Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

southseattleemerald.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 472 posts

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#391

Post by zb10948 »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #383
gokhan wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All dine-in checks include a 15% service charge, and all to-go, delivery and curbside pick-up orders include a 20% service charge. 100% of these charges are distributed to our employees in order to keep compensation as fair as possible to everyone" I guess this is mentioned on the page to signal that menu price is the final, no need to tip? US' tipping culture is so strange. Normally you don't need to mention anythi…

> That's how it is in the rest of the world. Not true; tipping is everywhere, however it's more that it's appreciated instead of expected elsewhere, see https://www.johnlewisfinance.com/currency/tipping-culture-ti...

That list is not correct for Europe/Southern Europe at least. Nobody expects anything. The most tipping is done by rounding up. You have a 1.8 euro bill for coffee, you leave 2 euro.

The biggest difference between NA and Europe is that in NA a lot of people work for tips, as in, they're going to try to service you to get them. This is not the way it works in Europe, waiters do appreciate tips especially in places that have lower purchasing power, they will take your order, bring your food, bring your bill, and be on disposal if you want to call them anytime, but they're not going to try to look outgoing and approachable and hassle you with "is everything ok" questions for better tip.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#392

Post by ChoHag »

sudosysgen wrote: post #311
chii wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> more employees diluted the pie why should this new employee automatically dilute the pie before their "worth" is made real (by virtue of working and contributing to the bottom line)? if adding this new employee creates more value, the existing owners shouldn't have a problem with adding. Of course, unless the employee start owning their share before being first able to be vetted.

You grow the pie and you dilute it. The end result is that unless there are economies of scale, growth is not very economically attractive.

[dead]

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#393

Post by marcus_holmes »

badcppdev wrote: post #387
ralferoo wrote: post #382

This seems fine during the good times, but I can imagine a big problem of having a no-hierarchy worker-owned operation is what happens when the market shrinks and you can't afford to pay everyone the promised minimum salary. Do you all just collectively agree to take less money? What about the one person who actually can't afford to do that because they'd already budgeted assuming that money was coming in? What about…

More info about John Lewis and its current situation [0] and [1]. Most interesting to me is: "Insiders claim that some years’ borrowings were ramped up in order to avoid having to think the unthinkable and cut the hallowed John Lewis staff bonus, as profits failed to keep up with the pace of store openings." It only takes a few years of mismanagement for a partner owned company like Waitrose to borrow too much and st…

Interesting that although worker-owned they were still managed by professional managers and had that hierarchy. And it was the hierarchy that failed, not the worker-owned aspect. Managers incentivised to act in their own interests rather than the interests of the organisation is a source of much evil.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#394

Post by TFYS »

ralferoo wrote: post #382

This seems fine during the good times, but I can imagine a big problem of having a no-hierarchy worker-owned operation is what happens when the market shrinks and you can't afford to pay everyone the promised minimum salary. Do you all just collectively agree to take less money? What about the one person who actually can't afford to do that because they'd already budgeted assuming that money was coming in? What about…

I don't think it would be hard to collectively agree to take less money or reduce everyones hours if the alternative is to lose the business entirely. You could use majority voting to prevent a single person from sabotaging the business.

I think the biggest obstacle for worker owned businesses is the funding, not the absence of a hierarchy.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#395

Post by ChoHag »

Closi wrote: post #360
smcl wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hey we can't pay workers $250/hr without raises prices to above what customers are willing to pay You seem to be suggesting that workers are cartoonishly naive and have ridiculous demands that cannot simply be met. When in reality they usually just want a living wage, a bit more input on shift planning, things like this. People aren't generally stupid, and if they can get it together enough to form a worker-owned c…

Well they sound like they have picked a higher base wage than average (particularly for servers) and aren’t making a profit. Personally if it’s owner-run I would assume you would be better picking a lower base wage, then sharing profits (with the profits making up that shortfall). That way there is also an incentive to be an owner, and the business is more stable - sounds like if they have picked high wages and low/n…

[dead]

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#396

Post by edu »

__loam wrote: post #376
marcellus23 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s plenty of bad leadership, but there’re also some great leaders.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#398

Post by thefounder »

helpfulmandrill wrote: post #385
andsoitis wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

A bit of a long read, but the co-operative sector does have some ideas about how to offer "founder incentives" in workers cooperatives. https://jrwiener.com/cooperatives-and-founder-incentives/ The idea is that cooperatives don't have to treat everyone exactly the same. You can have different "classes" of members. You can have ordinary worker members, but also "founder" members. For example, for an agreed number of y…

Pretty much like the big law firms work?

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#399

Post by blackoil »

expazl wrote: post #175
exabrial wrote: post #88

Yes, absolutely, but there are pitfalls: * Somehow finances have to work, which is usually a harsh reality for some. Ex: Hey we can't pay workers $250/hr without raises prices to above what customers are willing to pay * Consumers despite "Least common denominator" which is often the result of "design by committee". Usually consumers are after something niche, unique, artistic, and creative, which is the inspiration…

> 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.…

> There are restaurants that charge north of 800$ per person

All of them will have a star chef/brand who'll have to leave lot of money on the table. i.e. only way everyone will make $250 is if someone is giving it for free.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#400

Post by notpushkin »

dagw wrote: post #363
BartjeD wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why cant they hire non share packaged employees? Why do they have to shrink their pie? To me this sounds very annecdotal and intuitive based on what you think you know. I'd like to know if it has been studied and what those studies found.

Why cant they hire non share packaged employees? Why do they have to shrink their pie? How many non-owner workers can you have before you stop being worker-owned? If four workers own 25% of the shares each, and the company employs 400 (or 4000) people are they still "worker-owned" in any meaningful sense?

I think it's not perfectly black and white, and we shouldn't really put some arbitrary line here. Would be nice if more worker-owned businesses shared details about their ownership structure, though.
Post reply on HN