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Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

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Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#371

Post by sdenton4 »

rcme wrote: post #328
fouc wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> someone else had to get it off the ground implying what? that "workers" can't start something? Even if we imagine there's a category of people that are suited to be "starters" or "entrepreneurs" that category is still plenty numerous, easily 10-35% of the population, if not more.

Yes that is the implication. Starting something requires raising money and organizing things. Generally, at the start, only a small number of people care to do this work. And once they do it, why would they give their ownership stake away to their employees when they could just keep it for themselves?

As I recall, Arizmendi spun out of Cheeseboard... So, yes, we also have examples where worker coops beget other worker coops.

http://www.arizmendi.coop/about-arizmendi-association.html

IMO, the reason you don't see more is that us financing is quite conservative and unwilling to risk "unusual" business models.

(Similarly, finding a mortgage for shared housing requires a lot of extra work, because the mortgage brokers only like nuclear families... Even when you show up with four incomes and no kids, it's still considered risky because unusual.)

Which is to say... The smallish number of worker coops in the US has nothing to do with the rarity of magical founder people... I'll say that the folks I've known in housing and worker coops have a much higher rates creativity, grit, and organizational chops than anyone I've met from a business school. And, indeed, many of them are now run their own businesses in a wide range of endeavours.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#372

Post by __loam »

Worker ownership leads to more stable companies that tend to put more wealth in the pockets of workers and fuck customers less. The problem is getting enough startup capital from people who despise the idea.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#373

Post by Cthulhu_ »

the_af wrote: 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 the case of a bankruptcy, the property will pass to a curator who has to try and settle debts as much as possible; I'm sure the staff and the curator struck a deal there.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#374

Post by sdenton4 »

hot_gril wrote: post #280
TylerE wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that looking at the two linked here (Seward and the pizza place) both are struggling - raising prices, cutting hours, and both are essentially begging the community to fund them so they continue to exist.

Idk how Cheese Board is doing. They were fine last I checked. Just probably would've done way better as a corp. The Avedisyan couple turned their cheese shop into a coop decades ago, and it was basically an act of charity when they could've kept ownership instead. The store didn't expand much despite decades of exceptional work and high popularity, which is a missed opportunity for profit, but that wasn't their goal.…

Arizmendi spun out of Cheeseboard in 1996 and now has six locations...

Also, Mondragon exists. Coops can expand.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#376

Post by __loam »

marcellus23 wrote: post #276
amrocha wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that when it comes to tech companies, managers are all bumbling idiots and should all be fired to allow the workers to get the job done. But as soon as a working class business tries that, it apparently doesn't work in the long term.

HN is composed of individuals, it's not a hive mind. Different people have different opinions. Besides, comments here tend to complain about middle management being useless, not leadership.

Leadership is more useless than middle management.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#377

Post by __loam »

hot_gril wrote: post #264
magicalist wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The takes in this thread are so funny. Oh no, what if they have too much money and there aren't owners siphoning it off disproportionate to their value? People might fight over it! Or they might have to plan on steady operating income, but how can they do that if they didn't go through the rigorous schooling that the ownership class does?

Non-employee owners vs employee owners taking extra profits, same problem. Difference is the un-democratic owners can more easily reinvest to expand the business instead, and in many cases they do.

It's incredible to see the unironic take here that we need undemocratic do nothings to actually make business decisions. Some of the oldest and most successful companies in the world are worker owned and operated. Just look at the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which has been around since 1956, has 12b in yearly revenue, and has 80,000 employees. The idea that a co-op wouldn't be capable of investing in the business is ludicrous.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#378

Post by __loam »

MrJohz wrote: post #314
TylerE wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just all seems so very fragile. It would be very easy for institutional culture to slip, or for whatever the restaurant equivalent of technical debt is to accumulate. You see the same thing with a lot of non-profits - they mean well, but they send so much of their funding right back out the door - and the first unexpected expense ruins them.

And yet evidentially, they aren't so very fragile. Clearly there's something about coops that make them viable businesses, even if that goes against our intuition for what viable businesses ought to look like. I think part of it is that workers typically have very good insights into the immediate needs of a business. You bring up technical debt as an example of the dangers that businesses face, but technical debt is…

The only reason we have the intuition that these would not be viable is because we've been indoctrinated by a capitalistic system since childhood. All the evidence, as you have shown repeatedly in this thread, suggests that workers give a shit when they have a stake in the business, and when they have a say in how the business is run. The results should not be surprising.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#379

Post by iamflimflam1 »

Very interesting reading the comments. My impression is that a lot of people saying this can’t possibly work are in the camp of “one day I’ll found a business and this kind of thing could ruin that”. It’s the same thinking that says “don’t tax billionaires - one day I might be one!”.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#380

Post by __loam »

Affric wrote: post #132
toyg wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the long run, that is bound to generate a separate managerial class, with all that it entails. It's how most cooperatives eventually die: they turn into regular businesses.

Well said. Good co-ops that last have the decisions made by those working there. And it's a lot of work.

Sure but nobody is pretending that there shouldn't be some kind of way of making decisions in these organizations. The point is that the people making those decisions were chosen by and accountable to the workers at the firm, not external shareholders. The incentives are completely different.
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