Anyone else feel this way?

Kitchen Knife Forums

Help Support Kitchen Knife Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I left the salary to go back to the line and do the hourly thing. I'm in a different setting now, but definitely feel some resentment from the salaried guys above me because I make more than they do(If you figure in hours worked, etc.)
I guess I got started at a higher hourly rate because of my age and experience. Now even the other(younger) guys resent me too because I haven't been there as long as them, but make more money. At this point, I don't really care about the money. Being resented for your pay scale and not the quality of your work sucks though.
Even though my hourly rate is nobody's damn business but my own...........
.....yet lots of folks seem to be privy to that information.
 
I think another reason NYC can/ does pay less is there is a much larger pool of people to pull from. I have worked in many other city's and just finding someone that new what they were doing was difficult process. However I will point out that restaurants are notorious for forgetting how hard it was to find these people in the first place and are more than willing to let them go if they want more money.
 
Chef Niloc said:
*** you got that right, but I didn't think it was THAT bad?? I have only intervened at two places in the city recently and I thought there line cooks were getting payed a little low, but I guess not? I thought to myself that the place gets away with it B/C cooks just want the name on there resume. Now it's A little funny that during a interview I asked the management "what's the biggest challenge you find running this restaurant", the answer??? Employee turnover, double edged sword.
I have notice that kitchen pay has been getting worse over the past 5-6 years... Yes waitstaff somehow now make more than some cooks hourly and get tips, it's even better I have never herd waitstaff complain so much about their paychecks! I guess back in the day there was nothing to complain about (pun intended), but seriously they actually complain that they're only getting minimum wage... It's making me feel old but seriously a lot of these kids have no clue that waitstaff used to make, what 3.25 a few years ago??
Back to the kitchen, my 1st job in NY (and the reason I moved here) was way out on long island in west Hampton. I was just hired as a cook (but did the job of a sous chef ), the pay range in the kitchen was $10-$18 cash and dishwasher got 8, this was 1998. The restaurant I'm at now the kitchen is getting $10-$12 on the books, this is crap pay but I know it's not that much better elsewhere... And after reading this thread I really know it's not that much better elsewhere.

note to self: think of possible career change?
Click to expand...
Yep, at my restuarant the dishwashers only get $8 an hour and the highest paid cooks gets $10 and he has been there for 3 years. I get paid about $5 an hour once you figure in my 95/ 40 /7 day work week.(95 hours worked/ 40 hours paid/ 7 days a week and no holidays off and apparently no sick days or paid vacations)
 
sachem allison said:
Yep, at my restuarant the dishwashers only get $8 an hour and the highest paid cooks gets $10 and he has been there for 3 years. I get paid about $5 an hour once you figure in my 95/ 40 /7 day work week.(95 hours worked/ 40 hours paid/ 7 days a week and no holidays off and apparently no sick days or paid vacations)
Click to expand...

Son I'm check your math, 95 hr x. $5 a hr is 475.00, is that before or after taxes? Are there any side perks? You know, Company car, Rolex for Christmas, Russian hookers, you know that kind of stuff?

Wait, just curious how do you not get sick days when you're on salary? what do they do, dock your salary if you call in sick? How do they come up with the $$ number to subtract from your salary?
 
Entry level pay here in New Orleans is about 12/hr for solid line cooks. Salaried, you make less than that, and you don't do the math because it just hurts.
 
Dardeau said:
Entry level pay here in New Orleans is about 12/hr for solid line cooks. Salaried, you make less than that, and you don't do the math because it just hurts.
Click to expand...
I went to school and lived in New Orleans for 5 years. I worked in restaurants the whole time I was there and the pay was the same... Exactly the same when I moved I was making 12 hour, this was 1995! This thread is starting to scare me, 20 years and the pay scale hasn't gone up?
 
Chef Niloc said:
Son I'm check your math, 95 hr x. $5 a hr is 475.00, is that before or after taxes? Are there any side perks? You know, Company car, Rolex for Christmas, Russian hookers, you know that kind of stuff?

Wait, just curious how do you not get sick days when you're on salary? what do they do, dock your salary if you call in sick? How do they come up with the $$ number to subtract from your salary?
Click to expand...
the perks are everyday I take it up the arse with no vaseline. I don't take sick days because, if I miss a day he docks me. I get paid on a 7 day work week but, if I miss a day, he docks my pay. he divides it by a 5 day work week. That way he can take a bigger chunk. When I had my triple bypass he docked me a weeks pay even though 2 of the days were my scheduled days off. I had a stroke came to work the next morning because, he would have docked me if I missed .This is why I'm leaving. When I leave there will be hell to pay. I have kept all my time records and every incident, both in hard copies and weekly email conversations with him. I have been actively seeking to leave for over a year but, I haven't received a single interview out of 300 resumes and the 4 head hunters I have haven't been any help. That's one of the reasons I think I need to head west.
 
Chef Niloc said:
Son I'm check your math, 95 hr x. $5 a hr is 475.00, is that before or after taxes? Are there any side perks? You know, Company car, Rolex for Christmas, Russian hookers, you know that kind of stuff?

Wait, just curious how do you not get sick days when you're on salary? what do they do, dock your salary if you call in sick? How do they come up with the $$ number to subtract from your salary?
Click to expand...

A little bit more $ than that but, not much if you figure out I work a lot of 100 hr+weeks in there also. I think we figured it out at about $8 an hour today. So I work twice as many hours as my dishwasher and get paid the same rate. It makes more sense to me to be a line cook and not have the responsibility. No one will hire and Executive Chef as a line cook because, I'm suddenly over qualified or obviously something is wrong with me. lol
 
sachem allison said:
A little bit more $ than that but, not much if you figure out I work a lot of 100 hr+weeks in there also. I think we figured it out at about $8 an hour today. So I work twice as many hours as my dishwasher and get paid the same rate. It makes more sense to me to be a line cook and not have the responsibility. No one will hire and Executive Chef as a line cook because, I'm suddenly over qualified or obviously something is wrong with me. lol
Click to expand...

Well 1) Of course there's something wrong with you
2nd if you want to apply for a lower position but don't want to lie on your resume just don't put your title, put kitchen...or just lie and say cook, very rarely does anyone check out cooks references.
3) do you have any idea why you are not geting interviews? Let me check out your resume, maybe I can help.

Oh and one more thing tomorrow morning when you going to work grab your ankles, it hurts less that way.
 
i know someone who took a job for a very famous nyc chef with his new restaurant this past year. starting pay $9/hr for an experienced line cook. when they ran into some financial trouble getting the restaurant up and running they temporarily took all their line down to $8. insane.
 
TheDispossessed said:
i know someone who took a job for a very famous nyc chef with his new restaurant this past year. starting pay $9/hr for an experienced line cook. when they ran into some financial trouble getting the restaurant up and running they temporarily took all their line down to $8. insane.
Click to expand...

This is the second time I've heard about pay cuts in our industry the other time was just a few months ago. before that I didn't even know they existed.

Here's one for the book: I'm waiting for the last person to leave so I can lock up, I'm closing tonight for one of the managers who I let go home early because he hurt his foot. I just got off the phone with the owner who told me "don't send home salaried employees I need to get my money out of them"
I sad (a little taken back send a little bewildered) but I'm here closing and I'm on salary so it's not costing you anything?
His reply was "yea I get my money out of you I need to make sure I get out of him"
I sad ok won't happen again :)
I think I'll put in my notice tomorrow, boy new this guy was a scumbag but WOW
So remember boys: you got to get your money out of them salaried employee, got it earn them dam dollars with blood,sweat and tears. It's not the job you do or how well you do that earns your paycheck it's how much you suffer for it. Got it? Good!
 
typically, when im jumping ship from one restaurant for the next, the first thing i consider is the numbers(besides the cuisine ofcourse).the place i just got in at is extremely busy. every freaking day. we did 750 covers for thanksgiving, selling mainly a $30 turkey spec, and we were only open from 11am-4pm the last place never came close to those kinda numbers even the 13-14 hours of service on the weekend. and my pay here in Baton Rouge casts quite a large shadow over what the new york line cooks are making.
making $8 hour working under some super impressive world renown chef would be a super cool alternative to culinary school IMO but thats no way to make a living.
 
Chef Niloc said:
This is the second time I've heard about pay cuts in our industry the other time was just a few months ago. before that I didn't even know they existed.

Here's one for the book: I'm waiting for the last person to leave so I can lock up, I'm closing tonight for one of the managers who I let go home early because he hurt his foot. I just got off the phone with the owner who told me "don't send home salaried employees I need to get my money out of them"
I sad (a little taken back send a little bewildered) but I'm here closing and I'm on salary so it's not costing you anything?
His reply was "yea I get my money out of you I need to make sure I get out of him"
I sad ok won't happen again :)
I think I'll put in my notice tomorrow, boy new this guy was a scumbag but WOW
So remember boys: you got to get your money out of them salaried employee, got it earn them dam dollars with blood,sweat and tears. It's not the job you do or how well you do that earns your paycheck it's how much you suffer for it. Got it? Good!
Click to expand...
wow, if you ever wanted to build resentment against ownership follow this A-hole owner's lead.
 
yea, so you take a job with these 'chefs' (who rarely are around or cooking) and take brutal pay to compensate for what you consider to be an education. so as an 'alternative' to culinary school it seems initially at least, to be a smart move. the money you make in two years of being on the line plus what it would have cost for school puts you that far ahead with real world experience.
however, the end result is still being deposited into this job market where considerable skills and responsibility get you something around $10/hr with little to no benefits.
i'm at the point where i am seriously thinking of leaving the profession because i can't see a future in it.
why?
because i can't be a line cook forever and live that life and make that money.
being a sous sounds worse if it means a ****** salary and a billion hours.
the long road to exec then delivers what?
the same insane hours as the sous and other salaried with a more reasonable salary.
at that point, if you're feeling frisky, there's the prospect of opening a place (which would seem to be the goal in the first place), which will almost inevitably (according to statistics) fail. at the very least, if it is successful, your life is over.
and then there's .0001% of people who pull through and become famous for some reason, usually deserving to some degree but sometimes not...
i seriously value this thread and appreciate everyone's input.
thanks for being willing to go there, i didn't want to get anyone down, i know it's not a very positive topic.
 
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national median wage for line cooks in 2011 was $10.61.
 
sachem allison said:
the perks are everyday I take it up the arse with no vaseline. I don't take sick days because, if I miss a day he docks me. I get paid on a 7 day work week but, if I miss a day, he docks my pay. he divides it by a 5 day work week. That way he can take a bigger chunk. When I had my triple bypass he docked me a weeks pay even though 2 of the days were my scheduled days off. I had a stroke came to work the next morning because, he would have docked me if I missed .This is why I'm leaving. When I leave there will be hell to pay. I have kept all my time records and every incident, both in hard copies and weekly email conversations with him. I have been actively seeking to leave for over a year but, I haven't received a single interview out of 300 resumes and the 4 head hunters I have haven't been any help. That's one of the reasons I think I need to head west.
Click to expand...
****, that sounds crap.

In NZ, minimum wage is $13.50.
I'm the head chef at my place and earn $30/hr, I pay my cdp's between $18-$22. Dishies/kitchen hands $14.50-$15/hr.

I regularly work 50-60 hrs. And we get 10% of tips..

Australia pays quite well also, they have quite a good dollar atm and their restaurant scene is doing well.
A friend just got back from Sydney earning $28/hr temping.
 
Yep, we're all pretty screwed.
Pretty sad to think how little everyone makes, I honestly figured it would have gone up some-at least to adjust with inflation over the past decade.
I wonder how much the Microwave Chefs at Applebees make.
 
knyfeknerd said:
Yep, we're all pretty screwed.
Pretty sad to think how little everyone makes, I honestly figured it would have gone up some-at least to adjust with inflation over the past decade.
I wonder how much the Microwave Chefs at Applebees make.
Click to expand...
ive found that many of the crappy chains pay their cooks the same hourly if not more than the fining dining places. but the catch is corporate will never let you score overtime, and i get plenty of that regularly.
 
Chef Niloc said:
This is the second time I've heard about pay cuts in our industry the other time was just a few months ago. before that I didn't even know they existed.

Here's one for the book: I'm waiting for the last person to leave so I can lock up, I'm closing tonight for one of the managers who I let go home early because he hurt his foot. I just got off the phone with the owner who told me "don't send home salaried employees I need to get my money out of them"
I sad (a little taken back send a little bewildered) but I'm here closing and I'm on salary so it's not costing you anything?
His reply was "yea I get my money out of you I need to make sure I get out of him"
I sad ok won't happen again :)
I think I'll put in my notice tomorrow, boy new this guy was a scumbag but WOW
So remember boys: you got to get your money out of them salaried employee, got it earn them dam dollars with blood,sweat and tears. It's not the job you do or how well you do that earns your paycheck it's how much you suffer for it. Got it? Good!
Click to expand...
Had pretty much this exact conversation with the owner this morning at brunch.
 
This is a sensitive one. Up here in Canada, atleast in the Toronto area, rent and housing is the most absurd thing, next to the pay line cooks receive. So, we are in the same situation as the NYC guys, if you want to rent an apartment, hope you got 2k a month before you start figuring things like eating food, and a vehicle. You want to own a townhouse or a condo? Better have 500k sitting around, or atleast 100k for a down payment. It's mighty hard to afford to live on your own (go get a room mate, what you think you are? a person with a standard for living, geez your a cook, get over yourself) on your 10$ an hr, even working 100hrs a week, your basically stuck to eating twice a day at work if your lucky and living off cereal otherwise :hungry:

Up here I have found if you want to make money, go work in a hotel and deal with the bs that goes along with it. (I'm a restaurant cook, and probably always will be, I can't leave the line, it's my home) Or you could go work at some garbage chain slanging crappy food out all day, bad food, or hotel food, those are your options. I did the hotel thing for a couple years about 10 years ago, and I made more money then, actually I made 3$ an hr more 10 years ago than I do now. I made good money, well good as far as cook's standards go, but I HATED my job, and none of the food I did made me happy. I find I can sleep easier, and actually want to work when I'm putting out quality food, and I can absolutely eat a smaller paycheque. I have also done apprenticeships and worked many free 100hr work weeks when I was a kid, I got together a really good resume, worked for some great chefs and learned alot, don't regret a bit of it, and I'm definitely not paying off my studen loans still.

The one thing I take from my job is with less money, I am happier than most of my friends who make better money doing other jobs, I also have less free time. I talk about my work to my friends, talk about food, it drives them nuts, but you can see the jealousy, people wish they loved their jobs like us cooks, and it's sad we don't make the money, but atleast we aren't miserable in a cubicle, (sorry if I offended anyone who really loves their cubicle), but sorry it's not as cool as my office :biggrin:
 
Hell, Chris, my friend is a microwave kitchen manager, he calls himself a chef. He has no clue what cooking even is, can't even hold a knife right, but he makes about 60k a year to microwave bags of shipped in sauces that come from the states. I went into his work to help him once when he was understaffed, and I did 4 guys prep lists (the whole kitchen) before lunch service started, than they made me work lunch and tried to hire me, get this, for more than I was making ........ but, you just can't do that to yourself. I remember they looked at me like I was insane when I cut their bruschette tomatoes with a knife, the cooks were like, no you cut those in the french fry cutter. This is the average kitchen today, bunch of teenagers that are high on drugs that didn't even exist when I was younger, whatever happened to kids just coming in high on coke and weed, geez, and these are the people getting paid more than the professional cooks.
 
TheDispossessed said:
yea, so you take a job with these 'chefs' (who rarely are around or cooking) and take brutal pay to compensate for what you consider to be an education. so as an 'alternative' to culinary school it seems initially at least, to be a smart move. the money you make in two years of being on the line plus what it would have cost for school puts you that far ahead with real world experience.
however, the end result is still being deposited into this job market where considerable skills and responsibility get you something around $10/hr with little to no benefits.
i'm at the point where i am seriously thinking of leaving the profession because i can't see a future in it.
why?
because i can't be a line cook forever and live that life and make that money.
being a sous sounds worse if it means a ****** salary and a billion hours.
the long road to exec then delivers what?
the same insane hours as the sous and other salaried with a more reasonable salary.
at that point, if you're feeling frisky, there's the prospect of opening a place (which would seem to be the goal in the first place), which will almost inevitably (according to statistics) fail. at the very least, if it is successful, your life is over.
and then there's .0001% of people who pull through and become famous for some reason, usually deserving to some degree but sometimes not...
i seriously value this thread and appreciate everyone's input.
thanks for being willing to go there, i didn't want to get anyone down, i know it's not a very positive topic.
Click to expand...

I don't want to be a jerk....

But if you're not trying to be a sous, exec., or own your own place - then yeah, being a line cook for money and/or security is not the smartest move...

This is not the easiest way to earn money and it definitely ain't the best way to get rich.

It also looks like NYC is especially harsh. Starting pay here for solid line cooks is 11-12. I know cooks making $13-15 and you can rent a house for $600-850 depending on what and where.

One of the reasons the South is attractive to cooks IMO.
 
For what it's worth, my understanding is that (at least in California), owners/management cannot force waitstaff to split their tips with the Back Of the House-kitchen, only to bussers, runners, etc (Front Of the House-waitstaff). That's why the French Laundry and a few other restaurants call it Service Charge rather than gratuity, so that it can be spread around the kitchen, to augment their pay.

As far as why FOH receives tips, my personal theory is that they are the face of the restaurant, and also people tip based on personality, interaction, smiling, pleasantness. People don't understand how a restaurant works anyway, so some are tipping assuming that everyone gets a cut. But they have no interaction with cooks normally, and furthermore cooks are usually a surly, bitter lot (from not being tipped). So even if they do interact, they probably wouldn't find it worth leaving a gratuity, even though the cooks make the food. The person who brought the food to them is who did the "personal service" that deserves the tip. Unfair, but in my opinion, this is why.

Although there are unusual circumstances, I think most of the usual rules of business still apply. Employees in profitable industries are usually paid better. The employees who are hardest to replace earn the most money. The employees with the most responsibility earn the most money. The employees with they fewest possible replacements (people willing to do their job) earn the most money. The employees willing to put up with the most bullsh*t that is valuable to the owner, earn the most money. The people who can get the most production out of the employees are put in charge and earn the most salary. Unfortunately for most cooks, food is not usually very profitable as an industry, there are many who are willing to take our spots, there are many who have similar knowledge as we do, we are not so willing to put up with bullsh*t, and it's not always worth stepping up to supervise the people around you. If we care about learning and the quality of food we serve, it's less likely that we'll work in fast food, or fast casual, or corporate chains, or "heat and serve" places. Many of us take a hit to work with the food we are interested in, to learn, for resume building, to prepare ourselves to open our own restaurants one day. So we make the trade off. But it still sucks to be paid less than we deserve.

Just my opinion,
~Tad
 
quantumcloud509 said:
Hmmm...maybe moving to Oz Land isnt a bad idea after all...
Click to expand...
Yeah its not bad, Sydney is pretty sweet, Melbourne has quite a good scene too.
Its definitely a good place to live especially if you like the hot weather and beaches. I'm more of a winter guy and enjoy my snow and so do my malamutes.


If you're bored check out www.seek.com.au, www.simply hired.com.au for jobs.
And www.smh.com.au for jobs and rental apartments/houses.

On seek now, CDP $50-$65k/year, Head Chef $85-$95k+superannuation, bonuses and tips.. Tempting anyone?

Edit: also if you're on a wage in Sydney they pay time and a half to work Saturdays and double time on Sunday.. Bring on the Sunday double shifts
 
tweyland said:
For what it's worth, my understanding is that (at least in California), owners/management cannot force waitstaff to split their tips with the Back Of the House-kitchen, only to bussers, runners, etc (Front Of the House-waitstaff). That's why the French Laundry and a few other restaurants call it Service Charge rather than gratuity, so that it can be spread around the kitchen, to augment their pay.

As far as why FOH receives tips, my personal theory is that they are the face of the restaurant, and also people tip based on personality, interaction, smiling, pleasantness. People don't understand how a restaurant works anyway, so some are tipping assuming that everyone gets a cut. But they have no interaction with cooks normally, and furthermore cooks are usually a surly, bitter lot (from not being tipped). So even if they do interact, they probably wouldn't find it worth leaving a gratuity, even though the cooks make the food. The person who brought the food to them is who did the "personal service" that deserves the tip. Unfair, but in my opinion, this is why.

Although there are unusual circumstances, I think most of the usual rules of business still apply. Employees in profitable industries are usually paid better. The employees who are hardest to replace earn the most money. The employees with the most responsibility earn the most money. The employees with they fewest possible replacements (people willing to do their job) earn the most money. The employees willing to put up with the most bullsh*t that is valuable to the owner, earn the most money. The people who can get the most production out of the employees are put in charge and earn the most salary. Unfortunately for most cooks, food is not usually very profitable as an industry, there are many who are willing to take our spots, there are many who have similar knowledge as we do, we are not so willing to put up with bullsh*t, and it's not always worth stepping up to supervise the people around you. If we care about learning and the quality of food we serve, it's less likely that we'll work in fast food, or fast casual, or corporate chains, or "heat and serve" places. Many of us take a hit to work with the food we are interested in, to learn, for resume building, to prepare ourselves to open our own restaurants one day. So we make the trade off. But it still sucks to be paid less than we deserve.

Just my opinion,
~Tad
Click to expand...

We share the same opinion.

Although you don't have to be Keller to open a restaurant. It's more about being an accountant, lawyer, banker, manager, marketeer and maybe some cooking thrown in there.
 
It seems to me so strange: being on the line takes so much skill and to get it people need specialized training for relatively long periods of time.

On the other hand, my friends who have worked as waitstaff say while it does take some training, the training doesn't take but a fraction of the time it takes to learn what it takes to be on the line.

so why does a waitperson at a fine restaurant routinely make 30+ an hour after tips and line makes a fraction of this.

besides not being fair, it seems to go against all logic that the job that takes less training pays substantially more than the job that takes more...

and yet even restaurants run by chefs who have had to live through this in their youth by and large don't buck the system...

(California restaurants seem to be an occasional exception...)
 
I worked at a place where it was fast casual - people go thru a line, order rung up, food brought to them, but it was a bit nicer than the usual. The owners put up a tip jar with a sign saying something like, Your gratuities are shared by everyone, counter people thru dishwashers, we thank you. But of course, the kitchen was not explicitly exempted, it would seem to clients that they are included, but the kitchen does not participate. If there was someone who quit or whatever, or rounding error, the kitchen staff would get a fiver stapled to their paycheck, whereas the FOH was taking home a cut of the tips DAILY. When I objected to the wording of the sign, I was told to not make trouble, and the kitchen would get taken care of... which of course never happened. And it's not like they paid the kitchen even average wages - definitely less than average at the time.

Somehow people want to tip their barrista separately, and tip the bartender who pops the top on their beer, but not tip the people that make the food.
 
I agree with this thread but. The goal is to work your way up. Can't be a line cook forever. My goal was to get into the hotel industry after I paid my dues in the small kitchens. I make 50k plus workin forty a week. Just got to strive to get higher and higher
 
Dude Hawaii is hella crazy on rent. Can't live off 10 to 12 a month here u need two jobs. Rent in Hawaii roughly starts at 1100 for a studio and cost of living is crazy. But one great thing about being a cook you only need 1 things in your fridge. Beer. Bcuz I remember the days where I went whole months with not having to cook a single thing at home never leave work hungry bro
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top