Friendly reminder that the “restaurants have razor thin margins!” is a lie. Their margins might seem slim, but doing huge amounts of sales means big money.
You’ve got to be wildly popular for that to work though. I’ve run about two dozen restaurants. The ones that are always packed make good margins. Many are razor thin.
The risk in running a restaurant is exactly this. Sometimes good businesses just can’t support themselves. Their employees need to earn enough to live and the owners need to earn enough to keep the business afloat. You can’t have the latter without the former so if your costs are too high, you have to close. No one deserves to run a business and the food world is full of the absolute best ideas and people that totally bomb.
This line always bothers me. When I worked broiler I realized that a NY strip steak retailed at 23 bucks. I made 14/hr and would make dozens of steaks an hour on average with most happening Friday night. The NY strip at cost was just under 7 bucks. It took me less then one hour on that busy shift to pay my entire weekly salary with the revenue I generated in steaks alone, but almost 2 hours of work to afford one for myself. Steamed vegetables, soda, pasta, anything with minimal prep had even better margins.
That particular store went under but not before the owner literally bought three yachts. THREE. That experience alone would radicalize any reasonable person
Friendly reminder that the “restaurants have razor thin margins!” is a lie. Their margins might seem slim, but doing huge amounts of sales means big money.
You’ve got to be wildly popular for that to work though. I’ve run about two dozen restaurants. The ones that are always packed make good margins. Many are razor thin.
The risk in running a restaurant is exactly this. Sometimes good businesses just can’t support themselves. Their employees need to earn enough to live and the owners need to earn enough to keep the business afloat. You can’t have the latter without the former so if your costs are too high, you have to close. No one deserves to run a business and the food world is full of the absolute best ideas and people that totally bomb.
This line always bothers me. When I worked broiler I realized that a NY strip steak retailed at 23 bucks. I made 14/hr and would make dozens of steaks an hour on average with most happening Friday night. The NY strip at cost was just under 7 bucks. It took me less then one hour on that busy shift to pay my entire weekly salary with the revenue I generated in steaks alone, but almost 2 hours of work to afford one for myself. Steamed vegetables, soda, pasta, anything with minimal prep had even better margins.
That particular store went under but not before the owner literally bought three yachts. THREE. That experience alone would radicalize any reasonable person