EARLY ACCESS: Restaurant Owners Can Eat Me

I've been living in Switzerland for a little under five years now, and I'm 100% with you on this one. The prices for an individual meal here are completely ridiculous. They begin somewhere around 25$ (for one dish; no drink, no side dish) for middle-class restaurants. Steak houses are even worse. The cheapest I've been able to find is one that charges 30$ for a 200g steak. 30$! And, guess what, you don't get free water with your meal, and you still have to tip at the end. But now, for some bizarre reason, the restaurant owners are bitching and moaning about lost profits when they've been driving "average" customers away with their jacked-up prices for decades. Because, even the small restaurants in the outskirts of, say, Zurich City want to have the same profit margins as a restaurant downtown. Half the people working in Switzerland, with below-average incomes, will only be able to afford going to restaurants a few times a year if at all. Why would anyone with a family of four, as an example, make a jolly trip to Zurich City to be set back 250$ plus tip for one meal (not to mention parking is going to cost them about 20 buckeroos)? Why would anyone in their right mind, that is? It's all a complete shit show if you ask me.

PREACH! Thank you for this one. I've never worked in the food service, but I def feel for the wait staff. They shouldn't be wholly dependant on tips. The tipping percent thing always bugged me, as I always did it based on service. Now I'm not saying they need to worship the ground I walk on, but pop around a few times and I'm normally good. More so I've seen and met a lot of these owners, and they can make really good money. To be fair their the ones assuming all the risk, but still pay your people decent, and I'm sure you'll see divinds. And fuck these people using tax payer dollars to pay their staff, cause you sure as fuck weren't doing it if it was their own money.

TheOriginalGamer79

Starting a restaurant is hard, yes, until you really establish yourself, and yes the fail rate of restaurants is high. BUT I don't see that as an excuse for the industry to be able to have its own minimum wage. If anything, who said people should start a restaurant? Like "Oh, this city has 300 restaurants, and I've never seen even one of them so full they couldn't take a walk-in customer with the exception of maybe Friday and Saturday night for a 2 hour period... I know, I'll start ANOTHER one!"

Adam Buckley

The thing about this is that as I understand it, by and large, restaurant owners aren't living large and buying expensive cars. Maybe it's a thing about where I'm from, but I'm under the impression that restaurants go under all the time, even in non-pandemic conditions. That restaurants are the type of business that's least likely to survive for more than a year. Because of margins and uncertainty and all that, I guess. And that's part of why they're skimping out on the regulations and paying their people like shit. Because they don't have the money or time left to do better. Though it might just be that there's an initial hurdle where x% of restaurants fail in the first y years, and after that you've got your recognition and got your ducks in a row and you can start raking in the dough. I don't know that.

Pim

I'm Aussie but lived in the USA and Toronto for a couple of years. It's such a different culture there compared to here.

Gary Leigh

In a lot of countries, tipping is seen as an insult. My understanding is that in Japan they really frown upon it.

Adam Buckley

Never understood tipping culture - it’s an over complicated system that restaurants somehow use to still find a way to screw over their staff. A decent fixed wage and fixed prices for customers is the way to go. Works everywhere else!

Ash Archer

I'm no tip expert but there were several times in various european countries where me tipping was seen as some kind of insult to the restaurant. Here people tip mostly if the service and food was good, and 10% is usually enough. It's also weird that USA isn't a very expensive country compared to Norway, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland or England, but the price of food in restaurants is actually very high compared even to these expensive countries. So tipping on top of that seems a bit ridiculous

Michał Michalski

Another amazing video, restaurant's really have had the freedom to keep screwing over their employees for decades. Maybe this whole pandemic thing will change that, but doubtful.

Jacen Dane

Well, a lot of people know my thoughts on most Unions as well, but either way it would be incredibly unlikely for a restaurant's workers to unionize... the owners would likely just shut the business down, then reopen with new staff under a new name. Large chains would do the same, close the restaurant with the "problem workers" and relocate. Similar to what Walmart has done any time employees in a specific location discuss unionizing.

Adam Buckley

Great video! Must say though, hearing the Canadian pronunciation of Premier threw me for a bit though. Also incredibly informative as an outsider through because I actually had no idea why waitstaff had to rely on 'tips' so heavily. Fuck me sideways, because restaurants can't deal with the cost of running a business so they 'have to' underpay their staff. If someone pulled that shit here, they'd be shot on sight. Question, are there workers unions in Canada that can do something?