‘Fast-fine’ becoming new dining normal
Labour shortage in city forcing even fine-dining restaurants to eliminate wait staff
New restaurants are increasingly turning to counter-service concepts as a way to cope with the double whammy of a rising minimum wage and severe employee shortages.
Vancouver is seeing a new wave of diverse eateries that are making do without servers, such as Noodle Box, Monarch Burger, The Downlow Chicken Shack and now the “gourmet counter-service” Popina Canteen.
In most cases, customers place an order at the counter and a runner brings the food.
Popina, however, will have automated ordering kiosks and customers will haul their own food, eliminating order takers, servers and food runners from the business model.
“If you are going to serve creative food, use sustainable ingredients and buy locally, you’ve got to cut costs somewhere,” said Chef Robert Belcham, who is opening Popina this month with a culinary dream team including Chef Angus An. “It’s become a necessity with a small labour pool and super-high wages.”
To make top-quality food affordable, chefs must battle to keep every dollar on the plate, he said.
Counter service has long been the norm at fast-food burger chains, but until recently chef-run restaurants were almost always table service only.
The wave of the future is “fast-fine” dining and you’ll be collecting your own cutlery on the way to the table as wait staff are phased out.
B.C.’s minimum wage was increased to $12.65 on June 1 and will ramp up to $13.85, $14.60 and finally $15.20 over the next three years, and that is putting pressure on the table-service business model.
Metro Vancouver’s skyrocketing rental-housing market has led to staff shortages in many parts of the economy, but food service is being hit harder than most.
Even a higher minimum wage isn’t enough to hold onto employees anymore, especially if they have to commute for more than an hour to wait tables in the city.
“We have to adapt and change how we do things, or we die,” said Belcham, who has a stake in five restaurants.
Belcham took the highly successful dry-aged Dirty Burger served at his table-service eatery Campagnolo Upstairs and brought it to the masses at his counter-service joint, Monarch Burger.
“It’s what we have to do to give you a burger for twelve bucks,” he said.
For every four employees that leave the B.C. workforce only three workers are coming to take their places, leaving tens of thousands of unfilled jobs, according to the report Metro Vancouver Restaurant Labour Shortage just released by the B.C. Restaurant and Food Services Association.
Restaurants are so short of staff that many are cutting operating hours and days. Some have shut down completely.
“I think you are going to see more (counter service) with new restaurants opening up, rather than established restaurants converting,” said Ian Tostenson, BCRFA CEO. “Restaurants in the future are going to have to eliminate the pressure points, which are staff and rent.”
Rising lease costs are also driving the rise of delivery-only commissary kitchens, essentially restaurants with no dining area whatsoever.
“It’s become really hard to find a good location (for a restaurant) at the right price,” Tostenson said.
“By using meal delivery services, they can avoid the whole retail side of the business.”