Not all Seattle-based restaurants have the option of increasing menu prices to deal with the added costs of the $15 minimum wage law. For many businesses, asking customers to pay more for a certain dish is impractical— and a bowl of pho is one such dish, according to the Seattle Times,
“Some restaurants might respond by adding service fees and increasing menu prices. Ivar’s recently announced plans to end tipping and pay all employees $15 an hour.
“A seafood mainstay can do that. Pho is different. It exists to be large, tasty and cheap.
“Quynh-Vy Pham’s family owns four Pho Bac restaurants in the city. Her parents opened the original shop at the corner of South Jackson Street and Rainier Avenue South in 1982.
“Pham says they will hold on to current prices — $7.75 for a small bowl, according to the restaurant’s website — as long as possible. Like so many others pho proprietors, their restaurant is not designed to be an Ethan Stowell or Tom Douglas establishment where customers expect to pay premium prices.”
Instead, owners like Pham’s family must consider other options—options that hurt employment. Pham’s family is “considering scaling down employment, possibly ending sit-down service and transitioning to a ‘fast-casual’ concept to cut down on labor costs.”
Thus far, Seattle city officials—including Mayor Ed Murray—have failed to deal with the consequences of the $15 minimum wage law on minority owned businesses. The Seattle Times,
“As Murray’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee formed the new rules last year, it largely ignored the concerns of an ethnic coalition of business owners.
“Taylor Hoang, owner of five Pho Cyclo Cafe restaurants, says the coalition requested a training wage or an exemption for microbusinesses with fewer than 10 employees.
“They got nothing.”
Meanwhile, the fallout of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage experiment continues.
Come. On Tens or. You know you can’t resist a little liberal logic!
Like so many others pho proprietors, their restaurant is not designed to be an Ethan Stowell or Tom Douglas establishment where customers expect to pay premium prices.
Your growing frustration at the lack of negative consequences just gets more amusing. Tom Douglas dropped his snotty surcharge the moment his own customers told him to quit whining — but he’d already admitted that a measly two per cent increase would provide enough money to pay the higher wage.
Pham’s family is “considering scaling down employment, possibly ending sit-down service and transitioning to a ‘fast-casual’ concept to cut down on labor costs.”
We’ll see what they do. Try not to take it too hard if there are no jobs lost. After all, nothing says “we care about minority workers” more than getting angry when their pay rises, right?
Yeah! Who do these small business owners think they are? Bourgeois capitalists! How dare they not pay their workers an arbitrary rate pulled out of thin air because it sounds cool? Since all restaurants have the same overhead and cost structure, just make your $7.75 bowl of soup $7.90 and shut up! 2% will more than cover the added labor costs. Everything will be a glorious utopia. Communists know these things. 15 not right NOW and not for everybody! We sorta won!
Plum Bistro already pays every employee at least $15/hour. The owner, an African-American, had this to say about another Seattle labor law, which she also helped to pass:
“I’m here to tell you that the sky didn’t fall,” Makini Howell, owner of Plum Bistro, said at a press conference held in her dining area this morning. “Offering paid sick days didn’t have a negative impact on my business… I’ve seen a 25 percent increase in business, hired seven new full time employees, started a food truck, opened a new location, expanded that location, and all without losing an employee.”
But I guess the universally huge appeal of organic vegan food explains her success, right?
Too bad they aren’t UW. Then they just ignore the silly communist experiment.
Not big on current events, are we?
The University of Washington announced Wednesday morning that it has increased wages for the “small group of employees who currently earn below $11 an hour,” the school said in a press release. UW has 70 people out of the school’s 39,000 employees who will be getting a raise Wednesday.
JUST LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO, THE PHONEY DEMOCRATS ATTACK CONSERVATIVES – BUT IT IS THE DEMOCRAT POLICIES THAT HURT THE MIDDLE AND LOW INCOME PEOPLE THE WORST. LOOK AT ANY INNER CITY IN AMERICA DOMINATED BY MINORITES LIKE HISPANICS AND BLACKS – THEIR PLIGHT HAS GOTTWN WORSE UNDER THEIR SAVIOR – HUSSEIN OBAMA – YET THESE SAME IDIOTS KEEP ELECTING THE CROOKS IN THE PARTY THAT IS SCREWING THEM OVER!
So, any word on how Bellevue’s restaurant owners — minority or otherwise — are “scrambling” to deal with the loss of revenue caused by the departure of Expedia’s thousands of well-paid employees? Put another way, do opponents of Seattle’s increasing minimum wage have any predictions on how much more money restaurants in Queen Anne, Belltown, and Interbay will make as Seattle’s minimum wage continues to rise?
Does the state get to tell me what I charge my customers too? oh yea.. I forgot.. that would be a violation of the Harrison act..
Who Cares, you know if you’re in King County you’re going to pay through the nose for everything. It’s just how it is. Live there and you might as well bend over, not that there’s anything wrong with that, right Tensor?