Labor
“More Delivery Workers, More Problems”: Why Restaurants Should Consider Outsourcing Food Delivery
Total Food Service 2/16
Most restaurants that directly employ delivery workers utilize the tip credit and pay an hourly rate that is below the minimum wage. The difference between that sub-minimum and the minimum wage is made up for by tips paid to delivery workers by the restaurant’s customers. This pay arrangement may be lawful assuming the delivery workers earn a sufficient amount in tips per hour to cover the difference.
What McDonald’s Shows About The Minimum Wage
NPR 2/16
McDonald’s is one of the nation’s biggest employers of low-wage workers. As such, it was kind of the perfect place to launch what was, in retrospect, the beginning of a historic labor movement. A new study by economists Orley Ashenfelter and Štěpán Jurajda suggests McDonald’s is also kind of the perfect place to test the effects of the minimum wage increases that workers have been fighting for.
Food Industry Policy
Pandemic-Era Restaurant Habits That Will Outlast COVID-19
QSR Magazine 2/17
Talk of the “new normal” is ready to evolve. Restaurants have come far enough to view life after COVID-19 not as some post-apocalyptic challenge, but rather as a refocused or reimagined version of why they were successful in the first place. Call it reset, not an extinction event.
Bill to change California liquor laws could benefit bars, restaurants
KRON4 2/16
Outdoor dining parklets and the shared spaces program could continue long after the pandemic. This will mainly impact how restaurants and bars are able to serve alcohol outdoors which is very limited under pre-pandemic alcohol rules. A bill proposed by Senator Scott Wiener looks to reform state liquor laws and create more flexibility for the state’s bars, restaurants, and music venues.
On the Side
Over 90 Percent of NYC Restaurants Couldn’t Afford Rent in December
FSR Magazine 2/17
New York City’s return to indoor dining right before Valentine’s Day arrived at a critical juncture. When Gov. Andrew Cuomo cleared operators for 25 percent capacity, reservations for the popular dining-out occasion quadrupled, according to OpenTable. While still half of 2019 numbers, a positive turn nonetheless for the Big Apple, and one it sorely needed.
Coming this year: The Bay Area’s 13 most anticipated new restaurants
The Mercury News 2/16
Somehow, this year, during an unprecedented time of loss that the National Restaurant Association estimates at 110,000 restaurants, or one in six, gone, restaurateurs in Northern California are still making headlines for their forthcoming new destinations, from San Jose to Tiburon and everywhere in between.
