Boston Eater asked local food writers for their "biggest restaurant grievances" of the year just past. Some of the writers responded with complaints about overly loud restaurants, the ubiquity of "small-plate" menus, the cost of going out these days.
Kerry Byrne, who writes about food for the Herald, complained about lazy welfare queens.
The dearth of talent, especially noticeable from a dining perspective in the front of the house. Every chef and restaurateur complains about it and struggles with it. One of the inevitable fallouts of an ever-expanding welfare society in which millions of Americans find it's more profitable to sit at home than it is to work. Restaurateurs are struggling as a result.
H/t K.K.
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Thank you Walmart
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 1:50am
For giving your employees workshops on how to collect food stamps and free health care.
To Translate
By BostonDog
Sat, 01/02/2016 - 10:05pm
The good economy means that talented FOH staff can switch jobs easily and shitty restaurants and/or asshole managers are finding that the good people want better pay, better treatment, or both. This change really sucks if your the type of manager accustom to having people begging for work.
"Welfare" has nothing to do with -- the amount you can make as a good server is far above what you'd get from unemployment.
To anyone who complains of "Welfare Queens" I dare you to quit your job and live entirely off unemployment and other public benefits.
EDIT: It should be noted that even good restaurants are having trouble finding/keeping talent as the economy improves. There is simply a shortage of good waitstaff given the demand for them. But this is due to the good economy -- the complete opposite of what the moronic reviewer is suggesting.
Cooking is a lost art
By Francis White
Sat, 01/02/2016 - 8:53pm
That people should re-discover. For the price of your average dinner in the North End, I can entertain 2-3 couples at my home with multiple bottles of decent wine and a three course meal. Cooking is fun, and once you come up with a few signature dishes, you realize that it's as good, if not better than the entrees you are getting ripped off for in restaruants. B&G Oysters takes the cake. I remember spending $200+ and walking out hungry.
But...it's Barbara Lynch! Sorry, I just don't see the value.
couple of points, gramps
By Malcolm Tucker
Sat, 01/02/2016 - 9:33pm
1. North End is incredibly overrated in my humble opinion, but whatever.
2. Cooking is great. However, for those of us in cozy one-bedroom apartments:
(a) regularly inviting over 2 or 3 other couples is a massive pain in the ass, and
(b) cleaning all those dishes every night - by hand, mind you, because very few apartments available to us proles come equipped with dishwashers - is also a massive pain in the ass.
3. Some of us like a weekly date night, where we gladly pay someone else to bring us delicious food and refreshing drinks, and then take care of all the cleanup while we saunter home to our little apartment to enjoy each other's company, scot-free.
Gramps?
By Francis White
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 9:41am
I'm 28, Malcom. But thank you for being rude and insulting! How nice of you!
I am not saying I never go to restauarants. Do I enjoy them once in a while? Sure. Do they serve a purpose of business meetings? Of course.
Have a great day everyone!
I love to cook
By SwirlyGrrl
Sat, 01/02/2016 - 9:47pm
Given the "how to" stuff on the internet, it isn't a lost art in the least. My teens like to cook and bake as well.
However, it would be difficult to bring nine to twelve people from Boston to Medford for a business dinner (cooked in an hour's time after a day of meetings), and then back to their hotel after, then have to come home and clean up and be ready for my meeting again at 7:30 the next morning.
It's shellfish, what do you
By anon
Sat, 01/02/2016 - 10:59pm
It's shellfish, what do you expect? We are overfishing the oceans, and rapidly depleting fish stocks. That is why high end restaurants are now "discovering" alternatives like Bluefish.
Even with a $100k salary, it
By Tazz
Sat, 01/02/2016 - 10:20pm
Even with a $100k salary, it's more profitable for me to cook a great meal at home and drink a $10 bottle of wine, than spend $100 at a restaurant. (Plus tip) Sorry restaurantuers if you're struggling.
You won't be missed
By BostonDog
Sat, 01/02/2016 - 11:28pm
It's a great time for restaurants with demand for their services going up. The flip side is that it's harder to find good employees. Typical good economy story.
Restaurants compete with one another, not people cooking at home.
Profitable?
By TommyJeff
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 8:44am
Who cooks at home for profit?
And in the future, nobody cares how much you make, it's declasse.
The word he probably wanted
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 1:32pm
The word he probably wanted to use was "economical."
A penny saved
By Sock_Puppet
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 2:56pm
Is a penny earned
Or if my mother in law is cooking
A penny burned
Kerry is brilliant in a couple of ways.
By MC Slim JB
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 12:19am
I admire the statistical rigor he brings to sports analysis, especially the NFL, and he has fine moments as a food writer: check out one of this other contributions to the Eater Boston year-end survey of local critics and bloggers, like his description of his best meals of 2015. Good, evocative stuff there.
But the notion that potential workers are staying at home rather than taking restaurant jobs so they can collect welfare is a risible, paranoid right-wing fantasy.I think he is way off base in his assessment of why restaurants struggle to find good talent, which he starts off on the wrong foot by citing it only as a front-of-the-house problem; many restaurants are also struggling in the kitchen, notably with a dearth of good line cooks.
There's clearly a living-wage issue here -- if you're going to work for shit pay (like $3.35/hour for tipped roles), maybe you'll seek a job that isn't as back-breaking and benefits-free as a restaurant industry work -- but blaming it on shiftless poor people strikes me as utterly divorced from the realities of the restaurant business. With fitful progress on increasing the minimum wage, some restaurateurs are trying to address the issue with surcharges for back-of-the-house staff and no-tipping policies.
The bigger problem is an unsustainable overexpansion of restaurant seats in Boston in general, which I place squarely on the shoulders of the large-format, national chain restaurants in the Seaport and elsewhere that are sucking up talent and dining dollars from better, locally-owned restaurants. These deep-pocketed chains are gutting the innovative indies that make our restaurant scene unique and vibrant, and distinguish it from the many other US cities that are dominated by those chains. As I put it in that same series of interviews, "Without those independents, we’re just Des Moines with oysters."
It doesn't help that Byrne loves and defends those Seaport places. Part of this is market-driven -- the Seaport succeeds because it gives many diners what they want -- but I see it as a pernicious Wal-Mart effect. I don't want to see brighter, less mainstream talents driven out of business by middlebrow, corporate-concept chain restaurants with scale economy advantages. If you don't want that either, support your local indies, I beg you.
Kerry is who he is, politically. He writes for the Herald, after all. But on this score, as he is on many politically-charged questions (like climate change), the facts just aren't on his side.
What amazes me:
By dmcboston
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 10:59am
is how the food service industry can place the food in front of me for the price it does. High end restaurants have ambience, location and large expenses. Smaller mom & pops have great food (the ones that stay in business), plenty of it and decent prices. Chains have consistency.
I can walk into a Subway and get a chicken bacon foot long with lotsa veggies for less than ten bucks.
As someone else commented, it's the competition in the industry that drives the low prices.
Fact, not fantasy
By nightmoves
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 12:19pm
From Gary Alexander the Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (a state best known for its broke capital Harrisburg). As quantified, and explained by Alexander, "the single mom is better off earnings gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-27/when-work...
Yes, it's a silly article
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 9:43am
at least as far as most people are concerned. However, at the better (more expensive, for the sake of argument) restaurants, customers should expect better than average service that matches what they're paying. Not unreasonable. Should a customer be a (redacted b-word)? No, of course not. But restaurateurs are notorious for their, on average, sleazy business models.
Honestly, there are at least two subjects that'll bring out the often self righteous outrage (self righteous, imho, the majority of times) on uhub: bikes and race related issues. The ability some have to inject alleged racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. into almost any issue is tedious. I understand we're now in an election year and voter blocks need to be radicalized and riled up, but the predictability of shills and trolls is still goofy and asinine, and doesn't help foster real communication, respect, and understanding if not acceptance; it just hardens many people, and turns off others.
If you read a Herald writer using the term "welfare
By MC Slim JB
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:39am
society" and understand it to mean "shiftless black and brown people", you're not injecting alleged racism into the discussion, you're just hearing the dog whistle he intended you to hear. That's how you're supposed to do it: with code words.
This is why Trump so horrifies the GOP establishment: he echoes the shameless racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and religious intolerance of the rabid GOP base without giving it an annoying coat of euphemistic varnish. Code words for bigotry are what establishment GOP politicians have always relied on to have it both ways: rile up the base but still have a shot of winning in the general election.
What country-club Republicans fear is that Trump's refusal to play the hide-the-hatred game will win him the nomination but doom him in the general with the broader electorate that finds that bigotry repugnant. I suspect that they're correct.
Did it hit a raw nerve
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:48am
Or do you have a guilty conscious? BTW: our progressive Demcratic president is INCREASING the number of both low and highly skilled foreign workers and immigrants, legal and illegal. This is what's keeping wages stagnant and making it very difficult for low skilled, poorly educated American workers OF ALL SKIN COLORS, including especialy black people who follow t that descriptor on.
I am truly curious where your
By R Hookup
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 1:31pm
I am truly curious where your numbers on immigration come from. I don't remember any substantial increases in immigration programs in recent years. Yes, the POTUS gave us DACA kids, but total illegal immigrant population has leveled off over the last 5 years. And we have had a record number of deportations under the Obama administration.
Congress certainly hasn't passed any new programs for immigration nor increased visa caps, at least that I'm aware of.
Citation needed...
Cite
By nightmoves
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 12:22pm
"Obama plans to award via executive order work permits to 100,000 foreign college grads (including deportable aliens) to compete with U.S. workers for jobs. Unlike Americans, most have had free tuition rides from their sponsoring countries and carry no student loan debt. This enables them to tolerate lower wages than American grads saddled with high loan costs that can't be shirked even in bankruptcy court.
The foreigners are also exempt from ObamaCare rules that can add as much as $20,000 in costs per domestic worker for employers struggling to compete in the low-growth economy that Obama has overseen.
In short, Obama's move to bring in highly educated foreign labor hurts U.S. white-collar workers as much as the border surge undermined blue-collar workers."
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/123115-78...
Another editorial dispatch from Wingnuttia
By MC Slim JB
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 2:09pm
Quote: "But more likely, it's the result of a European Union-style effort [by Obama] to change the face of America — rendering its cultural norms null amid the left's moral relativism through the import of chaotic newcomers from around the world."
Uh-huh. Do you really believe this kind of thing, or do you just put it up to troll rational people?
Do you have another source for this speculative extrapolation on what that recent Homeland Security order actually means? Because I can't find a citation of it outside of wacko-rightie "journals" like Breitbart, whose founder famously admitted he would tell any lie, no matter how disgusting, if the thought it would help conservative causes, and went on to prove his point again and again till he helpfully dropped dead, though his minions continue to uphold his tradition of shameless, hateful right-wing propaganda. (Seriously, if you are reading Breitbart earnestly, you have the critical thinking skills of a gnat.)
In short, your sources reek of rightie nutbaggery. Try again.
Another clueless response from Dimwittia
By nightmoves
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 3:20pm
You did all that paranoid bitching instead of taking two minutes to at least glance at the executive summary of the HLS proposed rule to see you were wrong. This is after you pitched a childish fit over widely reported BLS statistics. Stop acting like a jackass and read it or do you need a ThinkProgress intyrn to womynsplain it to you? I won't post the link so you'll have to drag your sorry ass back to Breitbart to find it.
Again, you don't appear to have any sources that aren't
By MC Slim JB
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 3:36pm
from the Right-Wing Bubble on this story.
It would be more convincing if you could cite another source besides this spittle-flecked editorial that concludes from its unsourced version of the Homeland Security rule that "Oh, noooes, Obama is trying to make us all un-Americans!" (Again, I'll ask: do you really believe that nonsense? Because posting it without qualification suggests you do, in which case, you're around the bend.)
Suggesting I go back to Breitbart isn't helpful; as I noted before, only gullible idiots or the willfully delusional could possibly take that site seriously. You're not one of those people, too, are you?
The proposed rule is the source document
By nightmoves
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 4:07pm
The fact that you don't understand that and refuse to read it prove conclusively you are a moron.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federal...
M-O-R-O-N
So, my choices are, read that 181-page document, or trust
By MC Slim JB
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 4:38pm
Breitbart or whatever other rightie la-la-looney-tunes sources you rely on to interpret it faithfully for me?
Just checking. And once more: do you actually read Breitbart and believe what it tells you? Proving you can spell five-letter insults is no substitute for your candor on this score.
Says a lot
By nightmoves
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 5:13pm
Yes, read the document. It's that simple. Take a break from Yelp.
The original question was for cites of new immigration plans. This is is one. Let it go. You lost.
Oof, that was some tough sledding.
By MC Slim JB
Tue, 01/05/2016 - 9:35am
So I read that beast. Do you routinely go through huge rafts of bureaucratic gobbledygook like this? That was punishing.
I now recognize this as the result of some long-discussed policy reforms to loosen restrictions on H-1B workers. They were mainly being pushed for by Silicon Valley tech giants (think Google, Facebook, et. al.), who argue that they are facing a resource crunch, especially for engineering talent, in a global market.
This strikes me as credible enough, a tradeoff between the job prospects of some American tech workers and the competitiveness of one of the big homegrown growth drivers of American industry.
I still see a lot of speculation in the analysis of the potential results here (the policy hasn't been enacted, is in the public-comment phase for another six weeks.) For instance, where is the evidence that H-1Bs work for significantly less than their American counterparts? From what I know of tech salaries, especially in the Valley, they're not working for less -- talent is talent, and gets competed for, regardless of whether they're carrying student debt loads or not.
So I'm curious: if you are against letting -- what is it, 100,000? -- skilled foreign workers into the country to compete for American jobs, how do you feel about outsourcing by American companies, which has had an infinitely greater impact on American standards of living, sending tens of millions of good, middle-class jobs in manufacturing, services and other sectors to countries with lower labor costs?
Would you be in favor of putting up barriers or incentives to reduce that ongoing outflow of jobs? After all, both outsourcing and the fight for laxer H-1B standards are efforts by American companies to remain competitive in an increasingly globalized economy, that in the process harm Americans' wages and employment prospects. Why is one okay and not the other? Where do you draw the line between corporate profits and the health of the middle class?
Obama
By Sock_Puppet
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 3:12pm
Is letting in too many brown people and this gives you a sad because its hurting the black people?
Cool story bro.
Mexican immigration was net negative in 2015.
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2015/11/19/more-mexican...
I figured out your restaurant problem right there.
Thanks for correcting another right-wing anon's
By MC Slim JB
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 5:11pm
pitiful grasp of the facts on immigration. I don't think Mexican repatriation is a huge part of the local restaurant industry shortage. They're a relatively small ex-pat population in Greater Boston compared to folks from the DR, El Salvador, Colombia and Brazil. The real issue is competition fueled by rapid expansion chasing too small a skilled labor pool.
Now, can you explain to me what that first part of anon's gibbering rant was all about? What's a "guilty conscious"?
Immigration comes from
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 4:59pm
Immigration comes from multiple countries and it's not a partisan issue unless people make it a partisan issue. Yes, there are bills that are proposing a vast increase in low skill visa labor, and those do have an impact on the job market.
A different anon
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 5:13pm
The immigrant population of the country is at an all time high. You are only talking about one country.
http://www.ibtimes.com/immigration-us-2015-reaches...
The study your article cites was produced by CIS, a
By MC Slim JB
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 6:36pm
rabidly anti-immigrant "think tank" with ties to white supremacists and eugenicists. Nice people you are using to support your point there.
Your sources, once again, do not stand up to scrutiny. No wonder you hide behind an anon tag.
Actually their staff is multi
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 6:30pm
Actually their staff is multi religious and multi racial.
It's not "anti immigrant" to ask for a debate about immigration policy.
You would rather call people names than offer your own facts, of which, you have produced none.
Every post of yours of yours is caustic in tone and brings little to the discussion. You have a severe data deficit on this debate. Please get started and offer something of substance, or run along.
Even the Wall Street Journal has called out CIS
By MC Slim JB
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 6:54pm
as part of a network of foaming-at-the-mouth anti-immigrant groups founded or funded by John Tanton, who in turn has received millions in funding from the white supremacist Pioneer Fund, which advocates eugenics to achieve "racial purity".
Still don't see the problem with citing a study by this organization to support your point about immigration?
If I were you, I'd cower behind an anon tag, too.
Oh please, you can very
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 7:22pm
Oh please, you can very quickly find sources using a search engine without knowing what perspective they are coming from. You will get no traction on that matter. You have yet to produce your own sources.
Here's one from Fortune Magazine citing the Pew Research center. Are you going to call them names too?
"growing their share of the population to near record levels, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center."
http://fortune.com/2015/09/28/foreign-born-populat...
Everything you have posted
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:45pm
Everything you have posted after the first sentence is irrelevant because according to this video the director has recanted his affiliation and stated they only received an initial grant. They do however take seem to take a very firm stance on immigration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePBtcNJYBOs
Nonetheless, it is reckless for you to imply anything for merely linking to an article that was selected from an internet search for its data about the immi population rather than a thorough investigation of it's sources. That is not an endorsement of what the group stands for.
Your slash and burn approach to commentary is really unnecessary and not productive.
Whoops, that should be, after
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:51pm
Whoops, that should be, after the first comma, not after the first sentence. Anyway, all the original comment was meant to explain was that the imgrnt population of the country is near or at an all time high. It was not meant to be political.
Here's one from the Brookings
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 6:33pm
Here's one from the Brookings which shows almost exactly the same thing from the Journal of American Arts and Sciences.
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brookings-now/posts...
You still haven't offered anything of substance except your own verbal drool.
Offer less excoriations and more facts.
That's useful information,
By R Hookup
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 11:43am
That's useful information, though it stops at 2010, so there isn't much application to the current POTUS.
Yes, the US population that is foreign born has increased over the years. And that's due to a lot of factors, including the general strength of the US economy.
But you'll notice that the curve is bending downward. It jumped about 11M in the 1990s, but only about 9M in the 2000s (growth dropped from 57% to 28%). I'm sure there are a number of factors involved, but we know that illegal immigration population is flat and that there aren't any big programs that are adding to the skilled immigrant pools. The US has made it harder to come here compared to previous generations.
Are posts able to be edited?
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 6:46pm
Are posts able to be edited? It seems like extra sentences are showing up much later.
Yes, I edited my prior post to make it clearer
By MC Slim JB
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 7:07pm
which racist "think tank" your article was citing as the source of an immigration study, i.e., CIS.
Maybe if you registered under a uHub ID, you could edit your posts, too. Why exactly would you not do that, anyway?
Two other sources have been
By anon
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 2:19pm
Two other sources have been posted which show just about the same thing. As much as you relish pointing out the issues with that particular group, others have been provided. Pardon me for not knowing the political ins and outs of every organization.
I don't register because I
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 7:26pm
I don't register because I can't really be bothered. I'm not currently researching the background of every group I site on rather meaningless internet debate. It's very easy to find articles written about anything to support your arguments, you haven't done so however.
growing their share of the population to near record levels, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center.
Here's Fortune saying almost exactly the same thing citing Pew Research Center.
"growing their share of the population to near record levels, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center."
http://fortune.com/2015/09/28/foreign-born-populat...
Can't be bothered?
By adamg
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 7:55pm
For somebody who can't be bothered, you sure are putting a lot of effort into this argument.
I don't register on websites
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 10:06pm
I don't register on websites unless I have to purchase something. I will respond to posts that suggest very incorrect and unkind things.
As you wish ...
By adamg
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:14pm
As you wish ...
I don't get it, Adam. It
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:21pm
I don't get it, Adam. It wasn't meant to be an affront to UHub. It's just how a lot of people do things.
I obviously think anon comments are useful
By adamg
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:53pm
It's why I still allow them long after many other sites have abandoned them and even though it means I have to spend a fair amount of time going through the queue that anonymous comments go into (a queue that as I type is up to about 21 messages, many of them, I suspect, from your keyboard).
What got me was that you started out saying you don't have the time to be bothered registering for an account but have obviously spent way more time responding to one poster here. But we've had that discussion already, apologies for repeating myself.
When the comments don't go
By anon
Sun, 01/03/2016 - 11:57pm
When the comments don't go through I'm assuming that they get caught in the system, so I basically retype the same thing after a while. You have to approve them first? My apologies.
Yep, and my apologies
By adamg
Mon, 01/04/2016 - 12:01am
I need to figure out how to pop up a box or something that alerts anonymous commenters to that fact after you post.
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