Restaurant Manager Quality of Life…Oxymoron or Reality?
by
Todd Lejnieks

Half of the managers in every restaurant will quit this year. Cooks, food servers, and other food-industry workers often grumble that just when they ‘break in’ a manager, she leaves and the new sheriff in town must be trained. Even customers notice. 

“Just the other day, I went to one of my favorite places to eat,” says Monica Russell, who reflects nationwide averages by eating out 4 nights a week. “I’ve been going to this particular restaurant for about eight months now, and the manager knew my name, my favorite dish and always treated me like a V.I.P. On my last visit, they told me he was gone. I probably won’t return as often now that he’s no longer there.”

Despite attempts by companies to pay better, offer matching 401k incentives, increase health care benefits and compete against other industries with their compensation packages, restaurant management turnover statistics still hover at 50 percent.

In a recent People Report study, fifty-one percent of restaurant managers surveyed in exit interviews cited quality of work and life as the reason for quitting. Many industry experts cite growing concerns about family-centered priorities and similar issues since the tragedies of September 11, 2001 as a reason that attrition statistics remain high. 

“I found it to be a thankless job,” says Helmut Shonwalder, a four-decade veteran of the food service business, who left the management ranks in 1981. “Today I would never want to go back to it, because I know that there is a better life and much better jobs than managing restaurants.” 

Typical of many who have left the industry, Shonwalder, now a PC Technician at Monterey Peninsula College, has mixed feelings about his restaurant manager career.

“I liked always being around people, always being in high demand, always being able to make decisions…in nice surroundings, usually. And, there was always good food—just never any time to eat it!”

Shonwalder, who began his career in the industry in 1964, scrunches his face and his furrows his brow when he discusses the restaurant manager quality of life issue. “I too used to kiss up to the boss and bend over backwards for my customers, and try to be strict with the staff…unless they bribed me. I constantly argued with the chefs about food costs. I got blamed for anything not working right and surely found someone else I could blame…I also made the schedules according to my likes and dislikes. I felt it was up to me to run the show and organize all that needed done because I was the manager.”

Clearly, he has some radical ideas, having seen good people, including himself, turn bitter, short-tempered, and downright mean after working the long and demanding hours the job requires.

Shonwalder insists that it is the job that started turning him this way, into a version of himself he did not like. He has strong feelings that restaurant managers, overworked and underpaid, do more harm than good because of their constantly stressed-out state. 

“I liked always being around people, always being in high demand, always being able to make decisions…in nice surroundings, usually.  And, there was always good food—just never any time to eat it!”   -Helmut Shonwalder, ex restaurant manager

His solution?

“Do away with the job,” he declares. “Have gardeners, dishwashers, hostess, headwaiters, bartenders, and chefs running the show. Split the responsibilities and cut them in on the profit. Rotate the manager of the day between those people. Have people cross trained. Whatever you do, do away with the all-powerful useless position of Manager.”

While Shonwalder’s ideas might be radical, his views about restaurant manager quality of life seem almost universally shared by those who hold, or have held, the job.

Casey Abbot, now a Systems Manager for Amazon.com left his General Manager position with Chevys Fresh Mex six years ago.

“I realized that I could actually make more money and have more time for myself by playing with computers,” he says. "The hours really sucked, as a restaurant manager. But more than the hours sucking was having to work every holiday." 

Married, with three boys, ages 7 through 13, Abbot laments that it is nearly impossible to have a normal life and be a restaurant manager. 

"I almost lost my family several times," he says. "The long hours, not being home for dinner, working on Valentine's Day..." Abbot trails off, shuddering as he recalls his former job. 

Abbot, like many ex-restaurant managers, finds that applying the same, or even less, energy and drive than it took to survive his day-to-day job in the food service industry, serves him well in his new career.

“Now I travel around the country on an expense account. When I am home, I work my own hours, and get to go to the office in shorts. I wake up around 8am, have a leisurely morning drinking coffee and checking emails. Get to the office around nine-ish. Attend meetings, work on emails, work with software developers, leave around 5-6. Head home and hang out… Weekends are to do whatever the hell I want."

Clearly, Abbot is a happy refugee.

Although the restaurant industry has traditionally been a good way for hard-working food servers, cooks and even dishwashers to rise into management, and even executive ranks, many hourly employees shy away from the rigors of the occupation.

Paul Paz is, at 55 years old, a career waiter. He loves his job, his life and has managed to raise his three children as a single parent and live comfortably. It might have seemed more sensible to, in his thirties, make the leap into restaurant management, with the guaranteed salary, where he would not be subject to the dips of the economy and the whims of customers who don't feel like tipping fifteen percent that day.

“Actually, I did become a manager within the first two years in the business. I got fired! Too many hours and energy taken away from my family. I had, after all, left the insurance industry just for that reason but got drawn back into management as the result of my old professional habit of ‘climbing the ladder’.” 

After that experience, Paul decided to do what made him happy: be a waiter. He has never looked back.

“Managers tell me all the time how envious they are of me, how they wish they could work four to six hours a day and walk home with all of that cash.” -Paul Paz, Waiter

"Most managers, new and experienced, are poorly rewarded for their efforts,” says Paz. “They rarely get positive public recognition from their employers and staff—no matter how hard they try, how much ground they gain or money they save for the company. It's just never enough. Their work schedules are long and grueling. There is no one to trade or cover shifts for them. They are very subject to career burnout.

“Managers tell me all the time how envious they are of waiters, how they wish they could work four to six hours a day and walk home with all of that income.” 

There are those, however, who love the job. Many who gut out the early “boot camp years” go on to become successful, happy even.

Richard Gerow has been working in restaurants for 37 years, 26 of them as an owner or manager. From Truckstops of America (where he was the enterprising idea man in the eighties that put the first French Cuisine restaurant in a truck stop!), to his current position as Executive Chef for Aramark, Gerow has developed a philosophical attitude towards his chosen profession.

“The quality of life of a restaurant manager depends on the organization and your personal love, or hatred, for the business. A monk should know he is going to have to be celibate. Restaurant professionals need to know you have to work for the money,” he says.

Gerow’s typical day: Up at 4am and working in the kitchen by 5:15. He checks the menus for six cooking stations and helps the stock clerk physically carry the days goods to each station, then turns on the equipment and helps with any of the difficult prep work. The delivery truck comes at mid morning, and Gerow checks in the product, then orders product for the next delivery. Prior to lunch, he reviews his schedules, looks at upcoming prep needs for the next few days and catches up on administrative work. At 11am, he carefully checks the products he will be serving that day, for both quality and quantity. From noon to 1pm, he helps cook and supervises kitchen operations. After the lunch rush, he finishes on hand inventory and places any orders he did not complete that morning. Then, he makes sure there is enough food and prep is ready for the dinner menu, as he supervises shift turnover and the dinner crew arrives. He is usually done around 3:30 in the afternoon and home in bed by 6:30.

Gerow’s secret to happiness in the restaurant industry? “You’ve got to love food,” he says, matter-of-factly. “If anything, the profession has been damaged by too much attention to following inane bookkeeping redundancies and minor details while no one pays attention to the food. If I could, I would force managers to cook, taste and shop for all the food. A restaurant manager should know good food and when food is not up to standard. The food is the product. It’s not a shoe store, dammit!”

Gerow’s observation points out a source of dissatisfaction for many restaurant managers. They got into the profession for their love of food but become forced into wearing too many other hats. 

“I knew something was wrong when I walked in one day and saw my kitchen manager working on the computer during his lunch rush,” comments Mark Damico, a district manager and 20-year “lifer”.

“’What are you doing?’ I asked him.

“’Trying to figure out why my food cost is high!’ he said!”

“’Try looking in your kitchen!’ I said.”

“I almost tossed the monitor into the trash right there,” Damico laughs. “It’s really gotten ridiculous, so much attention put onto everything but the food. Managers now have to be accountants, HR specialists, HAACP-trained, counselors, OSHA experts, marketing gurus and computer savvy, not to mention well-versed in sexual harassment law.”

As both restaurant chains and independents try to squeeze pennies out of each customer’s dollar in an ever-competitive market, managers are often the glue that holds an establishment together when costs are cut.

“They let go of the bookkeeper, cut my labor cost budget, went from a five-manager model to running the place with only three and expect me to build sales, keep morale high and turn in a twenty percent T.O.P. (Total Operating Profit) every month. It has been thirteen months since my last review or raise,” complains an anonymous manager. “They expect more and more with less and less.”

Foodservice is not the only industry to suffer from “downsizing”. But, restaurant managers have always covered when the server can’t make it in because he had too much to drink last night, or the dishwasher is hauled away by the INS, or a cook cuts her finger off. Now, many corporations, looking for a way to fight minimum wage increases and ever-increasing labor costs, dump even more work on the front line boss. 

“I’ll tell you how to increase the bottom line,” says the same disgruntled manager. “Get rid of the corporate office! I’m already posting all of the invoices, taking the inventory, generating my own P&L statement every month. What do we need them for? Just so I have a place to send all of my paperwork to? Get rid of them and just give me half their salary. The company can keep the rest.”

But, the same magnifying glass scrutinizing unit-level overhead is also revealing the high cost of management burnout. Industry estimates calculate that it costs $37,000 to hire and train a new manager.

Recognizing the drain on their cash flow, some companies are doing something about it.

“We have really taken a hard look at how we run our business,” says Tiffany Chahine, Director of HR Services for Chevys Fresh Mex. “We conduct exit interviews on all managers to find out the real reasons they are leaving. Restaurant managers are expected to return a lot to the company and they are not always given the monetary rewards that other industries receive, so quality of life becomes a huge issue. At Chevys, we have a guaranteed 55-hour maximum work week and attempt to give the manager two days off in a row. We also staff five to seven managers in each unit so that managers can have some flexibility in their schedules.”

Chahine admits that quality of life is still the downside to managing a restaurant. “I interviewed a manager recently [for another company] who was working over 80 hours a week, in New York. But, I think companies are doing a lot more about it than, say, even two years ago. Most are at least offering a guaranteed ceiling to the amount of hours a manager is required to work each week.”

Undeniably, restaurant chains are aware of the issue. A visit to almost any major restaurant’s web site will result in seeing “quality of life” mentioned on their recruiting page. As in, “You will discover balance between work life and personal life; short-term and long-term (Applebees).” Or, “We are committed to preserving a unique culture that believes in the quality of life, energetic people, respect of others, and most of all fun (Islands).”

Many corporate recruiting ads feature promises of a “55-hour work week—guaranteed!” And nearly all of them now boast a “Five-day work week!” as an incentive to sign up. Some, such as Islands, even pay managers for voluntarily working a sixth day. And managers are beginning to benefit from the competition to attract, and retain, good front-line supervision skills.

Other than the obvious financial benefits of reducing turnover, management retention can be an indication of a company’s overall health, as well as a sign of operational excellence. 

For those reasons, John Kobateck, Vice President, Recruitment & Placement Services, for the California Restaurant Association, thinks the days of poor quality of life for the restaurant manager are over.

“I believe that the typical restaurant manager for many years experienced heavy burn out by the company or employer with which they worked – long hours, excessively hard labor, unfair work standards, and no life outside of the job. But, I really do believe that the quality of life for managers is shaping up and becoming an enjoyable, profitable and beneficial place that managers and other employees now really look forward to – instead of dreading. That’s due in large part to employers who we’re finding are increasingly getting it. They’re realizing that they do need to offer their leaders and employees better hours, benefits, environment and treat them like a member of their extended family so that their investment of their team will yield great returns. Managers and other employees are now finding their workplace to be a great second home – with improved medical benefits, vacation time, training programs, and other great amenities that set them and their team up for success in the long run.”

Kobateck takes pride in his organization’s efforts to help with this issue. Under his direction, the CRA has launched the “Recruitment & Placement Services”, an in-house department providing various services to help employers find quality career seekers, and vice versa, as well as purchasing “RestaurantJobs.com”, one of the nation’s leading hospitality recruitment web sites.

“The CRA realized several years ago that we needed to create an entire department fully dedicated to stemming the turnover problem,” explains Kobateck. “These issues are absolutely important. Many employers have ‘been there’ so they appreciate that they need to inspire, motivate and look out for their team. Whether that means giving them more time to be with family, improving their medical or dental plans so their employees pay less but get more, or inserting new activities or programs such as bonus plans and give-away contests – it drives the team to work harder toward a cause and employer in which they believe. Profit sharing, partnerships, stock options are other ways to actually give managers a feeling of “buy in” and literally become a part of the leadership team that has a vested interest in the future and success of the restaurant.”

Indeed, more and more restaurant managers are becoming satisfied with their decision to make a career in the food service industry.

Mike Keesler is relatively new to the business. He doesn’t have a trunk full of restaurant war stories, having spent the first 18 years of his working life as an accountant before making the mid-life career switch four years ago. He enjoys his job, working as a manager for Ruby’s Diner.

“If you look at it purely as a job, I think it can be unrewarding,” he says. “Certainly, the hours are long, and you can work many days in a row.” 

Echoing Gerow’s sentiments, Keesler adds, “But, I am fortunate in that I love food, and the pleasure I get from feeding people. I like the interaction. That’s where I get the most satisfaction. And, right now, my quality of life is good. I am guaranteed two days off a week. I get paid if I have to work a sixth. I haven’t worked a shift longer than ten hours…that’s better than I had as an accountant. The pay isn’t bad and the benefits are good. Most of all, I like the people I work with, even my current boss.

Keesler and his wife Betsy are raising a daughter and juggle child-rearing responsibilities. Betsy, a former Starbucks manager, now holds a nine-to-five job working as an accountant. 

“It does take some flexibility,” he explains, “mostly because I’m not home for dinner every night. My wife has a real job and that lends some stability to our family life. I try to make sure I’m involved. I take my daughter to ballet lessons on one of my days off, fix meals, do the wash, and help with homework. That makes a big difference. My wife has spent some time in the industry, so she understands what it takes. And, since I spent some time in the corporate world, I know what it takes on her part, too.

“I think the more progressive companies are addressing the quality of life issues people have. I happen to work for a company that really tries to take care of that. I believe that the industry itself must address those concerns in order to compete with other industries and attract the best people it can. The restaurant industry is primed for growth. America doesn’t eat at home much any more. For the industry to keep up the growth, they need to get the best people they can. To do that, they need to change.”

Unmistakably, Keesler is a happy restaurant manager. Perhaps part of a growing breed of those who are fortunate to benefit from industry leaders who have realized the best way to keep managers from leaving is by caring about them.

“My biggest regret,” he says, “is that I didn’t do this when I was younger. I like being able to deliver a great guest experience. I like my customer to think, ‘I really enjoyed myself. I want to go back soon.’ I also like the energy when the restaurant is busy. It’s the satisfaction I get in taking the chaos that is the business and being able to tame it, if just for a little while.”

That addictive energy, which keeps many otherwise discontented managers in the game, did not hold its power for Shonwalder, however. Like many others in the field, he did not see the promise of the restaurant chains’ recruiting departments materialize in the real world. Scoffing at those inside the industry who maintain that the quality of a restaurant manager’s life is improving, he says that they are only cosmetically addressing the issues and that a 55-hour work-week guarantee is akin to promising someone “to only torture them for a little bit.” And, he argues, the corporate chains are not changing anything at all.

“Why would they?” he asks, rhetorically. “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

As to advice on how to raise a child, have a family while maintaining a career in the restaurant industry? 

Shonwalder responds simply, “You don’t.”

From the cynical to the optimistic, however, virtually everyone agrees that management turnover statistics in the industry remain too high, soaring to over 100% in the quick service arena. With other industries offering 40-hour work weeks, holidays off, and weekends and evenings to be with the kids, the love of food, serving the public and the excitement appear to no longer be enough.