Enoteca Sociale’s fresh approach
The culinary industry has a long tradition of making workers martyrs for what they love.
Kris Schlotzhauer and the owners of Enoteca Sociale spent more than three months drawing up, then discarding, plans that would allow staff to take time off, earn enough to live on and not bankrupt the place.
While the restaurant business can be lucrative for some, the margins are often thin. “The profits at the end of the day are like this,” said the chef, holding his finger and thumb less than an inch apart.
But in a world that’s increasingly concerned about what goes into the food people consume, Schlotzhauer wants people to consider the hands that prepare it, too.
“To me it doesn’t make sense to go in and eat a 45-day dry-aged rib-eye that was grown outside Toronto and spend a hundred bucks on that and a couple glasses of wine — meanwhile the cook who made it is making $10 an hour,” he said. “We shouldn’t feel good about that. We should look for a better way.”
The standard week: Back-of-house staff at Toronto restaurants, particularly in fine dining, can work upwards of 60 hours a week. Schlotzhauer’s cooks said in previous fine-dining jobs they worked up to 100 hours a week. Shifts that stretch beyond 12 hours aren’t uncommon and the pace can cause burnout after only a few years.
The standard pay: The rate of pay varies by restaurant. Hourly rates for experienced cooks range between $13 and $15. Others are paid on a day-rate system where pay ranges from $120 to $150. With shifts that last 12 to15 hours, senior cooks on a day rate often make less than Ontario’s minimum wage of $11.25 an hour.
Enoteca’s plan: Before, cooks at Enoteca earned a weekly salary of $700 for five days of roughly 12 hours. That broke down to $11.66 an hour. Now, the restaurant operates on a four-day workweek, 11 hours each day, with hourly pay. Staff make the same amount of money but get an extra day off to recharge.
The finances: Schlotzhauer won’t reveal the exact numbers, but according to Neil Baxter, a senior instructor at the Stratford Chef School, the chef and owners would have had to make some sort of financial compromise. “Something has to give, either on food cost or labour,” Baxter said.
The doubts: While the owners and staff have found a plan they can agree on, not everyone has been so supportive. Reluctant to be specific, Schlotzhauer said he has heard criticism in the industry by some who see Enoteca’s system as a threat. “If you’ve been going along and you’ve been doing things one way and it’s been successful and then somebody comes along and says, ‘Hey I’ve got a new idea’ . . . there’s a lot of pushback.”