Note: I've owned restaurants for decades. This is absolutely true. As wages have gone up over the years, especially this year, and my managers have been more w

Note: I've owned restaurants for decades. This is absolutely true. As wages have gone up over the years, especially this year, and my managers have been more willing to let someone go because they don't perform as well as others or don't show the potential. We have always had a higher bar--and paid higher accordingly--but cheap extra staff might take some of the burden off the others if they could accomplish some parts of the job till we could find someone else. Some years, like now, that can take months. Letting someone go means others may get overtime, which is OK by me. I would rather have a good person there, and pay them extra, than an under-performing person there who only ticks everyone off and leaves a bad impression on a customer. What I find interesting is people think the rising minimum wage has no affect on the cost to the customer. Recently, I sold one of my restaurants to someone whose first action was to raise prices by 20% because we paid more than his other restaurants do AND he cut hours by 25%!