Au Pied de cochon criticized for cheapness
Well-regarded eatery Au pied de cochon is the target of internet jeers this week after advertising for cooks, to be paid $13.50 an hour. It’s being pointed out that McDonald’s is currently offering $15.00.
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Kate
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JS 09:25 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Oh please. Can nobody do simple arithmetic? Fancy resto: $100/person x table of 4 x low 15% tip = $60 per table. This is obviously without wine, and even $100 may be low. How many meals can be served in a successful fancy resto in a regular shift?
dwgs 10:41 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Also, as someone who came up working a trade I have to say that if they are hiring people with limited experience part of the deal is that there is still a lot to learn and they are investing time and resources in teaching the younger employees. In a sense you are getting paid (poorly) to continue learning your craft.
MarcG 11:01 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
JS: My first impression was that you were saying that a fancy restaurant grosses $400+ per table so why can’t they afford to pay a living wage to their employees… but then I realized you were saying that it’s up to the patrons, not the employer, to ensure their survival, nice! Tipping needs to end.
DeWolf 11:09 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Vices & Versa which serves a simple menu of burgers plus a few daily specials that are more creative, was hiring cooks this summer for $18/hr plus a portion of the service tip.
People argue that APDC is a renowned restaurant so working there looks good on a CV, but that’s a trap: if you accept a low wage for working at APDC, all it does is set you on a path of working at progressively more prestigious restaurants for shitty wages, until you’re a sous-chef at Leméac or Toqué and you’re still making less than $30/hr. Some life. There’s a reason people have been leaving the restaurant industry en masse and it isn’t because they’re scared of catching Covid, it’s because wages and working conditions are terrible.
DeWolf 11:10 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Also, the APDC ad made no absolutely mention of kitchen staff getting a portion of service tips. So JS’s math doesn’t really add up.
Ephraim 11:16 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Let’s remember that McDonald’s staff learns nothing but to push a button and listen to the machine buzz when it’s done. There is an apprentice value to what APDC does. Not defending the low pay, but they are as comparable as the food that they serve… APDC is a restaurant and McDonald’s is really a food service…. there is no real food being transformed from raw ingredients into a dish that takes hours to create. I also assume that like many places, the servers have to kick back to the cooking staff. But I’m sure that APDC could afford to pay a beter wage.
JS 11:27 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Oh I don’t know how the tips get shared around, but full time wait staff at expensive restaurants obviously do pretty well compared to their colleagues at cheap places. Can someone please demonstrate, by showing their math, how someone working at an establishment can be still scrounging after their measly minimum wage? Don’t forget that until not long ago tips were tax-free, at least cash ones.
And Ephraim is correct: processing payment and pushing the microwave’s “ON” button doesn’t qualify as “service” work so their minimum wage – all they’re going to get, unless they steal food – should be higher.
steph 11:38 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
I don’t see the fuss. Let them go under.
@JS, taxing tips has been the law for a long time. Undeclared cash tips, and blackmarket will always be a thing. Since 2013 all quebec restaurants had to have modern cash registers that make fraud more difficult. Auditors can investigate and estimate a tip revenue with all that information.
I personally think tipping should be abolished. I rarely go out anymore either and may kick the habit completely.
Ian 11:47 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Also worth noting even if there is a back-of-house tip-out the 15% tip calculation is off for a couple of reasons – first off, a lot of people don’t tip 15% on drinks, in France it is customary not to tip on wine (for instance) so a table of tourists might actually cost you money… because not only do wait staff get an extra low minimum wage as tip earners, but Quebec is the only place in Canada where tip earners have to pay 8% of their total sales as an advance tax at the end of each shift. If tips are less than 8% of sales the owner is supposed to fill out a form to get your rate adjusted but of course that never happens.
So basically if you sell $100 worth of food and $100 worth of drinks and don’t get tipped on the drinks AND you have to tip-out 10% of your tips to the kitchen you’re walking out with 6.5% of total sales + $10.80/h wages.
No wonder service in Montreal is generally terrible.
Uatu 12:06 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
This is standard practice for restaurants which is why it’s a mystery to them why nobody wants to work for them. After all, the owners went through the same drill of shitty conditions and lousy pay when they were starting, why shouldn’t the newbies go through it too? The problem is that the pandemic changed everything and it’s up to businesses to adapt or go under…
Kate 12:44 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Granted the duties at McDonald’s would be simpler, but anyone working at APDC would be held to a much, much higher standard, in fact a different kind of standard entirely. And would they not expect a minimum of ITHQ food safety training as well?
JaneyB 12:49 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
@Ian “Quebec is the only place in Canada where tip earners have to pay 8% of their total sales as an advance tax at the end of each shift.” Wow. I had no idea. What a disaster for wait staff.
John B 13:00 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Building on Ian’s calculations, this ad is for a back-of-house position, so a server sells $100 of food & $100 of drinks ad the table doesn’t tip on the drinks, and the server tips out 10% to the back-of-house, then the entire back-of-house, (all cooks & dishwashers), make $1 off of that table, which they split amongst themselves.
That’s why people are frustrated with this post.
jeather 13:03 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
“Oh, sure, we wrote 13.50, but we didn’t MEAN we would pay that, we would of course pay more. Not that we will change that amount! We’ll put a range in, with 13.50 as a minimum and 18.63 as a maximum while claiming that of course people earn more”
CE 13:27 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
I worked as a dishwasher at a very high end restaurant about 10 years ago and I was making 12.50$/hour. No tip out though but I was fed two free meals and got to take home leftovers. If they’re getting some of the tips at a place like APDC, they’re going to be doing ok, especially if they work the weekend.
Nick D. 14:29 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Martin Picard was on “Tout un matin” this morning discussing this. I didn’t get to hear the whole interview, I was running around getting the kids out of the house, but one of the issues discussed are the very fine profit margins for most high end restos. Interview is at 8h20 here:https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/tout-un-matin/episodes/584770/rattrapage-du-mardi-16-novembre-2021
thomas 16:22 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Love this thread. Business owners afraid to raise prices in face of rising costs. Workers become underpaid and overstressed. These are ..precedented times.
PO 18:28 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
I always hear people say they want tipping to be done away with, but the people who are loudest in their support for keeping tips are not the restaurant owners but the wait staff themselves. The local hole in the wall might have terrible tips for their staff, but I’ve known a few people waiting at fine dining places making insane amounts of money. 15% on an $15 breakfast is nothing, but 15% on a $75 dinner adds up. I’ve known people who left their Friday and Saturday shifts with $400-500 in their pockets each night… They admit it’s slower on other days of the week, but they liked it and it gave them time for a second job. Weird double edged sword. I don’t really care either way.
jeather 18:31 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
Yes, the very small percentage of people who are doing extremely well in the current system don’t want to risk loss, that is entirely normal.
Ian 22:43 on 2021-11-16 Permalink
300-400 in a fancy resto on Friday or Saturday night shift sure, but pull a Wednesday fternoon and you might walk out with 20 bucks in tips. The best places in other cities poolt tips so there is better service but you can’t even do that here as you are taxed on sales. It’s an awful system that devalues waitstaff and bar staff.
dhomas 08:56 on 2021-11-17 Permalink
Despite all that backlash, the job posting still hasn’t changed to anything higher:
https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/jobsearch/jobposting/35237353