10 dark money-saving secrets revealed by restaurant and bar employees
Restaurant and café owners are keeping a very tight grip on their money. Understandably so: persistent inflation, high terrace permit taxes, the price of beer is going up and energy prices are still insane. But these tricks for keeping costs down really cross every line. Restaurant and bar employees spill the beans (anonymously).
10 money-saving secrets revealed
1. Saving the buffet
Don’t throw away anything that doesn’t need to be thrown away: fair enough. But recycling dishes from a buffet? Not so nice. ‘I worked temporarily at a large hotel, only during the high season. We had a large buffet at a wedding and afterwards about a third of the food was still left over. We weren’t allowed to eat it as staff; it was saved for later. I didn’t know much about food safety at the time, but I did understand that this wasn’t right: that food had been sitting outside refrigeration for hours. Surely it should just be thrown away?’
2. Nice and cheap
‘I worked at a bar-restaurant where the most important employee—let’s call him Albert—was an extremely friendly man with an intellectual disability. The owners exploited him enormously. He worked as many as eighty hours a week, and his overtime was paid in cash. Whenever the minimum wage went up, they told him he had earned a pay rise. He did every job nobody else felt like doing, and the whole place would probably grind to a halt if he didn’t work for a day. Fortunately, the rest of the staff were very kind to him.’
3. Pouring it over
‘Sometimes owners buy drinks from a B-brand in large containers and pour them into A-brand bottles. An easy way to make money, but it’s still fraud. Even shadier: a hospitality entrepreneur who hired all employees as self-employed contractors. At least then he didn’t have to pay anything when they were sick.’
4. Recycle
‘When I was sixteen, I worked in a sandwich shop. My stingy boss made me reuse disposable plastic cups, as long as there wasn’t a lipstick mark on them. I quit pretty quickly.’
5. Kill all the bacteria
‘In the seventies I worked as a chef in a restaurant in Wisconsin. Every Friday there was an all-you-can-eat menu with fried fish, salad and fries. An extra dishwasher was brought in, who had to remove the fish and fries from the plates before they went into the dishwasher. They were deep-fried again and served once more. According to the owner, all the bacteria died in the fryer anyway, so what was the problem?’
6. From the bin
‘I worked at Sonic Drive In. When it was quiet, the manager made us retrieve packets of mustard, ketchup and other unopened packages. They could then be given to customers again. I did it once and then quit.’
7. Delicious cocktail
‘Bartenders who toss the leftovers from glasses together in a large pitcher and sell it for a dollar per cup to the alcoholics hanging around in the alley behind the bar. They called it “All Nations”.’
8. Pizza mosaic
‘If you order a pizza from a place that also sells pizza by the slice, there’s a chance the employees bake a new pizza, put a few slices from it in the box together with other slices that are almost destined for the bin. You get that Frankenstein pizza, the display case gets a few fresh slices again and they don’t have to throw anything away.’
9. One hundred percent organic
‘Aside from adding water to vodka or lying about A-brands, I think the worst scam in restaurants is putting on the menu that everything is local and organic while buying everything from a cheap wholesaler.’
10. Rinsing satay skewers
‘At the Chinese restaurant in Amsterdam where I worked, I had to put the used chicken satay skewers in a cup of boiling water while clearing the tables. The last pieces of meat were soaked off and the skewers were reused.’
Read also:
- Buying spice blends at the supermarket: you’re often being ripped off
- 19 times you’re seriously being ripped off at the supermarket, part 2
- Say what?!? This is how much a bottle of water costs at top restaurants
Source: BoredPanda
