RESTAURANT INDUSTRY WAKE UP CALL

For the past 5 years Kaizen Management has proclaimed a need for the adoption of a new business model for the hospitality industry.

For the past year we warned of the possibility of a coming recession and the effects on the already over regulated pressures we are asked to work under.

We have to question the system in which the restaurant industry operates. The fact that the most vulnerable have no social safety net. The coronavirus is unveiling this ugly underbelly of the restaurant industry — the fact it’s built on exploitative labor and thin margins. Time’s up on that business model.

This wave of layoffs exposes the shaky ground on which the restaurant industry has been built, founded as it is on the backs of hourly workers living paycheck to paycheck, many of whom lack health care and paid sick leave.

Undocumented workers, who make up a significant portion of the industry’s labor force, are largely ineligible for unemployment insurance.

This could be a come-to-Jesus moment in the restaurant industry, where we say ‘this industry was built on an unsustainable system in the first place, we need to come out of this crisis with a new model for operating.  If we’re going to rebuild this industry again, we need to fight like hell to center it on the most vulnerable, our workers. If we don’t, then we throw it all away.”

For those who have long been critical of the restaurant industry from within, the silver lining of this crisis might be the chance it affords to make much needed changes. Everything that’s been a topic of discussion within our business, whatever that might be, for whatever city or state, is now on the table.

Kaizen Management will be making all our resources available to assist our industry brothers survive this moment, stay safe, stay strong,

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER