[US] Wolfgang Puck believes waiters should make the same money as chefs

In the wake of increasing pressure for once-unthinkable pay rates to mitigate rising living costs, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck has said waiters should be the next group of workers to receive a major leap in pay, Yahoo Finance reports.

Recent pay rise news has seen Verizon setting its minimum wage at $20 per hour, a newly formed union of retail employees at an Apple store in Manhattan is demanding base pay of $30 per hour and Walmart is offering truckers salaries of as high as $110,000 per year.

In a new interview, Mr Puck told Yahoo Finance that waiters should make as much as chefs, in some cases ensuring waiters an income of $120,000 a year. 

The tipping system is likely to remain an ingrained part of US restaurants, Mr Puck said, and he proposed a potential service charge that could even out remaining disparities in pay between waiters and chefs.

"As a chef, I would say I would love [if] every chef should make the same amount as a waiter," Mr Puck - the co-founder of three companies that operate more than 50 restaurants worldwide - said. "So maybe put on a service charge and we can spread it out evenly."

"If a chef's making $120,000, the waiter makes $120,000, so it will be more even. 

"I'm trying to bridge the gap, so that we get a little closer."

In the US, a typical waiter makes a yearly salary of $26,000, roughly half of the $50,160 taken home by a typical chef, according to government data released in May 2021.

In 2021, as dining and travel habits started to return to pre-pandemic norms, the high demand for workers in hospitality made it the only occupation with wage increases outpacing inflation, Business Insider reported. 

Even taking inflation into account, restaurant and hotel workers reportedly received a 6.1 per cent pay bump last year.

However, a pay boost across the board will not necessarily address the longstanding disparity in compensation between chefs and waiters.

The tipping system has a role in the difference in compensation; it often ties the take-home pay of wait staff to the amount of traffic in the restaurant on a given night. But tips will probably remain a part of the industry, Mr Puck said, adding that in some restaurants they benefit waiters.

"When something is so ingrained in the people who work and in the customer, it's very difficult to change," he said. "I think by tipping, especially in high-end restaurants, waiters make really good money."

Mr Puck told Yahoo Finance that he believes the disparity in pay in part reflects the different tasks performed by chefs and waiters, whose "responsibility is for these four tables."

"Whereas a chef has to manage maybe 40 people in the kitchen, he has to look that every food comes out perfect, that they buy the right things, that everybody clocks in at the same time [and] they clock out," he said. "So there's a lot of work going on."

Source: Yahoo Finance

(Links and quotes via original reporting)

In the wake of increasing pressure for once-unthinkable pay rates to mitigate rising living costs, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck has said waiters should be the next group of workers to receive a major leap in pay, Yahoo Finance reports.

Recent pay rise news has seen Verizon setting its minimum wage at $20 per hour, a newly formed union of retail employees at an Apple store in Manhattan is demanding base pay of $30 per hour and Walmart is offering truckers salaries of as high as $110,000 per year.

In a new interview, Mr Puck told Yahoo Finance that waiters should make as much as chefs, in some cases ensuring waiters an income of $120,000 a year. 

The tipping system is likely to remain an ingrained part of US restaurants, Mr Puck said, and he proposed a potential service charge that could even out remaining disparities in pay between waiters and chefs.

"As a chef, I would say I would love [if] every chef should make the same amount as a waiter," Mr Puck - the co-founder of three companies that operate more than 50 restaurants worldwide - said. "So maybe put on a service charge and we can spread it out evenly."

"If a chef's making $120,000, the waiter makes $120,000, so it will be more even. 

"I'm trying to bridge the gap, so that we get a little closer."

In the US, a typical waiter makes a yearly salary of $26,000, roughly half of the $50,160 taken home by a typical chef, according to government data released in May 2021.

In 2021, as dining and travel habits started to return to pre-pandemic norms, the high demand for workers in hospitality made it the only occupation with wage increases outpacing inflation, Business Insider reported. 

Even taking inflation into account, restaurant and hotel workers reportedly received a 6.1 per cent pay bump last year.

However, a pay boost across the board will not necessarily address the longstanding disparity in compensation between chefs and waiters.

The tipping system has a role in the difference in compensation; it often ties the take-home pay of wait staff to the amount of traffic in the restaurant on a given night. But tips will probably remain a part of the industry, Mr Puck said, adding that in some restaurants they benefit waiters.

"When something is so ingrained in the people who work and in the customer, it's very difficult to change," he said. "I think by tipping, especially in high-end restaurants, waiters make really good money."

Mr Puck told Yahoo Finance that he believes the disparity in pay in part reflects the different tasks performed by chefs and waiters, whose "responsibility is for these four tables."

"Whereas a chef has to manage maybe 40 people in the kitchen, he has to look that every food comes out perfect, that they buy the right things, that everybody clocks in at the same time [and] they clock out," he said. "So there's a lot of work going on."

Source: Yahoo Finance

(Links and quotes via original reporting)