Michael Sohocki, San Antonio chef and restaurateur, gets candid about how high staff turnover, a thinning applicant pool and rising labor costs have taken on his businesses.It’s hard to imagine it now, but two years ago, I was actually proud to offer entry-level employees at my restaurants $10 an hour. We would start anyone with a good attitude on dish station, and work their way up to prep, then cook, then, with any luck, lead positions and, ultimately, management.
I asked for favors from people who used to work for me, to find that many have left the industry entirely. People are leaving the restaurant industry in droves, just as new restaurants were going up all over town. We are now in a bidding war with every other employer on the map — from pretty much any industry. The applicant pool is thinning from both ends.
Today, finding these kinds of cooks, the kind with a fire burning inside them, is like finding a needle in a haystack. I think there are a number of factors that knocked down their numbers. Perhaps cooking in pop culture is not as white-hot as it used to be, reducing the “mystique” per capita. It’s certainly not about the money.
Long before that, my first real cook’s job was at Marcel’s in Port Aransas, a German and seafood restaurant. I learned how to make bread by touch, taste and sight. I was not allowed to use measuring devices. There was no heating or cooling in the kitchen. In the summer it was 110 degrees, in the winter you could see your breath while you chopped onions. And all this was OK because I had committed to the master-disciple agreement with my chef, Marcel Althauser.
Doubt my comment will get approved detailing his labor crimes but pop off on that journalistic integrity of not figuring out the workers side
Do Andrew Weismann next - he paid my female supervisor LESS then me.
He literally did not pay my boyfriend for 8 hours of dishwashing on his first day because that’s “normal” - he belongs in prison. He utilizes wage theft.