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Downtown deli blames Beacon Hill for its impending price increases
By adamg on Fri, 11/21/2014 - 2:39pm
Adam Castiglioni posts a photo of the sign now up in Joshua's Deli on Batterymarch, which says they have no choice but to raise their prices come January, thanks to those meanies up on Beacon Hill.
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Comments
They really want to drive away customers
I doubt the price increases would do nearly as much damage as this screed will.
If they aren't paying their employees much, then we are paying their employees anyway ... one way or another.
Really
So the minimum wage is going to go up up by $1, which forces him to increase the price of a lunch by $1.25. Does it take one of his employees an hour and a quarter to make one lunch? At least the bullshit sandwich he's serving us is free.
Ahaa people who don't know anything about business
His payroll tax is also going to go up, workers comp will also go up, it's based on a rate for every $100 in payroll. A $1 raise cost more than a $1. There are also other variable cost associated with payroll.
That said, the owner sound like a complet POS!
$1/ hour does not equal $2.50
$1/ hour does not equal $2.50/hour in wages. You have two customers per employee-hour, and you've blasted through the price increase. And if you only have two customers per employee-hour, you're way over staffed.
See i dont think you're seeing the blatantly obvious issue here.
Employee X make $1 per Hr while working for employer Z. It Cost Mr. Z $2 per hr to pay Mr. X's $1. While Mr. X only takes home $0.75. What the fuck happened to the $1.25?
And you also have to think, on top of the $1.25 Uncle Sam is taxing your profits, and that profit is whats paying for employee X's $1 per hr.
Plus, corporate taxes, property taxes, sale tax on shit you purchase,...............
So, yes, depending on this ding dongs expenses, a $1 raise could in fact =$2.50. However if it does, its somewhat likely because his not managing his expenses properly.
Psst... His suppliers face the same payroll issues.
Think...
Pppsss
Which means his supplies now cost more! You have a brain, use it!
I'm not sure the "screed" does so much damage.
I'm not so sure this note does a whole lot of damage. After all, we're talking about a lunch place on Batterymarch Street, not one in Inman, Davis, Union (insert Cambridge/Somerville Square here).
Remember what "district" this place is in, and who comprises most of the clientele.
Hell, there might be some nods of approval, or at least, some silent looks that say "right on, brother".
I'm with Swirly. If I saw
I'm with Swirly. If I saw that as a customer, I might ask the guy to take me through the math.
Also, way to support his employees.
Jerk. (Manager. Not you.)
Non Issue
I doubt the stupid "screed" is going to have much effect on his customers. People are bombarded by "screeds" all day long and thus tune them out. Kind of like the truck drivers who don't see the No Trucks signs on Storrow.
Cool story, deli owner brah
Cool story, deli owner brah
Obviously
That's a case of KNEE JERK reaction. Jerk being the operative word here.
I bet that when he gets home and has a beer he'll realize that what he did there was a make a mistake. Then he will come in tomorrow and take down the sign but thanks to Social Media it will be too late. Flash forward a month or two from now and the deli will probably be out of business and his lack of a proper education will force him to get a job working with the very same people that used to work for him but he will be pretty darn psyched that the minimum wage was raised at that point and all will be well in the cold cruel naked city.
http://cappyinboston.blogspot.com/
Or at the very least
his suppliers will get wind of this note and say "Hey, Josh expects us to raise our prices, so we'll go ahead and do that - but 100% more than we need to." Flash forward about two months after the suppliers do this, then cue your comments.
I dunno
That spa on North Street that was convinced it was going to catch Ebola is till going strong.
Never underestimate the power of uneducated people in large groups.
Uhhh- Mr. Gruber...
Weren't you supposed to be in DC testifying about health care or something.
I'm busy buying freedom fries
Gold and doomsday seeds.
Hopefully not from Josh
He charges an extra $1 for all of the above.
I only buy from honest brokers.
Glen Beck.
Ain't that nice
Support your fellow comedians. I find his rants hilarious.
Stay on topic
Regardless of what you think of Glenn Beck's pants, they don't have anything to do with the price of deli.
What he SHOULD have said....
Starting 1/1/15 I will be giving each of my employees a $1 an hour raise to comply with the new minimum wage law. My guys are great and they really do deserve this extra money for the fine job they do. To make this work I'll need to raise my prices a bit. I hope you will continue to be a loyal customer of ours.
Yep.
I would have gone out of my way to eat there then. Now I am never going.
This guy is a terrible leader. "For my employees its kinda cool. For me it blows."
Doesn't send a "we are all in this together" message.
Get me re-write!
Let's change the drift of this one to something like:
"I pay my employees as little as possible, and as a result most of them rely on publicly funded social services to make ends meet and survive. Now I'm being forced to pay them more. So while they're gonna require slightly less public assistance, I'm going to pass my small increase along to you. So you paid for them before the increase, and you'll pay for them afterwards. And in both cases, I take zero responsibility!"
A-hole.
Knee jerk reaction
Jerk being the operative word. No reason to call the guy an 'a-hole.' Sure this isn't well written, but I think the point is, this is a small business owner can't afford to pay more than minimum wage. So what is he supposed to do?
It's easy for a bunch of internet know it alls to say 'You should pay your employees more.' Not so easy to do it in the real world.
Josh is that you?
Of course it is easy! It just depends on how you view and treat your employees.
For my employees, this is
Yeah, it's "kinda cool" that now your employees are living a little bit closer to the poverty line.
Josh's...
They have great food and generous portions. There is probably a better way to word this, but I don't think it'll drive as many people away as one may think. The items I order are pretty inexpensive to begin with.
It's not about the price.
It's the attitude toward the employees.
He is saying that he would pay them less if it were legal. He is saying that nine dollars per hour is more than his employees are worth to him.
RE:
He indicated that suppliers are planning to raise their rates and that he wouldn't be firing any employees despite the $9/hour salary - between the 2 increases (salary/supplier prices) he thinks he needs to raise his food prices.
I don't think any of us can speak intelligently about this without seeing his financial information - some will say that he's a businessman and wants to make a profit and others will say he's being mean and should pay more b/c his employees are living in poverty.
Regardless, I plan to continue going there for lunch.
It's not about price
You are continuing to debate the price aspect. I and many others don't care about paying higher prices if it means that workers get paid a fair wage and get healthcare. It is about messaging and being a good human being. Framing it as "poor you" because you can't pay your workers a poverty wage anymore is totally wrong and you do not deserve to be in business if this is what you believe.
Fast food chains do the same thing: "If we raise the minimum wage, we'll have to charge you more for fries!" Who cares!? Fast food is so cheap in the US anyway. Raise the prices and pay the employees a living wage.
RE
Who's to say what's "fair" here? If I open a business, offer to pay people $8/hour, and the work conditions are ok, what's the problem? Nobody is being forced against their will to work there - both sides agreed to a certain wage. Now that the government is forcing higher wages on them, the owner feels he needs to raise prices. Maybe he doesn't have much profit to begin with, or is barely breaking even, or losing money........we don't know what the real story is here. All businesses would like to earn millions in sales every year, but this is a small operation so every little bit counts for them.
What about the owner? Does he deserve a fair wage or any profit for all the $$ he has invested in his business? This business is not a non-profit.
He probably should have worded the letter differently (or just said the cost of operations/food/utilities is going up, etc.) but I understand his point. Clearly the letter as worded was a bad idea.
Corporate Welfare
The problem is less with small employers like this than large ones. But this guy makes the cut purely on asshattery.
A sub-poverty minimum wage means that those receiving it are also likely receiving tax-payer funded social services like SNAP, WIC, heating assistance, etc. So basically, you and I are subsidizing minimum-wage employers by making up the difference between what they pay employees and what their employees need to live.
Sorry, I think that Walmart, McDonald's, and the rest of those corpo pirates already have enough of an advantage, without me supplementing their payroll as well.
Cost of Living, that's who's to say what's fair
The insane cost of living in Boston & MA as a whole. The COL in Boston is 3rd highest in the nation with only NYC and SF ahead of us in most surveys. The minimum wage should allow a person to live modestly in an apartment with food. The current $8 is way too low for MA. You should not need heavy governmental assistance if you are working a 40-hr week.
What does Josh have to do with cost of living?
His business is in MA, the employees agreed to a certain wage to work for him in MA, what else is there to discuss? Yes, it's not cheap to live here all of us know that.... Why did people agree to work for him at $8/hour in the first place? He didn't hold anyone at gun point..
What does Josh have to do with the cost of doing business?
His business is in MA, he agreed to pay a certain wage to his workers in MA, what else is there to discuss? Yes, it's not cheap to have a business here all of us know that.... Why did he agree to buy a business in the first place? No one held him at gun point..
I see what you did there....
You're very clever - I'm impressed.
Your posting does hit the nail on the head...he and his employees agreed to a certain wage.....
And by the by? Josh used to
And by the by? Josh used to be one of the employees. I think the previous owner retired. (I work around the corner.)
You're all right
I agree with the plight of the small business owner's costs going up.
I agree with the raising the min. wage to help low income workers.
The issue for me is putting a sign up in your window. It's a rookie move. You risk alienating someone. That someone is a potential customer.
Really a stupid thing to do.
What am I missing?
Does each employee only sell one item per hour? How else could he justify raising his prices a dollar apiece simply because of the minimum wage law?
Because he's a soulless
Because he's a soulless robber baron wanna be?
Idiotic ranting...
is idiotic.
It doesn't add up
What will be interesting to see: now that his competitors know that he only pays the minimum that he has to, are the best people going to get poached?
No, because minimum wage is
No, because minimum wage is prevalent. Our economy has'nt yet reached the tipping point where up-bidding will occur at low level jobs.
Bingo
The math doesn't add up.
If he has to pay $1 more per hour and his workers do an 8-hour shift, then that's $8 more a day. Hell, double it if you want to include ABSURD increases in payroll taxes. $16 a day increase.
At $1.25/item, he'd make that back and a bit of change in 13 lunch items for one worker for an 8 hour shift. If he's not selling 13 items a day, he has no business doing business anyways. If he has TEN employees per day, he's still only in need of selling 130 items throughout the day. If you can't sell 130 items in a day then why do you have 10 employees doing 8 hour shifts? Even if we assume he's going straight to $11/hr early...to add $4/hr he's gotta sell just over 3 items per hour or a single sandwich every 20 minutes.
Maybe he only sells 13 items
I'm guessing that he has 3 employees, so we are talking 39 whole items in the course of an 8 hour day.
This guy's gotta be a blast to work for. To be honest, if the cost of things I buy go up the fraction it should, I wouldn't mind, but to put a sign up essentially saying that he has to raise prices because he is being forced to give his workers a raise, well, I'm sure someone will direct him to social media.
I mostly feel sad for the
I mostly feel sad for the people who have so little choices in life that they have to work for a boss this. I'd hate to spend 8 hours of my day working alongside this guy, and then walk home with barely $70 in my pocket -after the raise!
Don't shed a tear
I've been going there for years and have seen the same employees working there day in and day out. Josh is an affable guy and seems to get along well with them. He must be doing something right.
Well,
that may change once his employees read his screed.
They have
It's been up at least a few days, and the deli hasn't descended into a Marxist revolution (yet)
Well, folks
need their jobs. And many folks stay in jobs when they have no other choices. For both good and bad bosses.
The guy wrote the thing and pasted it on his door. Even if he is the next best thing to the Savior, he still wrote it and I would assume he believes it and I think his attitude towards his employees stinks.
Yeah, being compensated for
Yeah, being compensated for the labor you provide. That is totally what marxism is all about.
Nice attempt at parroting buzzwords though.
I'm not so sure. I work
I'm not so sure. I work minimum wage and I've worked for plenty of people with this type of attitude who were otherwise really excellent down-to-earth people. Some ones are just super arch-conservative when it comes to money. If he was truly a beast to work for they probably wouldn't stay. People have to have jobs but 8 bucks don't buy a lot of crap taking.
The Papa John's Strategy
This caused quite a bit of backlash. History repeating?
Do you know what really blows, sir...
Soooooooooo this charmer does not want to lay off his employees because it would hurt his business model (aw, just, aw) which also includes, I believe, paying his employees as less as possible.
Let me tell ya where you can stick your hoagie.
I also didn't get that part
What is "his business model"? He's a deli owner. How do you engineer a business model there that means you can't get rid of someone before having to close the doors?
Maybe he *does* only make one sandwich an hour...but it's god-damned perfect!
Good Point!
I think his "business model" consists of one's head up one's a-hole.
The freaking minimum wage
and now Obama makes the kitchen help legal. How the h-e double hockey stick am I gonna pad my pockets now?
Cost-based pricing...
... is one of the seven deadly business sins.
The market doesn't care about your internal cost structure, only about whether the price you charge for your goods is a good value and/or competitive.
Not really defending the sign
But with the price of a sandwich and a drink now approaching $10 - if you have to cross that line, your "competition" isn't the deli down the street - it's the Tupperware dish you throw in the microwave at the office.
Not sure how many sandwich buyers will do it - but once you cross $10 - most people will have to ask the question. Tupperware? Sandwich?
That cost is not labor driven
Not downtown it isn't.
That cost is driven mostly by the cost of real estate in the area he is operating.
Where are your numbers on that?
In my experience a $10 sandwich/soda downtown might run you $8-$9 elsewhere. A lot of that extra cost is accounted for by incremental volume. He's not there for his convenience. He's there because there are twice as many customers to amortize the higher fixed cost over. His real estate cost per unit may in fact be far lower than a comparable shop outside of downtown. This will vary significantly by location.
Obviously a proud graduate of
the Jordan Tobins School of Business. How will Josh be able to buy that Cessna now?
On the other hand,
I am glad he is not going to raise beverage prices.
I think I will visit and purchase 52 medium soft drinks.
So, folks, I guess most of
So, folks, I guess most of you believe that restaurants are such EASY businesses to run. And I suppose you're wondering why should the owner worry about a mere 37% jump in labor costs in the next 25 months or so?
I'm sure so many restaurant owners dislike (to say the least) this wage increase. But just because this guy expresses his take on his situation with an anti-lawmaker bent, something that much of the UH crowd just can't tolerate, said crowd takes him to task big-time. And, of course, leave it to the most of same crowd to tee off on the guy without really knowing him or his operation.
But continue not to try to see things from the owner's perspective. That way, you'll be consistent.
Abandon hope all ye who enter here...
Too many people commenting here don't possess basic math skills. The owner of the restaurant doesn't possess basic social skills.
sh*t sandwich
i feel bad for the employees who work in an environment where the business owner posts juvenile gripes with the government right at the register. not only would i be embarrassed about the immaturity of the business owner, i'd be embarrassed that my boss doesn't care that he's telling his entire customer base how much i earn per hour, and the fact that he's irritated about the increasing cost of employing somebody ELSE to HELP him run a business.
as far as damage control goes, he shouldn't have put this up at all and just increased the prices. this happens virtually everywhere without a stupid sheet of paper like this, and things almost always continue to go smoothly in the short run. this sort of thing stirs the pot and would absolutely make me feel uncomfortable to go in that deli.
I don't get it if $8 an hour
I don't get it if $8 an hour isn't enough, why not look for a job that pays more? That way if a business isn't paying enough he won't have employees. I guess its a lot easier to just have the government take care of our problems.
Oh, I don't know
Maybe it's because there aren't enough jobs to go around -- even minimum-wage jobs? Or are you one of the people who think those on unemployment don't want to work? Have you heard about a shortage of sandwich-makers that would give them job mobility?
Why aren't you changing jobs so you'll get paid 12% more, if it's so easy to do?
Josh wants the government to pay his workers
That's what Josh wants - he wants the government to pay these people additional money because he doesn't want to pay them a living wage.
That's what it gets down to - either employers pay and pass along to the customer, or taxpayers pay, and he pockets the difference.
This is really beating a dead
This is really beating a dead horse but for the umpteenth time you've got it backwards. As has been mentioned many times already in this thread. The gap between income and needs of low wage earners is often made up by various forms of public assistance which is in turn paid for by broad based taxes. Paying low minimum wages is akin to drawing corporate welfare.
So the minimum wage went up $
So the minimum wage went up $.75 but he's increasing his prices $1-1.25.
Somehow I don't think that's all going to the employees.
Just think how cheap things
Just think how cheap things would be with no minimum wage at all!