Make cents of money?!!

What is the deal with money? I care not much about it, in the sense that I love to cook and that is why I am choosing to make it my profession. Some people even cooks/chefs themselves either say "Wow, a chef, they are making some good dough this year" no pun intented.. or they just never say thet have enough. I mean you can never have enough money, but they make it sound like they are ******* bottom. I am aspiring to be an Executive Chef sometime. Or even open a restruant...what is the real deal from some of you out in industry?

[coolJ]

As far as I've noticed, it seems that you have to either be in management or own the restaurant, if you're going to make any real money. but that doesn't mean the industry is with out it's benefits. You could have an office job or be working bankers hours, and be making good coin, but if you think about it, you'd be going into work 9-5 mon - fri, doing the same stuff all the time, and you'd be in a rut, and you know what they say, 'the only difference between a rut and a grave is four feet'. that's what's so great about this industry, you don't work the same hours everyday, and everyday is different and there are always new challenges. Good luck with you future endeavours.

[Jim]

I agree with CoolJ regarding being an owner or manager. However, as an owner you may (and I emphasize 'may') make some cash, but the medical bills to fix your ulcer can be costly. Also considering the pressure to keep staff, keep customers and deal with the 1001 other things, an owner can be mentally and physically bankrupt. (Anthony Bourdain put it best in Kitchen Confidential, when asked why he doesn't own his own place, his response was "I would never curse myself like that.") As for management - the expectation seems to be to work 80 hours a week. Sure the money can be good, but you had better carry a picture of the kids because you may very well go a few days without seeing them. I'm not disrespecting our industry, but if you are in it for the money, you are in the wrong place. You can make a respectable living, yes. Rich, probably not.
We cook because we cook.

[shroomgirl]

I was in a restaurant the other day that is trying to hire a new exec chef....high end 90 seats. The chef now makes about $50K and says he's on the high end of the spectrum 80 hr weeks...the applicant's resumes I read made $28K being sous.
On gambling boats you walk out of Culinary School...Community College and make $20 an hour for reheating.
I get paid $150 to do a 2 hour cooking class that is booked through a cooking school. I'm getting $1350 for doing a 1 our class and lunch for 45 that I booked. HMMMMM guess which I'm going to be working toward in the future.

[kuan]

The best jobs pay HUGE bucks. An Executive Chef at a major casino in Vegas makes somewhere in the range of 200k a year. Of course, as chef at a major casino if Vegas, you would have to eat and sleep there, not to mention the calls in the middle of the night when the Sultan of Brunei has just flown in and wants something to eat!

The major gripe is that down in the dregs, there are way too many culinary school grads who accept "executive chef" positions for very little money. By very little I mean around 25k a year. Most of these are single outlet units which don't have more than 1 million dollars in sales. For most places which do over 1 million, I figure a fair salary is between 4-5% of sales.

If you happen to get lucky and the sales staff manages to book a major convention at your hotel where you're executive chef, the rewards might be huge. One place I know, by some fluke, managed to do over 500k in banquet sales in one month. That's 10k for you if your cut is 2%.

In the end, just do what you love.

Kuan

[panini]

I truly feel that organization and a level head is the key to success, both financially and personally.
You will find most Exex. Chef's that complain about the money and time spent will lack organization. They are always worried about numbers, focused on the negetives. This really inhibits there creativity, I have seen really great Chef's in great positions at great properties get wrapped up in this. They crash and burn quite fast. When the pressure is off they are superstars but when things get tight they focus on the negetives instead of moving forward.
Running a kitchen now a days is not really different than ownership, all the worries are there. The one advantage of ownership is there are no bean counters without kitchen experience turning the screws. Nine times out of ten it is somebody in a cubicle that takes the Chef down. A business education behind a Culinary one will avoid this. One can calculate labor percentages, cogs and so forth. This is ammunition for the bean counters who are really trying to secure their own jobs most of the time.
just my 2 cents
Jeff