When the restaurant shutdowns happened in 2020, many operators looked at it as an impending apocalypse for the industry. It was even referred to by several influential people in this business to be an “extinction level event”. From which, the industry may never recover.

 But being the glass half full kind of guy I am. I saw this as a once in a lifetime opportunity to rebuild an industry that needed a great big fixing in many areas. So I set up a special podcast episode with three smart operators in the Twin Cities. I wanted to see if my ideas were all wet or there were others out there were thinking the same way.

I wanted to know if we could fix the gross pay inequity that had always existed between back and front of house. Even prior to the shutdowns there was a growing need for qualified cooks. The hospitality industry in the Twin Cities had grown so quickly that the competition for cooks was driving the hourly rate for those positions to levels no one had ever seen before. But whether the back of house rate increased or not, the front of house take home rate was still two or three times greater than the crew in back. And there was a government mandated minimum wage increase on the horizon that would send some restaurants into a tailspin because the front of house payroll in Minnesota does not have a tip credit so the result of the wage increase would drive that disparity in salary even greater than it was before.