Anyplace where restaurants are doing well?

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Here is a graph that shows the infection history for Florida: Florida Coronavirus: 1,910,921 Cases and 31,003 Deaths (COVID-19 ) - Worldometer

The daily infection curve follows pretty much the same pattern as everywhere else, with a big hump November to January, and a slow decline in February.

In terms of cases per million population, Florida falls somewhere in the middle, with some states with hard lockdowns having done better, and some having done worse.

The same applies in terms of deaths per million population. Somewhere in the middle.
 
If we really want to have this discussion an analysis of the number of vulnerable per million should be done. Florida has typically been considered a retirement state. The death rate is profoundly affected by age.

The restaurants appear to be doing very well. I know my favorites require reservations that are in short supply on popular days. I hope everyones economy makes it backs well!
 
If we really want to have this discussion an analysis of the number of vulnerable per million should be done. Florida has typically been considered a retirement state. The death rate is profoundly affected by age.
Indeed.

The problem with a single condensed figure such as "deaths per million population" is that it hides a lot of things.

Making some things up to illustrate the point, maybe older people (because they are older and, on average, wiser) are more careful? If so, a state with an older population would do relatively better. Or, just maybe, because it is warmer in Florida, people spend more time outdoors and in well-ventilated areas, so the virus has a harder time spreading?

I suspect that there are dozens of confounding factors such as these that make a state-by-state comparison problematic.
 
Considering the lengths Florida was using to control the reporting of its numbers, I'd take any comments about them with massive grains of salt.

seriously when your state carries out an armed raid against the data scientist who you sacked for refusing to fudge the numbers that's a pretty strong sign things are going wrong.

"she had a laptop with government information on it!"

well it turns out that someone was able to compromise a water treatment plant in florida a few days later so my guess is that there's nothing on that laptop everyone who wants it doesnt already have

besides you can just subpoena the woman.
 
I live in Santa Rosa CA. restaurants are doing well here. or did well. the good ones at least.

lines out the door for contactless to-go orders during the worst times of the pandemic. even a good Himalayan restaurant survived and they ran a buffet!!

I cant wait to visit florida. I want to fish for Peacock bass in the canals!!
 
Yeah takeout from good restaurants was not super popular in Milwaukee. Everything here just blew up in the last few weeks though - went from no jobs posted at all to everyone looking to hire and open overnight
 
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I live in Santa Rosa CA. restaurants are doing well here. or did well. the good ones at least.

lines out the door for contactless to-go orders during the worst times of the pandemic. even a good Himalayan restaurant survived and they ran a buffet!!

I cant wait to visit florida. I want to fish for Peacock bass in the canals!!
you want to go to Florida to catch fresh water fish?? go get you some snapper man..
 

Local news article:

https://www.wral.com/restaurants-ne...ugh-workers-seem-to-need-those-jobs/19658023/
"Minimum wage across North Carolina is $7.25 an hour, with workers making $290 a week.

With unemployment benefits, people can make up to $650 a week. But people have to prove they're searching for a job to keep the weekly benefits coming.

Cerilli said Snoopy's pays $9 per hour, but it hasn't helped with recruitment. The restaurant is looking to hire 24 employees."
 
My ex-wife lives in the Raleigh area and is in grocery store management. Restaurants are not alone. She can't find anyone willing to work either.

I suspect that given the volume of unemployment claims, there is very little verification being done to ensure people really are looking for work. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, it is nice to see the working poor finally getting a "come up" but dayum, I am getting my a$$ kicked on the line every day and need some help.
 
Of course, it might also be that those line cooks reevaluated their career choices during the furlough, and decided that peering at the world through a full rack of tickets every Friday and Saturday night while the rest of the workforce enjoys a social life simply isnt worth $15/hr
 
My ex-wife lives in the Raleigh area and is in grocery store management. Restaurants are not alone. She can't find anyone willing to work either.

I suspect that given the volume of unemployment claims, there is very little verification being done to ensure people really are looking for work. I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, it is nice to see the working poor finally getting a "come up" but dayum, I am getting my a$$ kicked on the line every day and need some help.

I just dislike the double standard between businesses/corporations and the average working person. We are expected to pinch our pennies in order to amass a safety net in the case that we come across any sort of economic hardship. Even though wages have been stagnant since the 1970s. We were watching a documentary about John Wayne Gacy the other day and it mentioned how he was making $12/hr working as a cook in Chicago in the 70s. My wife and I both made the same amount working in the same city in 2015/2016 (actually, we both started lower at $11/hr).

I was born and raised here in NC and I have worked for $6.75/hr, $7.25/hr, and $8/hr. The idea of paying someone $9/hr today, even for cooking hotdogs & burgers, is a slap in the ****ing face. The cost of living has skyrocketed here (and everywhere) in the last two decades. Yet we're fine with bailing out all these businesses, even though it's clear they don't give a damn about providing any sort of decent life for their employees.

'"I think where a lot of people are focused is on the unemployment benefits," North Carolina Restaurant Association board member Amber Moshakos said. "How do we create an unemployment structure that helps protect people, but at the same time encourages them to get back to work?"'

This is especially cute to me. An industry which has almost never provided health insurance, paid time off, and/or sick-leave wants policies that "encourages them to get back to work." Read: we want no security net or workers' rights so we can continue to profit off the desperation of an increasingly squeezed work force in an era of extreme economic inequality.
 
Yeah man....you are completely right. Very well said. The only people I know in the business who have insurance and paid time off have corporate cooking gigs, and they are a small minority. People who have stayed in the industry either really love making good food or they simply can't afford to start a new job and wait 3 weeks to a month for their first check. Or....they have baggage which would make it difficult to find work in a more conservative environment.

A lot of business owners, and those who earn at higher levels simply don't understand the constant life challenges of the working poor. $15/hr really isnt a living wage in most areas. Because budgets are so lean, it is nearly impossible to set aside a "safety net" The slightest hickups, car repair, illness, an ill-advised BST purchase, can cause a nearly insurmountable financial hardship. Many people I know are a hair breadth from being homeless. In my time in the industry I have known several who suffered just such a fate from an unexpected set back.
 
Local news article:

https://www.wral.com/restaurants-ne...ugh-workers-seem-to-need-those-jobs/19658023/
"Minimum wage across North Carolina is $7.25 an hour, with workers making $290 a week.

With unemployment benefits, people can make up to $650 a week. But people have to prove they're searching for a job to keep the weekly benefits coming.

Cerilli said Snoopy's pays $9 per hour, but it hasn't helped with recruitment. The restaurant is looking to hire 24 employees."
🤔
Any of them $15/hr Amazon jobs around? 🤷‍♂️
 
I just dislike the double standard between businesses/corporations and the average working person. We are expected to pinch our pennies in order to amass a safety net in the case that we come across any sort of economic hardship. Even though wages have been stagnant since the 1970s. We were watching a documentary about John Wayne Gacy the other day and it mentioned how he was making $12/hr working as a cook in Chicago in the 70s. My wife and I both made the same amount working in the same city in 2015/2016 (actually, we both started lower at $11/hr).

I was born and raised here in NC and I have worked for $6.75/hr, $7.25/hr, and $8/hr. The idea of paying someone $9/hr today, even for cooking hotdogs & burgers, is a slap in the ****ing face. The cost of living has skyrocketed here (and everywhere) in the last two decades. Yet we're fine with bailing out all these businesses, even though it's clear they don't give a damn about providing any sort of decent life for their employees.

'"I think where a lot of people are focused is on the unemployment benefits," North Carolina Restaurant Association board member Amber Moshakos said. "How do we create an unemployment structure that helps protect people, but at the same time encourages them to get back to work?"'

This is especially cute to me. An industry which has almost never provided health insurance, paid time off, and/or sick-leave wants policies that "encourages them to get back to work." Read: we want no security net or workers' rights so we can continue to profit off the desperation of an increasingly squeezed work force in an era of extreme economic inequality.

Yeah, people just want to get paid fairly, have benefits, and work in an environment of mutual respect. If unemployment is a better way to make a living than actual jobs, then the problem isn't truly with unemployment benefits.

Not to mention that NC is a notoriously difficult state to get and retain unemployment benefits, and even if you're successful, the amount is meager, the timeframe is short, and the burden of proof regarding job-searching is very high. (At least in non-pandemic times).

https://www.ncjustice.org/publications/unemployment-insurance-changes-needed-in-north-carolina/
  1. Just 9 percent of jobless workers before COVID-19 in North Carolina received Unemployment Insurance (NOTE: This percent even for state UI was 46 percent in 2020).
  2. The average duration of Unemployment Insurance in North Carolina is just 9.6 weeks, ranking 45th in the country. This short duration is, in part, a function of the state’s arbitrary sliding scale that ties the number of weeks of benefits to the state unemployment rate. North Carolina ranks last in the country for the percentage of workers exhausting benefits.
  3. North Carolina provides just $216 each week on average to jobless workers and a fixed maximum of $350, despite the average weekly wage in the state being $1,002. The state is replacing just 23 cents for every $1 in lost income, circulating far fewer dollars than recommended by economists who typically seek a replacement rate of at least 50 percent.
 
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Anyone here work in a more institutional setting? Would be interested to here how that has been over the pandemic, been thinking of maybe trying to transfer more towards that for food-based work...

I also feel like if more chefs started using their work for that kind of cooking that the work conditions for cooks might change for the better. We wouldn't be working with such great ingredients or complicated techniques and preperations, but I think the world would value the work of chefs more if the career was generally reframed as something geared towards providing a need for people. From my view restaurants and chefs are too geared towards a kind of luxury/commodity based production that intrinsically drives up prices. Not to say there isn't a place for fine dining or restaurants (or that I don't appreciate them for what they are) but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Would love to hear from anyone with experience or more informed opinions about this, I'm just spewing half baked ideas.
 
Indiana fast food is paying $15hr posted on all their windows. I bought a 6k Sq house for 250k in the #1 ranked city 4 years ago if you are wondering what our cost of living is like. Fine dining is starting to come back. You won't ever have to worry about giving up your pew pews either if that is important to you.
 
Restaurants are doing well here, they are hiring Latino labor to cut costs. Heck I went to a Sushi restaurant last week and the Sushi chefs were Latins. This is why the govt is letting them in, to cloak the inflation that is upon us. The middle class is being squeezed out of existence.
Coming to a town near you soon.
The Fed is printing money, and labor rates are stagnant.
I was born in the early 50's, my mother never worked and we were middle class, 90% of moms did not have to work, a man could provide for his family on his own. This has been gone for a long time, in fact many have to work multiple jobs to keep their heads above water.
Sorry for the rant, but it is not getting any better.
 
noticed some of the articles mostly/only quote owners, read this interesting article with many (and mostly just) quotes from workers, just for variety might be worth a read:
https://eoinhiggins.substack.com/p/covid-destroyed-the-illusion-of-the
the amount you make on unemployment is tiny from my perspective too, I dont think I would destroy my body to make even less than that. I dunno I have a simple mindset when it comes to these things: no one who works full time should live in poverty in the richest country in the world.
 
  1. North Carolina provides just $216 each week on average to jobless workers and a fixed maximum of $350, despite the average weekly wage in the state being $1,002. The state is replacing just 23 cents for every $1 in lost income, circulating far fewer dollars than recommended by economists who typically seek a replacement rate of at least 50 percent.

1k a week on average? Do half of you drive a tesla? 52k a year on average is insane!
 
1k a week on average? Do half of you drive a tesla? 52k a year on average is insane!

I mean the median income in NC is 28k, it's just that NC has Charlotte with some mega earners who drag up the average.
 
1k a week on average? Do half of you drive a tesla? 52k a year on average is insane!

Yeah, not sure where that stat comes from. Raleigh/Durham and Charlotte have a bunch of banking/tech/university/medical jobs so I think they throw off the curve somewhat (not sure if they're counting salaries in that wage calculation or not). Where I live in the mountains, the economy is largely tourism centered and wages are probably anywhere from $7-13/hr average depending on industry.
 
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