This Montreal restaurant is paying staff an $80,000 salary

Like many industries, the restaurant sector is rethinking the way it’s doing issues and one Montreal eatery is providing enticing salaries

Sushi by Scratch Restaurants, which is opening a Montreal location on Friday, is providing its workers a beginning wage of $80,000 per 12 months.

“The idea is instead of treating the service industry as wage workers who work just for tips, our company likes to think we are professionals in the hospitality industry so we compensate like professionals,” mentioned the restaurant’s co-owner, Phillip Frankland Lee.

It additionally presents a stipend for persevering with training, eating credit, trip, and sick go away.

“Like you would if you worked at a bank or if you were a lawyer. You’re going to get an amount of money that you know you can live on that you know what you can do with,” Lee mentioned.

Like many industries, Quebec’s restaurant trade is dealing with a number of challenges because the COVID-19 lockdowns, adopted by a labour scarcity and the rising price of meals.

“We are expecting menu choices to decrease in terms of numbers just to decrease the costs and we are expecting restaurant owners to make food waste a priority. So in other words they won’t really give away as much free food, bread, for example,” mentioned Sylvain Charlebois, head of Dalhousie University’s Agrifood Lab.

Paying and retaining workers is one other problem.

To cope, many eating places have elevated wages and modified opening hours to provide workers extra day without work.

“There is definitely a shift in the industry and the new generation [that has] boundaries that they are going to get the owners to respect and you can see new chefs and restaurant owners that are thinking like that,” mentioned Gaelle Cerf, one among two ladies behind the favored Grumman 78 meals truck.

Lee’s restaurant in Old Montreal shall be his first location in Canada.

“We want you to work hard and we want you to reap the benefits of having a life that a professional would have,” Lee mentioned.