Yesterday the New York Times carried an Op-Ed series of short comments under the heading: Is Your Tank Half Empty or Half Full?
I read the first three installments with relish, and then was blocked from reading the next remaining articles because I was not a paid member of the NY Times whatever club. I thought that this might be good 'marketing:' (first hook 'em on intriguing, interesting articles, then make 'em pay to see the rest...kinda like an old time peep show...as I am told). Then I thought it was also amoral to tackle such an important issue as how escalating gasoline costs are affecting Americans by making them pay to read about it.....this is not some secret 'how to' stuff; but then go figure. 'Another major news outfit run by the accountants.
Back to the main point: reading only the first three articles, I was intrigued by the "comments" (free, by the way) made by the readers like me. At the time I looked, there were more than 150 different comments.
What came home to me was how this gasoline situation is going to directly and indirectly affect the North American restaurateur, independent or not.
Let's think about this 'big picture' for a moment. It used to be that the inner cities were mostly inhabited by the poor, and the blue collar workers were in the 'inner suburbs', while the middle and richer classes lived out in the suburbs, or even in rural areas, with gates.
But that has been changing for years. The inner cities are now being 'yuppified' and are becoming tony, expensive, loft-strewn enclaves. The poor and blue collar workers (many with no jobs or alternative training, since we have exported most of our manufacturing jobs overseas to low labor cost countries) are being forced outwards to the surrounding rings of the urban areas.
Assuming that public transit is available for these folks - especially those who work in restaurants, hotels, retail and other service industries - public transit too has been cut back by local, state and federal governments due to a need for the funds elsewhere (don't get me started on that!).
So it takes longer and longer while costing much more for these folks to get into their work...if they can at all. Don't believe me....just read some of those 150+ comments in the NY Times!
One of the other reasons for this is the crumbling infrastructure of highways, roads, bridges and related aspects of the transportation system that has needed renovation and repair for decades. If you happen to live or work in a more rural setting, you might even be in more trouble (expense-wise) than in the city core, where there still is some public transit.
Twenty years ago, I lived near Aspen, Colorado. I watched daily, as hundreds of low-paid workers piled into old beaters by the dozen, all barreling down highway 82 from Glenwood Springs and beyond. Some came from as far as 70 miles away...to work in the dish rooms, laundries and back of the house to help operate the upscale, expensive Aspen-Snowmass hospitality industry. Few of the owners of these establishments wanted to spend money on building appropriate employee housing, so there was little lodging close by; let alone right in the town. I wonder how these minimum wage workers can afford to do the drive into Aspen today.
We're already suffering from a 'labor shortage' and now we have $4+ gallons of gas.
How is this going to affect our own operation? Along with our employees not being able to get to their jobs, or it costing them more than 15% of their income in transportation costs (we are not even talking about the cost of heating oil for homes in the coming winter).
What do we do about the number of our guests who opt-out of driving to our restaurant?
How do we charge the customer an extra two bucks or more for the delivery of her pizza?
How do we now pay the delivery driver with his beater pickup? How do we encourage take out?
I'm going to tackle some of these questions and more in Part 2 of this post.....stay tuned tomorrow for a different way of approaching these problems..
What do you think? Care to share your 2 cents? I'd appreciate your feedback and comments below.
