Restaurateurs mull labor shortage at 15th annual Aspen Classic

Nation's Restaurant News, June 30, 1997 by Milford Prewitt

ASPEN, Colo. -- For all their rare reviews and adulation, some of the nation's most accomplished chefs, restaurant owners and resort operators can't depend on their influence or success to find and keep staffers.

While their faithful patrons have rewarded them with packed dining rooms and reservations books stretching into the millennium -- a mixed blessing that is resulting in a scarcity of restaurant seats in fine-dining circles in many cities -- operators of up-scale dining venues are struggling to retain labor.

Between wine sampling, holding business discussions and playing atop the majestic snow-capped greenery of the Rocky Mountains, restaurant owners, chefs and sommeliers attending the 15th annual Food and Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen, Colo., reflected on the challenge of keeping good help and the pressure of accommodating too many fans looking for seating.

About 500 marquee chefs attended the Aspen Classic which boasted a total attendance of 5,000 people, most o them well-heeled consumers who buy wine by the case and who love collecting cooking tips from pros.

Speakers and guest cooks included a who's who in the culinary arts, including Julia Child, Emeril Lagasse, Allen Susser, Bobby Flay and Jacques Pepin among dozens of other culinarians and wine experts.

Among the various trade-only panel discussions was a heavily attended forum on the use of restaurant Web sites as low-cost marketing vehicles, hosted by Llyod Wirshba, vice president and general manager of Restaurant and Entertainment Industries of American Express.

But the casual collegiality among the chefs enjoying the festive, three-day event turned sober when the labor issue came up.

"I think we have access to a great labor pool for the service staff," said chef-owner Mark Tarbell of the popular Tarbell's in Phoenix, "but where we are hurting is the kitchen. It's real hard to find graduating culinary students who know what the demands of the job are.

"The culinary grads are good, but their immediate goals are unrealistic, and it makes it hard to satisfy them or hire them. They expect $45,000 to start.

"I blame the culinary schools for some of this. If they told their students that the chances are their first jobs will be at l$7 an hour, it would hurt enrollment. Personally, I think the answer is doing more along the lines of apprenticeships."

But Diane Forley, chef-owner of the romantic Verbena in New York's Gramercy Park area, said her labor challenge is the reverse of Tarbell's.

She said it's the front of the house that poses more problems at her restaurant.

"I think it's more of an issue finding people who are committed to the business, and that commitment is harder to find when you are talking about the front-of-the-house," she said. "But I think the back-of-the-house is more predictable. Plus, I've reached a stage in my career where I've come to know a lot of people capable of doing the job."

Rene Chazottes, director of wine at the Pacific Club, a private and elite 16-year-old resort in Newport Beach, Calif., that claims more than 16,000 bottles of wine in its inventory, said finding competent cooks willing to start at the lower rungs of the pay scale is a vexing problem for most Southern California operators yet alone a private club.

He said his company has found most Hispanic immigrants to be a more dependable and bankable labor pool than the grads coming out of culinary school.

Chazottes said most Hispanic restaurant workers are not obsesses by salary considerations and will put in the extra hours to learn a job or a technique that many culinary grads would shun.

Tarbell, the phoenix operator, agreed with Chazottes.

He said his restaurant's pastry chef is a Hispanic employee who started his career at Tarbell's as a busboy. The worker moved into the prep role, where he demonstrated an unflagging flair for detail and the fine cutting, which caught the attention of the chef, leading Tarbell to believe that the worker would make a good pastry chef.

Although the worker attended some cooking classes, Tarbell said most of the pastry chef's experience had been acquired on the job.

Chef-owners Ben and Karen Barker of Magnolia Grill and Pop's Italian Trattoria, Durham, N.C., said they've been using culinary externs in the kitchen to dodge the labor problem in their market.

Prep workers who show the aptitude and the commitments are awarded and are promoted within, the Barkers said.

Unlike Forley at New York's Verbena, the Barkers said finding serving staff has not become a problem.

"The front-of-the-house is not as intense," Karen Barker said. "If the restaurant is doing a good job, you will get the people you need and the best people.

"I think we're fortunate to have an excellent floor staff right now."

Chef-owner Christopher Gross of Christopher's Phoenix, said the growth of the hotel and resort industry in his area is forcing free-standing restaurants to improve their hiring techniques.

"The hotel industry is applying major labor pressure in our market," he said. "We are lucky in that we are able to keep good workers and have weeded out those who aren't willing, but it's very hard work keeping a staff with hotel expansion around."