Pay, equity help for restaurants
Caviar driver Kittivut Patanapanich takes an order from AlaMar in Oakland, one of several Bay Area restaurants participating in the High Road Kitchens initiative.
As restaurants struggle to survive the coronavirus pandemic, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office recently announced an initiative that provides a financial lifeline to independent restaurants and encourages them to hire and promote more women and people of color.
The High Road Kitchens initiative, supported through public and private funds, is being led in part by One Fair Wage, a national organization dedicated to raising pay and increasing equity among service workers. Through the program, which advocates say is the first of its kind in the nation, restaurants are offered money toward daily operations and the rehiring of staff, many of whom were laid off in March following the state shelterinplace order.
The funding comes with commitments. By joining the program, the restaurants vow to pay livable wages; join One Fair Wage within the next few years; provide food, free or at discounted rates, to lowwage workers, health care workers, first responders and
others in need during the pandemic; and go through training, provided by One Fair Wage, to address race and gender inequities within the restaurant industry.
It’s this latter point that Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage and director of UC Berkeley’s Food Labor Research Center, said she believes could forever change the restaurant industry in California.
“Unlike other changes in the industry, equity is not something you can really mandate. Instead, we’re trying to incentivize employers to understand the value of equity and want to move in that direction,” she said. “Clearly, the pandemic laid bare all of the industry’s issues that have existed for far too long. This initiative shapes relief in a way that also shapes the future.”
Jayaraman said that as of last week, more than a dozen restaurants are taking part. Most either have received or are in the process of receiving $10,000 to $25,000 through High Road Kitchens. She said the program could soon grow to 30 restaurants across the state. San Francisco restaurants Flour & Water, Namu Stonepot and Nopalito, along with Oakland restaurants Obelisco and AlaMar Kitchen, are among the early participants.
Before the pandemic, California’s restaurant industry was one of the largest privatesector groups in the country, employing around 1.6 million people, which was 9% of California’s workforce. The state’s restaurant industry generated over $10 billion in revenue and $905 million in federal and local sales taxes in 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics. More than 1 million service workers in California have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic, according to recent data.
The Bay Area restaurant industry employed more than 300,000 workers. But within that workforce, there have been longstanding issues around racial inequality and segregation. In a 2017 report compiled by the the advocacy group Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, white male restaurant workers in San Francisco were hired faster, paid more and promoted quicker than Latino, Asian American and African American workers.
High Road Kitchens is a way to quickly increase diversity as the industry redefines itself during the pandemic, Jayaraman said. And the idea came to fruition through talks between Jayaraman, California chef Daniel Patterson, who has long been an advocate of social change in the restaurant world, and Robert Egger, founder of DC Central Kitchen in Washington. The initiative comes at a perilous time for the restaurant industry, as experts believe the Bay Area could lose half of its restaurants before the pandemic ends.
The High Road Kitchens program is being funded through the state, the city of San Francisco, and the Workforce Investment Boards of San Jose and San Diego County, while several other cities and counties across California are considering making investments, Jayaraman said. Private contributions are coming from numerous organizations, including the Walter & Elise Haas Fund, the San Diego Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation.
The program launched this month in San Jose, Monterey, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco. Organizers hope to expand High Road Kitchens to New York City, Washington, D.C., and Boston in the near future.