As dining out has become as much about entertainment as sustenance, the nation’s restaurant industry has experienced steady growth in units and sales. Though some predicted unit losses suffered during the most recent recession would trigger an extended culling of underperforming eateries, the opposite occurred nationally as well as in the Bluegrass.
In recent years, Lexington restaurants have enjoyed a growth spurt, seeing multiple chef-driven concepts opening throughout the city, especially in downtown, where higher-end options historically were in short supply.
But while this is great news for the local economy and fans of dining out, the energy behind the growth spurt could be weakened by a growing lack of cooks to staff local kitchens. Several chefs said there’s no shortage of job applicants eager to work the stoves, grills and steamers at their locations, but that many lack the skills required for cooking in modern restaurants. And as more restaurants open, the skilled labor pool only gets shallower.
“I think in the old days we did have a greater pool of people to choose from,” said John McNamara, the Lexington market partner for Bluegrass Hospitality Group, owner of Malone’s and Drake’s. “It also seems like we’re at a point where very few people choose our world as a long-term profession like they once they did. So when you find those who look at it as a career, you’ve got to hold onto them.”
That’s increasingly hard, said Ranada West- Riley, co-owner and executive chef at Lexington Diner. Historically the industry has struggled with turnover and “transients who job hop or leave after six months if something at one place makes them unhappy.” The growing amount of new restaurant openings only exacerbates that problem when cooks realize they can leave without notice and find new employment easily.
“Oftentimes people quit without another job, and other businesses will scoop them right up,” West-Riley said.
Some young cooks aspiring to become chefs, she added, lack the patience to solidify their skills in a way that would make them better in the long term if they stayed.
“So many have such lofty goals — which is great — but they want to have a food truck or a serious chef’s job in a year. I try to emphasize having a plan and looking long term, but not many want to do that.”
McNamara agreed, saying people often sign on to kitchen work out of a desire to be creative, but that successful creativity is built on mastering the basics of a challenging job.
“The consumer doesn’t want them to be creative; they’re looking for the experience they know,” he said. “Helping [young cooks] understand that the basics come first is an expectation that’s hard to teach a lot of folks getting into our business.”
When Jonathan Lundy ran Jonathan’s at Gratz Park, skilled cooks lined up to work at the regionally known fine dining spot. But as executive chef at the more casual Coba Cocina, where he receives an abundance of applications, he’s had to select cooks more carefully by searching out their specific abilities.
“You need two kinds of cooks: the passionate type who wants to make a lifetime of it and the sort-of factory worker who just gets the job done,” said Lundy. “In both cases, it’s a quality thing. And right now, there’s a shortage of those quality cooks.”
One way to reduce the shortfall, Lundy, McNamara and West-Riley said, is to spend more time in hands-on training of cooks. When cooks master new skills, they become prouder of their abilities in that role. And as that pride increases, they take more ownership in their jobs.
“I try to teach them to think of their job like it was their own business, which can make them passionate about it,” Lundy said. “But the reality is some get it, some don’t. So you spend more time with the ones that do.”
West-Riley does the same when she finds cooks worth keeping. Plus, she tries to pay a bit better than her competitors as an additional incentive to stay and improve.
“When you’ve got other restaurants trying to take your good employees, you’ve got to do something different,” she said.
All cooks at the Diner start at Lexington’s upcoming mandated minimum wage of $10.10 per hour.
“When I find a person I can develop as a cook to our standards, I put time and money into that person,” she said.
Unfortunately, the restaurant cook shortage isn’t just a Lexington problem. Head west on Interstate Highway 64 to Louisville, where restaurants open at a net-average of two per week, and you’ll find chefs bemoaning the fact that the labor pool is about dry.
“It’s outrageous these days,” said Dean Corbett, chef-owner of Corbett’s: An American Place, Equus & Jack’s Lounge. “With every new opening, there are fewer cooks to go around, and you feel the pinch quickly.”
Higher pay for longevity isn’t always the solution to the shortfall either, Corbett added, especially when large chains are working to attract the same workforce.
“Sometimes good pay isn’t enough, because they have so many options,” he said. “Even when we’ve had veteran cooks leave a chain and apply to work for us, they see our independent operation can’t match the pay and benefits they’re already getting.”
Nationally, the kitchen labor shortage also is a problem. Industry trade magazine Nation’s Restaurant News has detailed the tight labor market, as have consumer publications such as The New York Times.
Mark Richardson agreed that things are tough all over for America’s chefs. Before becoming executive chef at Dudley’s on Short in September, he worked in fine-dining spots in major restaurant markets such as Phoenix, San Francisco, Chicago and New York City.
“It’s everywhere, really,” he said. “It’s not like it was five to seven years ago when you’d have 10 to 15 quality applicants to choose from. Now you’re lucky if you have five.”
Like every chef interviewed, Richardson believes retention is his best strategy for solving the problem in the one place he’s able, at Dudley’s. His goal, therefore, is to create a kitchen to which cooks will be drawn for the excitement of working there.
“I hope to establish a place where cooks will want to come to learn techniques and really creative cooking,” he said. “It’s up to me to set our place apart as a kitchen where young culinarians will want to work.”
Interestingly, the National Restaurant Association, a massive trade group supporting the nation’s nearly 900,000 restaurants, has yet to call the kitchen labor shortage a crisis. According to a recent report, the group’s chief economist, Bruce Grindy, described the kitchen labor market more cautiously as “likely tightening.”
According to Corbett, “It’s well past that. I mean, seriously, how old’s the data they’re looking at? It’s sure a problem where I am.”
Richardson is equally amused, saying that in the trenches of the actual marketplace, the battle for skilled labor is well underway.
“The industry is growing and everyone can feel it, and that’s good,” he said. “But the quality of cooks available to work at every new place opening is going to be an issue if something doesn’t change.”