Local chefs unite to help increase restaurant worker pay by calling out unfair wages

A grassroots effort started by a group of Charlotte chefs on Facebook has driven the hourly wage for local food and beverage job postings up over the last six months — nearly 42 percent for line cook openings. Sam Hart, Sam Diminich, Rob Clement and Chris Coleman came together to start demanding better pay for restaurant workers — a community hit especially hard by COVID-19.

On a private Chefs of Charlotte Facebook page, which boasts more than 2,000 members, the chefs began calling out job postings offering less than $15 per hour. Currently the minimum wage both nationally and in North Carolina is $7.25, a figure that has remained unchanged since 2009 nationally and since 2008 in North Carolina.

According to living wage data published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, $7.25 an hour is not enough for full-time workers to pay bills in any state. In late 2019, Charlotte Restaurant Group Owners Jamie Brown and Jeff Tonidandel made headlines for raising the hourly wage at their restaurants to a living wage of $12.57 per hour.

More than 2.5 million restaurant industry jobs were lost nationally in 2020 due to the pandemic. Workers began collecting unemployment and searching for work in other, more reliable and often better paying industries.

“People are making more money on unemployment than they are in the restaurant industry. When Amazon is paying you $17-$20 an hour just to move boxes from one belt to another, why would you leave to make $10 an hour as a line cook?” said Sam Hart, chef and owner of Counter-.

“No one can live on that amount of money. A group of us got together and started talking and were like — we cannot allow this to happen in our community.”

Chefs holding other chefs accountable

One of the people called to task was Travis Hearne, chef and owner of The Dunavant. “I was having a problem with turnover of my dishwashers, so rather than invest I was putting up lowball offers. I was one of the people in that Facebook group that Sam ridiculed.

“He said, ‘Remember when you were coming up and how much work you did just to be compensated poorly and how happy you were when that pay got pushed up. Imagine how loyal people would be if that happened from the start,’” Hearne said. “It really hit home with me. I started as a dishwasher, and I know how grueling this industry can be.”

Hearne’s sous chef had just left to pursue an executive chef position, so he decided instead of hiring a replacement he would increase wages across the board to a liveable wage. “It has made such a huge difference. People have taken on roles that are not theirs, they are asking for more responsibilities, they are showing up, working harder and holding one another to standards that are even beyond mine. Morale is through the roof — it is really a dream. I’m so grateful to Sam for pushing us to be better,” Hearne said.

Initially the movement was controversial because so many restaurants are struggling to keep their doors open due to the pandemic, but over time it has gained traction and together the restaurant community has brought the average posting on the Chefs of Charlotte Facebook page for a line cook up to $17 an hour from $12 an hour. Other food and beverage positions — from dishwashers to runners — have followed suit.

Staffing shortages

FS Group announced on Friday, April 30, that due to the staffing crisis, it is revising the menus across its restaurants to focus on the most popular items.

Prior to that announcement, Frank Scibelli, owner of FS Group, told Axios Charlotte that staffing has become such a challenge at his restaurants, which include Yafo Kitchen, Little Mama’s, Mama Ricotta’s, Midwood Smokehouse and Paco’s Tacos & Tequila, that they have hired two full-time recruiters and are considering offering a $1,000 bonus for those who stay for at least six months.

The chefs spearheading this effort to increase pay, say that good, skilled workers have been driven away from the food and beverage industry by the low wages and lack of reliability when times get tough.

“People are saying they can’t fill positions, but often it is because they aren’t offering to pay people what their time is worth,” Hart said. “I had one posting recently for a runner, and I got 30 resumes in three days. At my restaurant, I offer four weeks of paid vacation and benefits. By investing in my employees and paying $20-$22 per hour, not only do I get more resumes, but good, talented people who had left the restaurant industry are being attracted back.”

Diminich, chef and owner of Your Farms Your Table, said, “My employees are the most important people I serve — beyond the customers, beyond the farmers. When COVID hit, for me and for many others it was — boom, done. Hop in the unemployment que, that’s it. So when I started Your Farms Your Table, I wanted to create a positive culture, where if you are my employee, you know I’m invested in you and in your long-term wellness, not just financially, but as a human.”

When Diminich began the food delivery portion of his business, he started looking at the average driver pay in southern cities. “I saw that it was starting at $7 an hour, so I decided to more than double that. That way anyone who comes to work for me knows they have a solid paycheck, and they can look at their hours and the schedule and can depend on that money.”

The humanization of restaurant workers goes a long way in boosting morale, the chefs said. Hearne recently saw that his team was feeling rundown, so he decided to shut down the restaurant and give everyone an unexpected break on a Sunday. In turn, when he was away from the restaurant for a few days, “nobody missed a beat.”

Despite these success stories, there is still some pushback in the industry. “I’ve heard people say that they can’t afford to pay more in an industry that was hit so hard. But my response to that is if you have to increase the price of your burger by a few dollars to be able to pay these wages, that extra investment will show up in the quality of your employees and ultimately in your food. If you can’t provide fair, living wages and run your business, then you aren’t doing something right,” Hart said.

Diminich acknowledges that not everyone’s business model is the same, so money can be a tricky thing. “But if we all come together, we can at least identify the major issues and work together. If we don’t, none of it will matter because there will be no business.”

In the end, these chefs believe demanding and paying higher wages will attract more talent to Charlotte and boost the city’s culinary reputation. “The cost of living is so much better in Charlotte than some of these other big cities like New York and Chicago. So if we are paying people well, they will come,” Hart said.

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