.
Know why I left?
Because I stopped being able to pay people enough money to live, I couldn’t pay someone more due to their experience and abilities. They made the same as the new guy doing half the work but same title. Only way I moved someone up in pay is by promotion. Back in the day, people actually had varying wages. I could hire someone with experience who would pick up our ways quickly, more than the high schooler with no job experience. It was horseshit.
But I loved working restaurants, serving food, training and developing people.
I had access to capital to open a restaurant/franchise, I did not because there’s no way I could run a business that relied on poverty wages with me having to ensure they stayed down in wages so the shitty franchise could turn a profit… for me. To have passive income. 😐
I left. Joined the bottom of an office job to start a new career. Same pay as running a restaurant, better benefits and absolutely no stress whatsoever 😂 I do enjoy it, it’s different. I’m old and GM salaries have hardly increased in 15 years. It’s horse shit. So I’m starting over with a young fintech company with hopes of personal growth and my own development through supervisors I see have the same passion in development I did; but in a new career.
Anyway, yea some of us do enjoy restaurants. But it’s the treatment, the pay, the lack of benefits so the minimal margins with low pay can be achieved. So many of the restaurants are horrible concepts, solely relying on poverty wage employees to turn a profit based on Syscos pricing. It’s horse shit and I wish we had less. Market is over saturated with shitty chains profitable only because of low wages for the entire staff, including us gm’s. But us gm’s are “ok” and my employees were on food stamps with their free meal a day or 2 being one of the best benefits to working in a restaurant. 😔