Video Blog: Where Can Restaurants Best Control Cost or Cut Cost?

Video Blog

This video is part of a series of videos where I, Jonathan Munsell, answer questions and offer hard hitting comments that you can use to improve your restaurant immediately!

If you are seeing this you probably don’t need to go to RestaurantGoldMine.com to get hooked up with me. If you are not already a member of Restaurant Success System or Restaurant Success Monthly a good place to start is by grabbing some FREE information by clicking HOME and then click on the Free Kit Image to the right.

Where Can Restaurants Best Control Cost or Cut Cost?

Hey it’s Jonathan Munsell with Restaurant Success Systems.  I wanted to talk about a question that I get asked fairly often and it’s something that we all need to be conscious of and it has to do with cutting costs.

I always getting asked, “Where’s the best place for a restaurant to cut costs?” and it’s always an odd question for me because I know that traditionally it stems off of profitability so the first thing I always do is when I talk with restaurant owners is talk about their prime costs.  Where are your food costs coming in?  Where is your labor costs coming in?  What does that look like when you roll those two together, adding your payroll taxes and adding your workers’ compensation because you should take the time to map this out and actually check it for yourself to see if the numbers work.

You take your labor, you take your food costs, you take your payroll taxes and your workers’ compensation, and you roll that number together and you divide that by your sales.  Highly Profitable restaurants traditionally run around 60% or better.  The more you can drive that number, you’ll find the better and more profitable you are.  I think it would be difficult to get to far below 50%.  Maybe there are some restaurants out there, but traditionally hours and dollars and sales are affected by your labor and all that stuff getting tied together.

We use a schedule by sales dollars and we actually know by how many dollars in sales in our restaurants how many people we should have.  So the first place to start when you’re looking at cutting costs is:

1)         Are your prime costs in check?

As long as your prime costs are in check, then you can manage those and that’s a number that you focus on and you manage it and we manage it weekly.  We have systems and tools that we use and we do an inventory every single week and it’s actually very simple if you have it organized and we have a financial summary that we use and it’s available to all the members of Restaurant Success Systems.

But besides that, even if you’re just calculating on a monthly basis, make sure you manage those numbers.

2)         The other thing you start to look at is you look at all the other costs.

Are you getting the best utility rates, are you using the right paper products?  I actually have in The Restaurant Success System a Cost Control Manual.  I have over 500 ways that you can cut costs in a restaurant.  Everything matters.  Everything costs money; everything that we do from the paper napkin that goes in the to-go bag to the dollars that we spend on marketing.

But I think the place to start is make sure your prime costs are in line and then literally go line by line down your P&L and figure out what’s going in there and exactly what you’re spending and if there’s opportunity.

Cost-cutting is a solution traditionally one time and you can only cut so far.  It’s not like you can come back and do it again in six months because the biggest thing that you don’t want to do is you don’t want to effect the quality and you don’t want to effect what the people are used to, meaning your guests.

So be cautious in your cost-cutting.  I think we all can tighten our belts, even myself and I have.  As time goes on we always look at ways to save money.  But at the end of the day don’t cut so far that you actually jeopardize your business.

But look at your prime costs, analyze your P&Ls, and go through and figure out things that maybe you can knock down.  Even if you’re able to cut some things down by 10%, that would really help you.

If you enjoyed this video and you’d like to receive 20 more of the top questions that people ask me about the restaurant business, and you can also get a copy of my free report, How to Make any Restaurant into a Super-Powerful Cash Machine, which has ten secrets not included in any of the videos about the characteristics of a successful restaurant owner, go to www.restaurantgoldmine.com.

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Want A Simple To Follow System To Improve Your Catering Sales?

In a previous post I talked about a simple system to build your Restaurant Sales. My restaurants and catering companies are rigorous when it comes to following an exacting system that we created to maximize our sales.

Today I want to share with you our Everyday Catering Sales Building System and I encourage you to S&D it (Swipe and Deploy it). This too is not pretty and may even come across as hieroglyphics for some of you. Others that have heard me speak will appreciate the cut to the chase approach.

• Take Orders Well
• Deliver Flawlessly (driver check outs are critical)
• Street Market After Delivery (this is critical)
• Driver Completes Daily Duties Upon Return
• Call Back Every Client/Order (ask the right questions)
• Have  A System of Ongoing Marketing and Communication (also critical)

Stay on top of, Stay in front of and know your clients!

Read The Whole Article>> For my members I have spelled out the whole system in an easy to follow format I normally don’t restrict much but the complete article is for “Inner Circle Members and above”

Members login to view this content.(Not a member? Join today!)

[Content protected for Inner Circle members only][Content protected for Top Tier Coaching members only][Content protected for Super Performers members only]

Communicate Promotions and Specials “What’s New”, speak from the heart – This is what we cover in our Restaurant Marketing Planner

Repeat it all again – just like shampoo

Our Goal Is Every new Customer is in Our Club so they become Guests/Clients for Life
Our Club does the majority of the heavy lifting
Automation – Removing the Human Element has been the key to consistent sales growth

Click here to obtain details on our loyalty program

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Introduction to the process of Guest-Centered Marketing

Introduction to the process of Guest-Centered Marketing

For those of you in the catering business you will find I refer to those guests as clients.  In any regard a customer implies a one time transaction where guest or client implies a long term relationship.  This is a very big point and being Guest or Client centered is very important.  We want a sale to gain a guest (or client) which we keep for life.  Most businesses are on their head, they look at a customer for a sale. A slight difference in how you look at things really can change everything.

I’m constantly amazed at how many clients and people in my audiences think that marketing is an event. They’re looking for the one thing that they can do that will produce instant, profitable business.

It doesn’t happen that way. The reason is that people don’t work like that.

People don’t just wake up in the morning and decide to find you and buy from you. They generally don’t buy because they see a single, stunning ad or get a single, persuasive letter. No, when they show up at your door or website, it’s the result of a process.

They have to know you. People won’t buy from you unless they’ve heard of you and know something about you.

They have to like you. People must be comfortable enough with you and the way you do business to take a very big step: buying from you for the first time.

They have to trust you. If you have a choice, you won’t keep doing business with a company you don’t trust. Neither will those first-time customers that you want to become lifetime customers.

For years, I’ve read everything I can get my hands on about marketing. I’ve gone to seminars and conferences. I’ve talked with colleagues, worked with clients, and absorbed the thinking of people like Brian Tracy, Dan Kennedy, Michael Masterson, Michael Gerber, Jim Collins, and many more.

Guest-Centered Marketing starts with people and their needs and wants. Guest-Centered Marketing is the process of developing mutually beneficial relationship with customers that extends over time.

I divide the process into three stages because your relationship with the customer is different for each one. In the beginning, you don’t really have a relationship. Then the customer takes the leap of faith to buy from you for the first time. They are now a guest. From then on, every contact with “Your Guest” puts a stick on that pile of your relationship, or takes one away.

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10 strategies that are working in the tough restaurant economy

Waiter, Bring Me a Fresh Idea

10 strategies that are working in the tough restaurant economy
By Jason Daley   |   Entrepreneur Magazine – March 2010

I saw this and wanted to share with everyone ~ Jonathan

___________________________________________

It was about 20 years ago that the casual dining boom got started in the United States. It was a golden, batter-dipped age: We were lured in by the novelty of mozzarella sticks and artichoke dip, marveled at the cluttered walls and uniform flair and gulped down two-liter mango margaritas like every night was Friday.

But the bloom is off the bloomin’ onion when it comes to casual dining. The recession has customers trading down to fast food and the growing “fast-casual” segment of takeout specialists (think Chipotle, Noodles or Panera). Over the last couple decades, while drive-thru burger joints have kept their prices flat, the typical bill at casual dining chains has multiplied three or four times. And the quality of the food has remained pretty much the same while fast food has become better and more diverse. Add to that grumbles about predictable, high-fat menus and stale décor and it’s understandable why in 2009 the category was down 5 percent to 8 percent with a 3 percent to 5 percent drop forecast for 2010.

But some chains are figuring out ways to keep customers coming through their doors. Red Lobster, for one, has designed a quick-turnaround lunch service designed to draw the time-strapped crowd, and its new wood-fired entrees are appealing to the health-conscious. Ruby Tuesday redesigned its menu, retrained staff, modernized its décor–and brought in almost 2 percent more customers in late 2009 than in late 2008.

There are plenty of steps to take in a down market, and it’s important to remember that even individual franchisees are not powerless. We spoke with some of the leading thinkers in the casual dining field to find out what you can do to put a little flair back into your business.

1. Think locally
   Casual dining chains are some of the most aggressive national advertisers out there. (Remember the “I want my baby back” jingle?) The problem is, plenty of franchisees think that’s enough, especially after a splashy grand opening with big media buys. “Local franchisees are advised to put 1 to 5 percent of their money into local advertising by their franchisors, but they think the national TV commercials are enough to drive customers,” says James Sinclair of OnSite Consulting, a Los Angeles firm that helps rescue flailing restaurants. “We often suggest local marketing like sponsoring soccer teams, participating in fundraisers, things like that. There’s no better advertising than getting buzz in the community.” Casual dining mom-and-pops haven’t been hurt as much by the recession, mainly because people feel a strong connection to the businesses. Becoming a local leader and integral part of the community, versus a faceless chain, can go a long way to developing customer loyalty.
2. Speed up lunch
   Lunch is when the fast-food joints and casual restaurants go head to head–and where casual dining loses out. “Business users want to get in and out quickly, and most don’t have a full hour for lunch,” says Darren Tristano, executive vice president of Technomic, a Chicago-based food-industry consulting and research firm. Shaving 10 to 15 minutes off a visit can mean the difference between drawing a lunch crowd or sitting idle for the afternoon. Cracker Barrel and Chili’s have invested in system-wide redesigns of their kitchens and service procedures to help cut big chunks off their service time, but franchisees can help keep things moving by investing in more lunchtime staff, making sure servers are trained and efficient and streamlining the lunch menu to keep the kitchen on track. Tristano also suggests keeping prices competitive. Having lunch entrees in the $5-to-$8 range makes it less likely that budget customers will shift to the burger shack if times get tougher.
3. Push the bottle
   Booze is always a high-margin item for casual restaurants, but more importantly it’s a gateway to gaining customers for dinner. According to Technomic’s research, only 14 percent of customers find occasion to drink in the afternoon, which is why national chains have started placing a new emphasis on earlier happy hours. Ruby Tuesday recently revamped its bar lineup, retrained its bartenders and introduced $5 signature premium drinks. T.G.I. Friday’s offered free appetizers at the bar last year in an attempt to draw people in during the dead afternoon hours. Starting drink specials at 2 or 3 p.m. is a great way to attract shift workers, business people scheduling casual meetings or retirees looking for afternoon deals. “You have to remember,” says Jeff Davis, president of Sandelman & Associates, a food-service research firm in Irving, Texas, “when times are tough alcohol is the one thing people don’t cut back on.”
4. Push the plate
   Besides offering an extended happy hour on booze, create a happy hour on menu items, suggests Tristano, who points out that Steak ‘n Shake’s afternoon half-price milkshake promotion can easily lead to an order of burger and fries, and Braxton Seafood Grill’s happy hour, when it sells lobsters at cost, often gets orders for a few beers and all the fixings. One innovative strategy to woo the late-afternoon crowd is offering items at ascending prices–$3 appetizers at 3 p.m., $4 at 4 p.m. and so on. “The only way to maximize opportunities is to trade up,” Davis says. “The main goal when you get someone through the door is to trade up.”
5. Focus on the quality
   “If you’re at a Mexican restaurant, people are going to notice if you’re scraping broken tortilla chips from the bottom of the barrel and not filling their glasses to the top,” Tristano says. Many chains also make the mistake of charging for soft drink refills or reducing the number of servers to save money. This sends a clear message to the customer that you’re struggling. If it is necessary to reduce costs, he suggests making cuts across the board instead of pulling savings in the areas of servers and food costs. Instead of switching from a good cheddar to a block of “cheese product,” try to renegotiate prices with vendors. “Be careful to negotiate pricing and to take cost savings out of other areas,” he says, “not from areas where customers will feel it most.”
6. Don’t chase Subway
   One of the big temptations in casual dining is to simply slash prices until hordes of $5 deal-seekers start filling the tables. But Sinclair says that’s exactly the wrong tactic. “All that does is draw in deal hunters, and when the promotion is over, they won’t return,” he says. “You can’t focus on the short term. You have to be focused on what is going to make the customer return. If you’re going to discount, rebuild the menu so the price of the dish doesn’t lose you money.” The same thing goes for cutting portions. For the most part, consumers see smaller portions as a loss of value–and the savings to the restaurant are small. In the end, Sinclair says, “you’re not saving money per dish, you’re losing customer satisfaction.” Some portion-cutting campaigns have been successful: T.G.I. Friday’s Right Portion, Right Price campaign hit a sweet spot and The Cheesecake Factory scored when it brought its lunch portions down to human scale. But the strategy was  about “right-sizing” ridiculous portions. “Some places serve way too much,” Davis says. “Why pay $15 for a salad that I can only eat a third of?”
7. Give them something special
   It might seem obvious: People go to a specific restaurant to get food they can’t get anywhere else. But that idea has become murky in casual dining, where fried appetizers and flatiron steaks have all melded into culinary clichés. Tristano says there are two ways to give your menu an edge: Offer items that are a healthful alternative for those looking to adopt a “better-for-you lifestyle” or dishes that most diners can’t cook at home. “Quality Mexican entrees are difficult for people to make at home, or Asian appetizers like pot stickers. For crème brûlée you need to have that little flamethrower,” he says. “People are drawn to items that require culinary expertise or ingredients that are difficult to purchase.”
8. Reward loyalty
   The best way to earn loyalty–and repeat visits–is to provide quality food and service. But Americans are suckers for deals, and loyalty programs are one of the things that keep diners coming back to their favorite booth. Sinclair suggests implementing programs that don’t necessarily hand out freebies but still provide something meaningful to diners. Rewards can include priority seating, discounts or rebates on gift cards or–one of Sinclair’s favorites–the chance to sign up and win prize money. “The idea,” he says, “is to get customers involved in the brand and get them to feel a natural partnership with you.”
9. Get it out the door
   Fast-casual establishments are striking a chord with Americans–the food is better than a drive-thru burger joint, but it doesn’t require an hour of time and a 20-percent tip. Full-service casual restaurants, however, can easily mimic fast casual. System-wide, Denny’s and IHOP are experimenting with fast-casual annexes attached to their restaurants, and Buffalo Wild Wings, which has dedicated takeout ordering stations, is successfully bridging the fast- and full-service divide. Tristano says providing alternatives to sit-down dining­–whether call-ahead, drive-thrus or catering­–is a great way to create new revenue streams. “The more you drive off-premises growth, the greater opportunity you’ll have to weather the economic storm,” he says. “You have to understand what the customer wants and adapt to this environment and this economy.”
10. Take time to train
    In the constant rush of the restaurant business, sometimes it’s hard to stop and take a good hard look at the big picture. “We don’t always have time to train employees or go through a full menu evaluation,” Davis says. “Maybe, with the recession, we have that time now.” Don’t be scared off by the extra investment involved in training–when restaurants are fighting tooth and nail to earn repeat customers, exceptional service is a huge factor in their deciding where to go, and good training often leads to less staff turnover. “It will cost money,” he says, “but in the longer term, people who continue to invest in their businesses will succeed. Excellence always wins, top to bottom.”

Jason Daley is a freelance writer based in Madison, Wis.

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Social Media Marketing for Restaurants Webinar

This is a “Don’t Miss” event. This Thursday, February 25th at 4pm

Click Here To Register Now!

How To Successfully Use Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, And Other Online Social Media For Practical, Profitable Purposes

You can listen in and and ask your most burning questions about Social

Media Marketing for your restaurant or catering company.  We will
holding a live Q&A session at the end, so don’t miss out!

Here are some details on Cynthia and the information we are going to cover:

Guest Expert~Cynthia Richards

Do you know how to use Social Media as marketing media without running afoul and wasting your valuable time? – I do and I will show you How you can do it in as little as 10 Minutes a day!

Cynthia recently presented at the Restaurant & Catering Super Conference and was a smash hit, I could not resist the opportunity to share her insight with all of you!

Cynthia is one of those few who really know – from actual
experience -how to make all this free media pay. It is mandatory that you discover how to effectively leverage this new form of word-of-mouth marketing..

Cynthia is going to show you exactly how to take advantage of all the low cost and even NO-cost ways of reaching out to new customers, more frequently communicating with present customers, and getting prospects and customers involved in dialogue and interaction rather than just static, “push” selling by you.

If you are serious about succeeding, about high income, about longevity in the restaurant industry,

this expert interview with Cynthia is NOT A LUXURY; IT IS NECESSITY!

*********************************

Call Details:

Thursday, February 25th 4pm EST

Click Here To Register Now!

********************************

Only 50 Spots Available – They will be gone quick!

Don’t Procrastinate- Sign up now!

Click Here To Register Now!

Talk to you then!

Jonathan Munsell
Founder & Creator

Restaurant Success System
Restaurant Success Monthly
Restaurant Marketing Planner

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Want A Simple To Follow System To Improve Your Restaurant Sales?

Want A Simple To Follow System To Improve Your Restaurant Sales?

Every Year I right Goals and Objectives with my team and managers.  Recently we were looking at our successes (Up 41% Year To Date).  One big thing jumped out at us. It was the fact that we were religiously following an exacting system that we created to maximize our sales.

I want to share with you our Restaurant Sales Building System and I encourage you to S&D it (Swipe and Deploy it). It is not pretty and may even come across as hieroglyphics for some of you. Others that have heard me speak will appreciate the cut to the chase approach.  I am going to talk through the entire system in detail on my next Super Performers Call open to my members.  But for those of you that want to have a peek I encourage you to take a look..

Our Philosophy is “A Sale To Get A Guest for Life” not a customer to get a sale

Example:

Person walks into “My Restaurant” for the first time

We WOW them, communicate to them what we are about

We serve them a product and experience far superior to that of any and ALL competitors

We get them to enrolled in our club

The club keeps them engaged

• Welcome Card – Free Fries & Drink
• Weekly Emails
  • Standard Overview Email 1^st &15^th
  • Specific Emails in between

  Communicate Promotions and Specials “What’s New”, speak from the heart – This is what we cover in our Restaurant Marketing Planner

• Birthday mailer
• ½ Birthday mailer
• Anniversary mailer
• Reward Certificates

Quarterly Manual Mailers to our list “Small Post Cards”

Quarterly Lost Customer Campaign

What we do to get them in the door for that first time

• Signage outside
• Street Signage on Weekends
• New Mover Mailers (also covered by our automated loyalty program)
• Cold Mailers (also covered by our automated loyalty program)
• Monthly Newsletters (also covered by our automated loyalty program)
• Quarterly Money Mailer, newspaper or Advo
• JV Deals (Apartment, Businesses, etc)
• Hotel Advertising

Our Goal Is Every new Customer is in Our Club so they become Guests for Life
Our Club does the majority of the heavy lifting
Automation – Removing the Human Element has been the key to consistent sales growth  Click here to obtain details on our loyalty program

We must spend the business hours working to constantly and consistently improve our sales
~Engage Guests, Apartment Complexes, Local JV opportunities, Churches

That’s it in a nut shell.  Restaurant Success System has all the components mentioned above and much much more.  We can get you up to speed very quickly and demystify what it means to have a true system that basically takes care of your restaurant marketing and gives you huge returns.

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Video Blog: Dramatically Increase Your Sales & Profits Over The Next 12 Months

Video Blog

This video is part of a series of videos where I, Jonathan Munsell, answer questions and offer hard hitting comments that you can use to improve your restaurant immediately!

If you are seeing this you probably don’t need to go to RestaurantGoldMine.com to get hooked up with me. If you are not already a member of Restaurant Success System or Restaurant Success Monthly a good place to start is by grabbing some FREE information by clicking HOME and then click on the Free Kit Image to the right.

Dramatically Increase Your Sales & Profits Over The Next 12 Months with something as simple as a 10% increase in key areas.

Hey it’s Jonathan Munsell with Restaurant Success Systems.

Let’s talk about dramatically increasing your sales and profit over the course of the next 12 months and something as simple as a 10% increase can do that.

A lot of people might be sitting there looking at their numbers and realizing, “Oh my gosh, I need to do double what I’m doing today to live the way that I want to live.”  And I’m here to tell you that it may be the case looking at numbers but that may not be the way to get there.

A simple 10% increase for you can be huge.  I’ve talked about getting your guests to come more, getting your guests to spend more when they come, and then even going out and getting more guests.  So let’s talk about that a little bit.

So you have these guests that are coming; to get them to come more or even 10% more.  So if somebody’s coming maybe a couple times a year, to get them to come once a month or so.  Or if somebody’s coming in and they come in every ten days, get them to come in every nine.  So you’re just trying to get the same people that are coming in to come in more.

The way you do that is by promotions and effectively marketing to them.  Once they come in, you want to know who they are and you want to market to them.  So focus on just getting your existing guests to come in 10% more; in other words, you get them to spend more.  And one of the things that I find a lot of times with restaurants owners is pricing and they’re always hesitant to raise prices.

I’ll tell you there’s a couple ways that you can raise your check average or easily raise the amount that you’re getting from people when they do come in.  And one of the simple things is to up-sell or suggestive sell and if I had to ask you what you could do today to go and increase your sales, the only thing that you could do immediately; if I walked out of here and I held a gun to your head and I said, “You need to increase your sales today,” the only thing that you could really do is go and sell more to the people that are coming into your business.

You could go and drag people in off the street and all but it’s not an effective, long-term solution.  You could put a marketing plan together but that’s still in the future.  The thing you could do is, once those people come in, you can effectively suggestive sell and up-sell them.  You can add on items, you can get them to buy dessert, you can get them to get a larger beverage.

Those things will increase your sales and very quickly you could increase your customer base by 10%.  So that’s effective advertising.  Even doing the same things that you’re doing that are similar with some minor tweaks can make your advertising a lot more effective.  So it’s not difficult to get the 10% increase and think about what that does for you over the course of a longer period of time.  If you’re able to do that and you’re able to get your check average up and you’re able to get the people to come in more and you’re able to get some new guests to come in; it happens very quickly and the 10% adds on to the 10% and that adds on to the other 10%.  All of a sudden you have more new guests coming in more often and spending more when they’re there.

The economics work out really well and at the end of the year, you end up with a huge increase compared to the 10%; you end up with a 50 or 100% increase over what you had.  So start small, work on the simple things that you can control, and go for small increases right now and you’ll see that your economics will change pretty quickly.

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7 Things You Must Know About Your Marketing Prospect

I often talk about knowing your guest and about capturing information, specifically name, address, email , birth date, anniversary.  I wanted to shift gears a little bit and help you understand why that information is so important and also show you how it plays into your future marketing.

The reason we want the information from our guests is two fold: 1. We want to market to them so we can get them to come back time and time again. 2. We want to understand the demographics of our existing guests and clients so we know exactly what to look for when we seek out more people to market to. “Our future guests look a lot like our current best guest”

So I put together a list of 7 things you absolutely MUST know about your future prospects.

1. Age- Everything you say and write, including slang, allusions, word difficulty, and topics should be adjusted to meet age appropriateness.

2. Gender- Despite the dual roles men and women tend to fill, most individuals can be segmented (and sold to) based on gender-specific interests or needs.

3. Location- Values and culture tend to vary based on demographics. Having a clear understanding of regional difference will improve your targeted messages.

4. Education Level- Similar to age appropriateness, education levels should determine how you address your prospects and what benefits they will find in your product or service.

5. Income- The needs and wants from one social class to another should be a guide to the types of products and services you should be selling them.

6. Marital Status- The values, needs, and desires of married persons greatly differ from those that are single. Marketing family messages to single persons (and vice versa) can lose the deal for you.

7. What Keeps Them Up At Night- This is the most important one. You’ve got to know your prospect’s fears, worries, concerns, excitements, hopes and dreams. When you know the conversation inside your prospect’s head, you can enter it, speak to it, and build a relationship that leads to a customer.

Once you have this information in focus you can really craft a message that speaks to your prospect.  We will focus on that in our next Business Builder Tip.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the topics I present and their link to True Restaurant Success. Please do not hesitate to share -  Leave a Comment

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What The Press Has To Say About Jonathan and His Restaurants

Independent Weekly
September 2009

For a hybrid of fresh-made fast food, visit Jumpin’ Jonny’s Steaks & Subs, across Highway 70 from Brier Creek. Jonathan “Jonny” Munsell, surely the quickest-thinking sub-shop owner in town, dreams up specials no one could imagine: Bring in your Sunday bulletin and have 10 percent donated back to your church. Write a jingle—win a sandwich every day for a month. Jonny’s leaving town—spy on his employees like a “secret shopper” for a free large fry and lemonade.

The Jumpin’ Jonny’s method for self-ordering beats even Char-Grill’s. Strips of cardstock are color-coded by food; choose red for burger, then X-out any toppings you don’t like, or add extras at no charge: hot cherry peppers, mild cherry peppers, grilled mushrooms, raw onions, etc. Fresh-cut fries? Check the boxes to have them loaded with cheese, bacon, ranch or blue cheese dressing.

It’s worth a visit to comprehend the infinite combinations and to see if your company gets discounts: LabCorp, IBM, Glaxo and Qualcomm are a few that do. Incidentally, Jumpin Jonny’s is extremely kid-friendly, with a promotion for them, too: Kids eat free every Tuesday (one per adult, please).

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Restaurant workers are starved of benefits, report says

Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 11, 2010

Despite the recession, the restaurant industry is thriving. Many of its workers, however, are not.

A new report from the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC), a nonprofit organization that advocates better wages and work conditions for restaurant workers, revealed that 90 percent of industry staff members are not offered health insurance or sick days, 67 percent go to work sick, and 38 percent are forced to work off the clock.

Earnings also lag. Restaurant workers around the country on average made $12,868 in 2008 compared with $45,371 in the general private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The authors surveyed more than 2,500 workers and 150 employers in five cities: Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, New York and Portland, Maine.

The reports tell two big stories, said Jose Oliva, ROC’s national policy coordinator: “One, the restaurant industry is resilient, even in the face of this Great Recession. The other is that the kind of jobs that are being created are not the kind of jobs we want to have in America when we come out of the recession.”

Restaurants took a hit during the economic downturn. But by July 2009, growth had returned. This year, the National Restaurant Association projects that the industry will employ nearly 13 million people. Revenues will rise 2.5 percent to $580 billion, or 4 percent of the gross domestic product.

“This report paints a distorted image of the restaurant industry and its employees while pushing the ROC’s agenda,” said Mike Donohue, a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association. He cited data that showed 32 percent of adults get their first job experience in a restaurant, and many jobs lead to management and ownership. “The restaurant industry is proud of its diversity and unparalleled record of opportunity.”

The industry does provide some “good jobs,” which ROC defines as ones that pay a living wage, provide benefits and offer opportunities for advancement. But researchers found that white workers disproportionately claimed them. Workers of color, meanwhile, were concentrated in “bad jobs,” where the median hourly wage was $11.50 per hour — or $3.20 less per hour than their white counterparts earned.

When it comes to waiters and busers, the federal minimum wage is $2.13; there has not been an increase since 1991. In May, Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.) introduced the WAGES Act, which would increase it to $3.75 per hour three months after enactment. That rate would rise to $5.50 per hour by 2012.

The industry’s bad jobs hurt more than just workers; they harm society, Oliva said. Low wages and lack of job security lead to increased reliance on social-assistance programs, an indirect subsidy to employers engaging in poor practices. For example, ROC reported that 26.5 percent of workers said they or a family member had visited an emergency room without being able to pay for treatment.

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