Whenever we go out for a quality meal at a tony establishment, my wife gets stars in her eyes and wants to work in the restaurant industry. I gently try to remind her that bunions don’t play well with long days spent almost entirely on your feet.
Even many that are owned by people who really have a passion for it go under.
Before he retired, my father was a small-business agent for the university extension, and he advised many people who wanted to open (or buy) a restaurant. He generally tried to advise people against it, exactly because the failure rate was so high, the workload was intense, and first-time restaurant owners so often were unrealistic about their expectations.
One thing that he would note to me is that he saw a number of restaurants that were initially successful…but that, once they got to be successful, and the owners decided that maybe they could step back a tiny bit from spending 16-hour days at the restaurant, there was a strong likelihood that the restaurant would fail (i.e., the non-owner managers would often not be as invested in quality service, patrons would start to have bad experiences, and it’d become a death spiral).
I think it can be a good choice depending on his personality. Food service tends to be very stressful and have late nights. Often it’s easier to fit in if you’re OK with doing drugs, it’s part of the culture. I never did drugs, but usually chefs are into coke - not all of course. Just like all bodybuilders are not on steroids; many are, but certainly not all of them. This doesn’t really apply if you work at a lunch only place either. So, if he’s into partying a trendy restaurant would be better for him, if not a corporate place such as a large hotel chain or corporate catering place would be a better fit.
I used to like working in restaurants sometimes. The passion, the hatred, the yelling, loathing, degrading treatment at the hands of patrons - it could be intoxicating at times. I was never on the line, I was always on the bottom rung of the food service hierarchy, food runner and what not, so opinions are based observation more than experience.
Also, please note, back of house positions tend to be very low paying.
Forgot to mention I only experienced the industry as a waiter for almost ten years in various eateries on the west side of LA in the eighties.
It depends what his other options are. Do his other options have fewer downsides and more upsides? Being interested in doing it is a huge upside to begin with - he’s more likely to stick the course.
One thing to bear in mind is that it’s not an irrevocable decision. He won’t be saddled with huge student loan debts and, if he later decided to retrain at something that required college, he’d be treated as a first-time student. I’m not sure if that’s the same where you live because I’m in the UK, but here it’s virtually impossible to get student loans for a second undergraduate degree.
What I have heard if you buy a restaurant your basically buying yourself a job.
I’ve watched a lot of episodes of “Restaurant Impossible” and the other one and then you look at the follow up and success rates for 2-3 years later and its pretty lousy.
From what I read Chef Robert Irvine keeps in touch with the places he worked with and he often tells people that if they can sell the restaurant for what they put into it, they have done about as good as they can do.
I’m living proof of that.
(Kiz, who’s currently recovering from complications re her second surgery and who’s been told that the business has made her feet more of an utter mess than they already were).
This is true for every kind of small business, not just restaurants. It’s not even particularly true of resturants.
This thread is kinda all over the place.
“Food service” runs the gamut from host to waiter to fry cook to chef to head chef to restaurateur. Plus catering, institutional, corporate, and all the rest.
So which is the OP’s son interested in?
My general advice about small business is that if you love doing a job, the *worst *possible thing to do is start a business doing that job. IOW, if you like baking, don’t open a bakery. Instead work as a baker.
Why? Because the job of a small business owner is to own & run a business. What product the business produces is almost immaterial. If the owner is wasting time making the product he/she is either trapped in a one-person-can’t-grow “business” UFN, or is letting the business die while they play at being a laborer.
Within the ranks of working, not owning, the reality in most industries, not just food service, is that being a line worker is not high paying. Having a financially rewarding career means moving out of doing and into managing. If managing is not his schtick, then he’s stuck at the line worker level. Whether that be in food service, factory work, construction trades, software development, etc.
Some hourly jobs pay better than others. Mine is pretty spiffy, as is being an MD or an attorney. Software developers, engineers, and such do OK. Then there’s the big divide where the middle class used to be. Then there’s all the folks being paid little to bust ass all day every day.
The majority of Americans are in this latter space. As will be the majority of American kids coming into the workforce in the next decade. Picking something the kid is fired up about will help a lot.
It’s also important to note that none of these vocational decisions are irrevocable. The future will have lots of people doing lots of different jobs over their lifetime. If somebody is going for one of the rarified careers, they’d better get it right the first time and be working towards it from an early age. But for the rest of us ordinary schlubs, this isn’t a once per lifetime decision that must be done perfectly or bust.
While a course can give someone a grounding in the skills required for particular type of work, they are run by academic institutions and they usually leave the student still in the dark about the career paths open to them.
While career path you go in, after you have done the course? You are supposed to find out for yourself and the posts hear show it can go in several different careers directions, some are worthwhile, some are dead ends.
My nephew spent a few years as a chef. His mileage varied quite a lot. Some great jobs, some were an unhealthy rut. He has now changed career to teaching English to international students he is certainly out of his rut and seeing something of the world.
Careers? One old timer I met advised me to change careers every ten years. Keeps you sharp and out of a rut. Keeping an open mind, assessing and following good career opportunities when they present themselves and understanding how the world works…They don’t teach you that at college.
Acquiring useful skills is also something you can learn on the job, if you have a decent boss who acts as a mentor, they teach how a business or professional really works better than any college. Sadly, such well-intentioned people are few and far between.:rolleyes:
I have no experience in the food industry. Not even a summer McJob as a kid. Which raises a question for the folks who do have food industry experience.
Several people upthread have mentioned drug/alcohol use/abuse by the workers. My question is how much that’s really different in restaurants versus the folks working construction or in the car repair place or small factory or industrial parts distributorship down the street from the restaurant. IOW, is the substance abuse associated with that SES and attitude set, or that industry?
Certainly most large corporations are fussier about drug testing than are most Mom & Pop businesses. So prohibited drug users would gravitate to small businesses. Beyond that effect, are restaurants specifically really hotbeds of substance abuse? If so, why?
The only “drugs” I ever experienced when I was working in restaurants was tobacco and alcohol. If you didn’t smoke, you were definitely in the minority. Ditto drinking.
This was back in the days where smoking was still allowed in most public spaces and having a separate “no smoking” section was par for the course. Anytime you weren’t on the floor, you took a few drags in the hallway between the dining room and kitchen. If your were working the line and it wasn’t busy, you sneaked out back for a quick one. Absolutely no smoking was allowed in the kitchen at any time.
Alcohol was slightly different in that there was absolutely no drinking during service. After the kitchen closed, however, was a whole different story. Employees were allowed two drinks apiece “on the house”, but that was it. Afterward a group of people would bar-hop and eventually end up closing any of the neighborhood dives (roughly 2AM). Many of us didn’t have cars at the time so we’d end up bumming rides from patrons we already knew or crashing at somebody’s apartment.
I never saw any hard drugs but their presence wouldn’t have surprised me.
Apropos of nothing, if you’d like to read the story of a Man with a Really Stupid Restaurant Dream, I give you an early Christmas gift:
My favourite part is when he got a good newspaper review, business picked up, and he celebrated by taking a week off and closing the restaurant. No, really, and how he writes about it is priceless. You will love this. And hate it.
I actually think that fully 75% of all small business failures are a direct result of the would-be businessman being too insane or clueless to hold a basic job.
So if that’s not you, your odds of success are a lot better than the conventional wisdom and conventional stats would have it. It’s still a monumental amount of work though.
Ohh, wow. A cautionary tale, to be sure.
I’ve not exactly got extensive experience, but the chef I mentioned with said that restaurant chefs, at least in that area, were definitely more prone to drug abuse than other industries. He reckoned it was the combination of needing to everything fast, and the pressure, crazy hours, plus a definite attitude that so long as the food was good, chefs can get a lot of leeway in what’s considered acceptable behaviour. Asshole chefs are a trope for a reason.
The guy who replaced him was quite open to everyone about coming into work high, and the owner just shrugged and said he didn’t care, so long as the guy did the job. At least, until he went over the line and got himself fired, which involved punching a metal counter hard enough to dent it, and screaming obscenities within earshot of customers, repeatedly, for no reason…
Coke, meth, and other stimulant drugs are used in the food/bar industries because they can help fuel the physical energy and alertness needed for long shifts and tough physical labor.
And this is different from the people who build houses or run oil rigs how?
My question isn’t “Do restaurant workers do drugs?” My question is “Do restaurant workers do drugs at a different rate than other low education, low wage, long hours jobs?”
I disagree. High rates of drug and alcohol abuse are common in the food service industry because those jobs require little in the way of education or stability. I did those jobs prior to graduating. I could usually get hired the same day I applied. There isn’t a background check in private businesses, and calls for references may or not be returned. Just listing my experience and saying I didn’t drink much or do drugs was enough to get hired.
At least halve of the people I worked with in restaurants had a drinking problem.
Somewhat related is the Freakanomics podcast related to tipping. I bring it up because, after hearing it, was amazed how little kitchen staff were paid.
The No Tipping Point
I read your link and it was quite eye-opening.
For example wages for front of house keep going up because the cost of food goes up, the wages for back of house stay the same. Wages for waiters can be luck of the draw like for example, a group orders a $100 bottle of wine and the server gets a $20 tip while the next table orders a $20 bottle and the waiter gets $4.
A cook gets paid the same if they serve a table that orders $200 of food or they serve a table that orders $75 worth of food.