Service work gets dismissed as unskilled labor, but bartending and restaurant management demand serious training and expertise. The guest was treated as less-than as a bartender, then differently once they owned a business, showing how status shapes perception of the same work.
What do you think is an unpopular opinion that people have about the restaurant industry? Or maybe a myth or maybe a stereotype people have about the restaurant industry?
My least favorite one, my staff hears me talk about this all the time, is that, you know, oh, well, that's not a real job, you know, or people have this conception that is like, you know, if you're a service industry worker, You know, you're like a ditch digger or a, you know, very—
yeah, yeah.
When people don't really understand the skills needed to work in this industry, and it is by and far a profession. And, you know, yeah. So we, you know, we're on a mission every day to break those preconceived notions because, you know, it's something that I I personally hate, you know, when I, when I see someone who like wouldn't give me the time of day when I was a bartender, but now that I'm a business owner, they're like, oh hey, let me be your best friend. I'm like, yeah, so I remember you.
Yeah, I remember you.
Yeah, right, right. But yeah, I mean, the— just looking at my staff, you know, the amount that they give to the restaurant, the amount that they give to the community, and you know, that their hearts and passion really are all in this, you know, you can't look at that and say, oh, this is just a, you know, part-time job or it doesn't take any skills or anything like that. It's— it takes a lot of skills.
It does. It takes a lot of skills, a lot of training, a lot of refinement, a lot of practice.
Yeah.
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
