Black owned detailing shops, immigrant owned restaurants and Vietnamese run nail salons come and go constantly throughout Minnesota. They come and go without much comments from the gatekeepers of popular culture.
but high concept, restaurants, especially the ones that clean closely to the progressive narrative? They get saturation media coverage, coming and going.
“Common Roots”, a high concept restaurant in south Minneapolis, got breathless media coverage when it opened a few years back. And with a mission statement like this, it’s no wonder:
‘According to their website, the eatery was operated around the values of supporting local farmers, being environmentally sustainable and providing living wages and benefits for employees.’
With a set up like that, you know how the story ends, don’t you?
“While we dramatically reduced our monthly losses during the course of the year, the business still will end 2022 with a large financial loss. We are still only operating at roughly half the sales we did prior to the pandemic. Our margins were thin in good times, but there’s absolutely no possibility of the budget working at anywhere near the volume we are at now,” Schwartzman wrote.
And I’m sure there’s no link, no way, no, how, between the fact that principal collided with reality:
He added that last week he was informed that staff wanted to unionize, which forced him to “take a fresh look at the overall state of the business.”
“I fully support the labor movement and would have loved being able to run a union business,” Schwartzman wrote, but said he “couldn’t commit to moving forward if I didn’t have confidence I would be able to keep the business open under all the very many different strains the business is under.”
Huh.
So, your principles have unsustainable prices?
Weird.
Funny, how many leftists fully support the labor movement, until the support comes out of their own pockets.
Anyway, haute cuisine is heading in a new direction. Tomorrow’s trendy eateries will be serving fried cricket’s, meal worm soufflés and sommelier’s will be choosing regional soy milk to pair.
I dunno, BN. I’d like to know why the staff wants to unionize. The cafe was founded on the providing a “living wage and benefits for employees”. What does the union want to accomplish apart from muscling in (aka taking over)?
Could those free masks have been a insurmountable cost?
Got a chuckle about that future direction of haute cuisine (for stupid little people who believe everything they’re told).
Regardless, fifteen years is not a bad run.
Candidate for a Berg’s law: the restaurant/bar/coffee shop staff who vote in a union will move on within a few short months. I mean, who wants to hustle tables when a more meaningful job awaits in the public/non-profit sector?
Blade;
Or when unions squeeze the big companies for higher wages and more benefits. People, even most union slaves, don’t realize that every time they get a win, a. The union leaders get a bigger increase than they do and b. They are paying for it in the higher costs of goods and services.
Interesting intersection.
“No restaurant? That’s no problem for these resourceful Twin Cities area chefs”
No unions, no utility bills, no entertainment taxes, no rent; inspector spotted coming up the street? Hit the gas.
Also, no class.
These aren’t hot dog wagons on the corner. These people are selling high buck meals on wheels.
Maybe y’all don’t see the irony of getting your fancy food handed to you in a paper sack off a catering truck, but if I’m gonna spend $30 on a damn sammich, I’m gonna have a table covered with a nice clean cloth and stainless steel utensils.
Food trucks are virtually unknown around my neck of the woods. Even in hipster Greenville and Charlotte, they’re pretty rare, and mostly serve BBQ and Tacos.
Dining out of paper sacks, with sporks on the street is just one more ugly reality of living in a leftist shithole.
https://m.startribune.com/the-creativity-of-twin-cities-chefs-isnt-limited-to-restaurants/600236099/
Apropos:
“No restaurant? That’s no problem for these resourceful Twin Cities area chefs”
No unions, no utility bills, no entertainment taxes, no rent; inspector spotted coming up the street? Hit the gas.
Also, no class.
These aren’t hot d0g wagons on the corner. These people are selling high buck meals on wheels.
Maybe y’all don’t see the irony of getting your fancy food handed to you in a paper sack off a catering truck, but if I’m gonna spend $30 on a damn sammich, I’m gonna have a table covered with a nice clean cloth and stainless steel utensils.
Food trucks are virtually unknown around my neck of the woods. Even in hipster Greenville and Charlotte, they’re pretty rare, and mostly serve BBQ and Tacos.
Dining out of paper sacks, with sporks on the street is just one more ugly reality of living in a leftist shithole.
https://m.startribune.com/the-creativity-of-twin-cities-chefs-isnt-limited-to-restaurants/600236099/
Noted with amusement that one of the neighborhoods identified as Calhoun Lakes and not Bibbity Bobitty Boo lakes.
JDM, as I understand it, the biggest objection to unions isn’t the wages, it’s the mandated work rules.
If you can’t manage your employees and set the terms of employment, you don’t really own a business.
I work in an industry that rises and falls with capital investments. When times are good, we’re busy as hell; when leftists are in control, we get laid off. It’s just part of the deal.
We get paid very well. Do do that, our employers need a steady stream of work. They can’t afford to pay us to warm a seat. We understand that, and when we get laid off, there’s no hard feelings.
During the gold rush, the price of labor in california was so high that it was economical to ship laundry to honolulu and back.
At one point in the ’80s, the price of labor made it cheaper to ship taconite from Hibbing to Duluth through the Great Lakes to the Panama Canal over to Japan to be made into steel to turn into cars which were shipped to Seattle and carried by rail to Detroit than it was to make the steel and the cars in the usa.
Unions destroy everything they touch.
“What does the union want to accomplish apart from muscling in (aka taking over)?”
I work in a professional job. Most of my colleagues have post-graduate degrees. We get 4 weeks vacation, we are salaried and have great flexibility with our time, we work 2 holiday periods a year and are guaranteed 6 days off around the other holidays if we want. We get 100% paid FMLA. Mothers get 3 months maternity leave. Fathers get 6 weeks paternity leave. We get a choice of 3 types of health insurance. The most expensive one, about $200 per month for an individual has a $3000 deductible. It pays 100% preventative visits. You pay only $100 out of pocket for ER visit.
But, last year, 80% of my colleagues got convinced to vote yes for unionizing. I’m not sure where we’re being mistreated. My colleagues thought they needed more money (since the union was busy pushing the rhetoric that businesses make too much money). They also thought they needed extra pay on their holidays. They also thought they needed compensation if they chose not to take the employer offered insurance. Mostly, the union has been able to play into basic human greed. Boss is right- the colleagues don’t seem to grasp how big, profitable and greedy the unions are.
But, since my colleagues have unionized, I have heard ad nauseum how greedy businesses are and the union has definitely made it clear the goal is to unionize the country.
Interestingly enough, a recent edition of The Economist reported that unions are no longer primarily representing blue collar, working class employees but have moved on to more professional class employees. But, as I look around, I see gullible people who don’t really understand how good they have it.
JDM, as I understand it, the biggest objection to unions isn’t the wages, it’s the mandated work rules
I accept this. I was simply reacting to the info available from the website. That owner guy really didn’t want his staff to unionize and so he closed shop. Whether he did it because of wage demands or new work rules is left to the reader. Or, when discovering the healing power of “why not both?”, one could just use the big man’s assertion Unions destroy everything they touch (they try to anyway).
Interesting, mjb.
How many high end restaurants can Minneapolis support? It’s not a tourist destination. On any given night you might have 2 to 3 hundred couples celebrating a special occasion & willing to shell out a few hundred bucks for a luxury dining experience.
I’ve been looking for detailed info on the dining economy of the Twin Cities because I think that it is a canary in a coal mine industry, you will see signs of a shrinking or growing economy in the number of restaurants and their plate price.
Unfortunately all I can find is rah-rah business publications.
Number & cost of liquor licenses for dine-in restaurants might be a decent proxy.
Thread jack, but I don’t know where else to put this.
Whadya know, Ivermectin was safe and effective, and the gummint and the left (including the troll) lied and censored.
https://www.cureus.com/articles/111851-regular-use-of-ivermectin-as-prophylaxis-for-covid-19-led-up-to-a-92-reduction-in-covid-19-mortality-rate-in-a-dose-response-manner-results-of-a-prospective-observational-study-of-a-strictly-controlled-population-of-88012-subjects?email_share=true&expedited_modal=true
Why, it’s almost as if the left does nothing but lie.
There used to be a saying, “companies that organize, usually deserve it.”
I don’t know how true that is today…. but then there is always Jeff Bezos and Amazon or Apple in China.
Granted, the UAW killed Detroit and thus made Honda and Toyota – but then what made the UAW? I doubt if one can lay blame for that on the “greed” of the rank and file.
The fact that Schwartzman was offering cash refunds for unused gift cards tells you everything you need to know about this man. A stand-up guy. I hope his next adventure is equally as successful.
However, when it comes to small cafes and coffee shops, unions tend to make ridiculous demands that most of these small businesses can’t afford.
The owner invested his money and took the risks, but then the workers want raises that in many cases would raise their salaries to $50K per year + tips. Working the counter at a cafe is an honorable job, but not every job is intended to make someone big money or be a full-time job.
Remember the “Chevette’, and the “Vega”?
In the 70’s many car companies designed shitty cars, but they were not responsible for the shitty assembly. I lived near one of the largest GM plants in the country at that time; Fremont CA. Many of my friends older brothers and dads worked there, and we heard all about how many guys would show up for work drunk, and stay that way all day and how everyone would go to a nearby park and get baked af at lunch time. They’d all steal hardware and parts, too.
They laughed because there was virtually no way to fire them, unless they were caught in the act.
GM found a way. In 1982, they shut the whole thing down.
Today, I live near the largest BMW plant in the world. I have many friends that work there, and they report high wages, that they have to work to earn. No one complains. Union agents are not welcome there.
Working the counter at a cafe is an honorable job, but not every job is intended to make someone big money or be a full-time job.
This is one of the arguments against paying fast food workers a “living wage”.
However, the more correct argument is “Do the wages you demand equate to the value you are providing to the employer?” In most cases of $15/hr (or more, I recently saw someone squawking on the Bluebird App that it should be $25/hr), the answer is “Not at current pricing. Prices would have to greatly increase, which will translate into reduced sales, reduced revenue, and eventually, reduced costs. The main cost which the employer can control is labor.”
Hope you like your mandated $0 wages, all you (former) Common Roots employees.
Blade;
When I first got out of the Air Force, I worked for an Oldsmobile dealer. In 1975, the UAW picked GM plants as strike targets. A friend of mine worked on the assembly line in Lansing, MI during that time. The workers in the engine department, decided to become militants, so on every 15th engine, they would over torque the rod caps, then laugh when the engine locked up during the test run. Roughly, 65 – 80 engines per shift, had to be scrapped. The next year, GM found a way to monitor the processes, so the workers were never able to sabotage engines again, but the scandal that bubbled up in 1977 over Chevy engines being installed in Olds, Buicks and Pontiacs at the factory, was leaked to the media by line workers.
mjb, blue collar are no longer the target of unionization because union bosses found themselves a new stool pigeon, the brain dead, college edumacated, privileged, white guiltridden idiots.