Cooks are the core of restaurant operations.
so why are they paid such a little amount of money in comparison to waitstaff?
Danielle

[Dlee]

COOKS RULE

The foh staff have direct contact with the guest, they are what the guest know. Therefore, when they tip the guest think that the cook's will get alittle kick back. Cooks don't.

Unless there are smart waiter's who know if they treat there cook's well then the cooks will treat them well also;IE the cooks will put out there food on the fly.

With all that said, the pay kind of equals out. Some days when it is slow the FOH staff gets below minimum wage. But the cooks still have there hourly wage. OR. In some cases the FOH has to put in some ungodly hours to earn the big bucks.


D Lee

[Nick.Shu]

i cannot say that im impressed at all by that explanation. I will explain why.

To become FOH takes some practice, yes. However by comparison, most FOH staff do not have the investment in time and education that cooks have, so by comparison, it is to say the least a little embarrassing.

What i mean by embarrassing is that pay levels (IMHO) tend to indicate and/or suggest levels of confidence and competency in ones job and in comparison to the amount of training a cook/chef has to undergo, a relatively talented FOH staff doesnt have such a far path to follow.

[Dlee]

OK Nick,

I have to agree with you on your first paragraph. Parts of the second paragraph, IE; "...tend to indicate and/or suggest levels of confidence and competency in ones job...", but the thing is Danielle's question "why is BOH vs FOH pay differs so dramatically"

I agree that the cooks pay scale follows the "more expericence, knowledge, time...etc... then cooks get more pay. Sometimes the FOH gets obscenes amount of $$$. It sometimes gets discourging for a cook when they come across a waiter's paycheck.

That was what I was trying to address, maybe I am wrong.

D Lee

[shroomgirl]

You're not wrong....I was hanging out yesterday and started a discussion on $ I pay for servers $10-15 an hour with this I do not pay insurence, uniforms, vacation,just shtuff....in return I get GOOD help that I can rely on. The chef I was visiting said yeah but they only work 12 hours a week (his sous was in the room too)
...the reality is they can work as many hours as they want because there is a demand for their services...basically to reheat food, help set up break down and serve and wash. The people I use are not bimbo airheads but generally early 30-late 40's moms....I use a service that arranges for them to show and I've never been unhappy.
They also pull in tips.

Is this more than the sous is making (YEP!) by his expression I would say definatly.
Chef's I know that run Big 350-500 meal aday
close to fine dining...ave ticket $38. retaurants are maybe pulling in $25 an hour.
and that is the CEC. Iknow the owners are doing better....I know line cooks are doing 8-10 maybe up to 12. But the casino boats are paying 19-22 for starters coming out of CC to serve breakfast..(cooking is microwave).
So major disparaty YEAH!!! That is one of the main reasons I'm not in someone elses kitchen....Is it wrong YEAH it is (IMHO)

This is a portion of an interview w/ Thomas Keller...it's how I justify the money I make now as a cook as opposed to the money I used to make as a server.


THOMAS: Yeah, the money part of it, from the beginning of this project, was never the most important part of doing it.

HATTIE: I mean, you want to make a living.

THOMAS: Well, I had to be responsible to my partners. I had to be responsible to the bank. I had to be responsible to the SBA. I had to be responsible to my employees. But it's not what drives us. It's not what drives my cooks, it's not what drives the people that work in this restaurant.

What drives us is the fact that we are able to do something that's gonna make a difference for us in our lives, and because it makes a difference for us in our lives, it's going to make a difference for the people who come to our restaurant.

The entire interview can be read at
www.sb2000-tv.com/keller.ht

[cookM]

This has always been a sore spot with me and some of my cook pals. Yeah, FOH has to deal with customers, management, cooks...That's pretty hard, but all I know is that some waiter couldn't walk into a kitchen and within a month put out reasonable and timely food. (This is a broad generalization). I could pretty much go out there after a month and do a wait's job.
I feel better if the waits have to pay for staff meal and the cooks don't. The cooks should always get special treatment.

[Nick.Shu]

I probably didnt express myself correctly.

im not having a go at you DLee, i was looking more from a chef's perspective - that your employers confidence in your skills and performance should (hopefully) increase pay.

Im not sure about other places, but there are great expectations were i work that costs in the kitchen are virtually responsible for all the establishments woes. So rather than cut costs by running a floor leanly, the kitchen is expected to cope with a budget reduction.

Given that, there doesnt seem a logical reason why improbably the least skilled people in a restaurant should pull the amount of money that they receive and seemingly throw the operation costs out of skew.

Surely the fact that ok, they have people skills where chefs have a tendancy to have a lack of that maybe is the reason. Another good reason reflected, atleast in most Australian awards, is that handlers of cash get paid higher amounts - to a point.

My point is in a training/knowledge etc scenario, the differences in pay isnt justifiable.

[Dlee]

Nick,

No insult taken, this is just all of bouncing stuff off each other.

D. Lee

[Greg]

I try not to think about why the waits make more or even the fact that they do make more (with no investment in tools, education, uniforms, etc.). It's frustrating and serves no purpose other than to be a great topic for discussion.
Here's the thing, do they thoroughly enjoy what they are doing? Do they get off work, meet up with waitstaff buddies and discuss serving (other than complaining about the jerk they had at table 21 that made them run all night for 10% tip)? Probably, most don't. Most cooks do enjoy what they do and love to talk about cooking with their cook buddies. It's what keeps us going, even in the face of the disparity in wages between FOH and BOH.

[KC]

It's a fallacy to expect that education level, skill, aesthetic or societal value of one's work will determine one's compensation. Why does the plumber who unclogs your toilet make more money than the teacher who is responsible for educating your child? Why does an O.R. nurse make more per hour than the surgeon she's assisting? Etc, etc. Pay scales are based on supply & demand in a free-market economy and have nothing to do with the nature of the job being performed.

[Nick.Shu]

k dlee, none taken.

KC, i give you this comparison, Those who are considered the cream of the industry, regardless of industry, are almost certainly guaranteed a better rate of pay. If by example, you are lousy at what you do, what chance do you stand of making a higher gain?.

Anyway.

[Nicko]

I think things go with the territory, and anyone who goes into cooking knows that you start off on the low end of the pay scale. It that is something you are going to have a problem with then go into another field. Most of my chef friends did not go into cooking for the money they went into it because they simply love working with food and being creative. I remember when I got out of school I was making $6.50 an hour as a line cook, no insurance, no benefits, no parking, NADA. IMHO I don't think it is all that terrible that cooks start out on the low end of the pay scale, there isn't that much that we can do about it. Where I do think that a lot of restaurants drop the ball is that they don't provide some type of group health insurance plan for the employees. I mean if a cook is making $9 or $10 bucks and hour and getting health insurance that is pretty decent. Why don't we provide health insurance for our staff when every other business is practically required to do so?

------------------
Thanks,

Nicko
ChefTalk Cafe Administrator
nicko@cheftalk.com
www.cheftalk.com "A food lover's link to professional chefs!"

[shroomgirl]

Interesting.....Missy I know one of our brightest apply (the 3 day ordeal) at the French Laundry and said they wanted him but the pay was so low for the cost of living in Napa that he could not afford to rent an apt. He's unmarried. His other chef of choice was Daniel in New York...

So I don't know who is making $ from the $175 per ave diner that Keller pulls in....

As with anything if you own a restaurant and keep your finger on the pulse (like Bigfoot in Kitchen Confidential) you'll know where the money is going. You may not do all your bookwork but can spot check enough to KNOW actual costs. I've found it kinda reprehensible that owners pulling in major $$
every year don't compensate their kitchen appropriately. One of the smartest chefs I know started opening additional restaurants when his chefs were ready to branch out and made them partners. Kept down his competition and they all seem to thrive.
This guy knows how to squeek out a nickle...makes his own charcuterie, bread, pastries, etc....morale is high. They all look out for each other. Even with multiple restaurants he makes sure to have family time
with his 5 children. He has even taken his cooks to France so they can experience it first hand.

* ON a personal note I started waiting tables in College and then when the chef was fired started coming into the kitchen and working for minimum just to be in the kitchen. I was pulling in $80-100 nights waiting tables, it decreased dramatically when I moved into the kitchen. I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

FYI KC the OR nurses do not make more than the surgeon that they are assisting.
Danielle