Live data from Hacker News

Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

southseattleemerald.com

231–240 of 472 posts

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#231
post #217

The pizza restaurant (gourmet pizza, not crap) around the corner where I live is workers owned. The previous owner went bankrupt and left his employees hanging out to dry, so they took ownership of the place. Not sure about the legal situation (e.g. whether they bought the restaurant from the owner or what) but it's been workers owned for the past few years and doing well, judging by how full it always is. I eat and…

[deleted]

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#232
post #194
post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hey we can't pay workers $250/hr without raises prices to above what customers are willing to pay There are restaurants that charge north of 800$ per person which are always fully booked half a year in advance with glowing reviews even from the worst critics hellbent on being negative. You certainly can pay workers $250 an hour without raising prices above what customers are willing to pay depending on the product.…

Well, Noma can charge customers up to $1500 per person and average worker is paid around $50/ hr. Masa Sushi charges $1000/ person and hourly worker pay is $20. There maybe a rare one but I don't know of a restaurants that charges $1K / person can pay worker $250.

At high end fine dining the guest:employee ratio is probably reversed from what it is in the typical place.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#235
post #86
post #80

Worker-owned anything can work. It's democracy in the workplace.

It’s a hellish concept. The workers relationship to the company becomes less transactional, and they get all the stress of owning a business but without the outsized profits.

No, they also get the profits.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#236
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the reduced-down version: You get some stake for free when you join, it entitles you to a fraction of the profits while you're there, and you lose it if you quit or get voted off the island according to some bylaws. Stake also gives you voting power for hiring new employees (including managers), and how much stake to give them. And nobody can buy shares, especially those who aren't employees. To simplify thing…

Sounds like a great way to turn a business into even more of a hyper-politicized environment than it already is. It becomes not about what you can do, but who you make like you.

Yeah, or it works ok at a small scale but you can never expand, and a competitor (maybe your own ex-employees) eats your lunch like what happened to Cheeseboard. Which is still ok, you can be in that cool little niche if that's what you like, but don't tell me it's a better model overall.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#237
post #217

The pizza restaurant (gourmet pizza, not crap) around the corner where I live is workers owned. The previous owner went bankrupt and left his employees hanging out to dry, so they took ownership of the place. Not sure about the legal situation (e.g. whether they bought the restaurant from the owner or what) but it's been workers owned for the past few years and doing well, judging by how full it always is. I eat and…

Zachary's? https://zacharys.com/

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#238

It can, but it will have problem scaling - If the business grows and starts needing management skills beyond what a cook or a waiter would have, you will have trouble hiring a qualified manager for same wages you pay to waiters - If you need a loan to expand, lender is likely to want some control over how a restaurant is run rather than leaving it up to workers If you are content to stay at a small scale where these…

Not every employee at a coop has to make the same wage.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#239

One thing that I never understood was, if an employees wages are tied to the success of the company, would that not incentivize better work ethic as a whole? That is how it works in the start-up world. You get equity, you have literally invested in the company, and you know that your work should (in theory) directly benefit you financially. Instead we end up in a system where the employee/employer relationship is inh…

Capitalism was not designed to create a mutually beneficial relationship between workers and owners, it was designed to make as much money as possible for the owners at the expense of the workers. Even if that means everything runs inefficiently and less money is made overall, the people in charge don't care so long as they get all of the profits.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#240
post #217

The pizza restaurant (gourmet pizza, not crap) around the corner where I live is workers owned. The previous owner went bankrupt and left his employees hanging out to dry, so they took ownership of the place. Not sure about the legal situation (e.g. whether they bought the restaurant from the owner or what) but it's been workers owned for the past few years and doing well, judging by how full it always is. I eat and…

In this example, someone else had to get it off the ground.

The sibling commenter's example of Zachary's is similarly the product of entrepreneurs who got it started https://zacharys.com/about-us/our-story/

Post reply on HN