Re:$15 minimum wage didn’t hurt NYC restaurants
by jkingsbery on Tuesday October 29, 2019 @01:27PM
(#21389732)
Whatever the bias of the publisher, the article from the NY Post contradicts this research backed by data on a couple of fronts:
* "massive layoffs in the restaurant industry are unlikely," but the survey indicated that a large number of restaurants have eliminated jobs or cut hours
* "...because owners need a certain number of staff to operate a full-service kitchen," but at least in the anecdotes from the interview in the NYPost article, restaurant owners are moving to smaller venues that require less staff or moving to "common space" layouts.
I would say that from my experience with the restaurant industry here, it definitely puts pressure on restauranteurs with marginal businesses. If you have a labor-intensive restaurant with thin margins, it hurts you. However, the restaurants with strong businesses, it's not really affecting.
A far greater impact on the typical restaurant is delivery, which is an increasing percentage of their business with a lower margin for many traditional restaurants, given the cut that Grubhub/Seamless/etc. take.