Doing the math

JEFF CHANCHALEUNE (MA DER LAO, OKLAHOMA CITY)>>WE usually don’t make any profit until Saturday night. If we’re lucky, we’ll profit all day Saturday. But if we have a terrible snowstorm on Saturday, we’re screwed.

GEOFF DAVIS (BURDELL, OAKLAND, CALIF.)>> You need to make a certain amount of money per seat. So if you have $40 or $50 entrees and you have a $19 burger, and a third of the people get the burger, you’re losing a huge amount of money. New people will come try you out if they know that there’s a burger. But if 50

EFRÉN HERNÁNDEZ (CASA SUSANNA, HUDSON VALLEY, N.Y.)>> I think people are realizing that Mexican food is not just important culturally, but that it’s very good. There’s a lot of different types of it, and that it does have a place in the upper echelon of the culinary world, with the French and the Italian.

AARON VERZOSA (ARCHIPELAGO, SEATTLE)>> It’s not that we don’t use truffles or things like that or caviar, but we try to place a little bit more emphasis on the value of the cultural items. How can we make a carrot as valuable as, like, a piece of foie gras?

I’ve been taught by some of the best chefs. First day on the job, they told me, “Don’t ever disrespect my dishwasher. I’ll fire you before I even go and talk to him.” DIANA DÁVILA (MI TOCAYA, CHICAGO)>> I don’t think health insurance should be something as an operator that we need to do. That is such a larger issue that this country should offer. But what am I going to do, not offer it and not care about my employees? So we offer health insurance. We put a line on the check — 3% comes from the customer, so that counts as income and we have to pay tax on it. And you know who that’s

JUSTIN PIOCHE>> People ask me, what’s a good culinary school to go to? And I always tell them: Don’t go. ROBYNNE MAI>> I always sing the praises of culinary school, but in community colleges only. All the forprofit schools need to go away. They’re completely unnecessary and they’re predatory.

RYAN RATINO (JONT, WASHINGTON, D.C.)>> You should work in the industry for a couple of years before you make that commitment, that $60,000 or $70,000 or $80,000 commitment.

GEOFF DAVIS>> You want to control someone’s pay because you didn’t feel like your water got filled fast enough, or your food took a long time to come out? It should be just like anything else: The price is the price. MICHAEL RAFIDI (ALBI, WASHINGTON, D.C.)>> The job of a cook has always been really low-paying. A server could be making double the amount of a cook and working the same hours. I just wish that would change, but it’s very, very complicated. How would that happen? How do we not take from one to give to the other? How do we please everyone in the business, including the guests?

HAJIME SATO>> People talk about how being wait staff is so hard, it’s so degrading.

we employ millions and millions of people. You love unemployment being low? Well, we’re the ones who are breaking our backs to keep people hired.

REYNA DUONG>> You know how they say, the kitchen is the heart of the home? That’s where everybody migrates to. Well, that’s what it is with independently owned restaurants for our country. Let’s be honest: When your friends and family come to town, you’re not going to be like: “Oh, I know this restaurant nearby. It’s a huge chain.” You’re like, “I know this gem, and it’s a little bit of a wait, they make everything from scratch.”

DAVID CHANG>> We’re about to discover a lot in the next 10 years. Because this is such a new industry, even though it’s an extremely old business.