21 States (and Dozens of Cities) Affected by 2017 Minimum Wage Increases: What Restaurants Can Do Now

Who is Impacted?

There is no doubt that the two industries with the most at risk over the impending minimum wage increases are retail and hospitality.  Especially, in hospitality, the increases are set to affect over 14 million Americans in the hospitality/ food & beverage industries - that's nearly 10 percent of the entire United States workforce.  Of course, the attempt to close the wage gap amongst restaurant employees is very important.  However, with these changes coming, restaurant owners and operators must prepare their staff.  Below are the 21 states, along with their cities/ counties where the new minimum wage increases are taking place:

States Affected:

• Alaska - $9.80

• Arizona - $10.00

• Arkansas - $8.50

• California - $10.00 for small employers; 10.50 for large employers

• Colorado - $9.30

• Connecticut - $10.10

• Florida - $8.10

• New York - Varies across state from $9.70 to $11 (as of 12/31/16)*

• Ohio - $8.15

• Oregon - $10.25 (as of July)

• South Dakota - $8.65

• Vermont - $10.00

• Washington - $11.00

• *The basic minimum wage is $9.70 in most of the state. But it's higher for the fast food industry; Long Island; Westchester County; and large and small employers in New York City.

Cities & Counties:

• California:

  • Cupertino - $12.00

  • El Cerrito - $12.25

  • Los Altos - $12.00

  • Mountain View - $13.00

  • Oakland - $12.86

  • Palo Alto - $12.00

  • Richmond - $12.30

  • Sacramento - $10.50 (large employers)

  • San Diego - $11.50

  • San Mateo - $12.00

  •  San Jose - $10.50

  • Santa Clara - $11.10

  • Sunnyvale - $13.00

• Hawaii - $9.25

• Maine - $9.00

• Maryland - $9.25 (as of July)

• Massachusetts - $11.00

• Michigan - $8.90

• Missouri - $7.70

• Montana - $8.15

• New Jersey - $8.44

• District of Columbia:

  • Washington, D.C. - $12.50 (as of July)

• Iowa:

  • Johnson County - $10.10

  • Linn Country - $8.25

  • Wapello County - $8.20

• Maine:

  • Portland - $10.68

• New Mexico:

  • Albuquerque - $8.80

  • Bernalillo - $8.70

  • Las Cruces - $9.20

• New York:

  • New York City - $11.00 (as of 12/31/16)

  • Long Island and Westchester, NY - $10.00 (as of 12/31/16)

• Washington:

  • Seattle - $15.00

  • SeaTac - $15.35

  • Tacoma - $11.15

What Restaurants Can Do NOW …

Begin to Strategically Schedule Staff:  Get your schedules down to a science by analyzing your most crucial shifts and recognizing the strongest members of your staff.  If you’re short on time, the TeamLive tool on Harri is a great help to managers and operators, who need to align their schedules with real-time sales, better streamline their labor costs and control their overall staffing budget.

Take Your Restaurant/ Store Hours Into Consideration:  Making this work means, keeping track of your stores’ sales patterns   For example, if Monday - Friday @ 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM are very busy lunch-pops for you, yet there is a sharp dip between the hours of 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM, you may want to consider closing earlier during the week and drive all of your marketing efforts towards weekday lunch.  Your POS weekly and monthly reports should be a great indicator of these trends. If you have never done this before, contact your POS company rep for help.  

Think About Raising Menu Item Prices:  This is the last resort, so, be sure that every change made is absolutely necessary.  Go into this knowing that you may lose some guests at the expense of your menu changes. With the help of your culinary team analyze each menu item and break it down by cost.

Compare vendors on the pricing of specific ingredients (ie. if carrots cost more at Baldor than AFI than switching vendors could be effective in this case).  Do your best to communicate to your guests that your business has slightly increased menu prices to stay open, pay your employees fair wages, and most significantly to continue to have the great privilege of serving them.  

HARRI AND SQUARESPACE Partner to Serve Online Presences to Restauranteurs

December 2, 2016: New York, NY -- Harri, the most complete and effective solution to source, hire, and manage talent in the hospitality industry, has partnered with Squarespace, a leading web publishing platform that makes beautiful products to help people with creative ideas succeed, to develop design and branding packages tailored to restaurants and their online needs.  

Through this partnership, Harri users that need to build a brand or create/enhance their website, will gain access to a hand-picked network of independent Squarespace experts who offer top quality web design at a lower cost and with a faster turnaround time than traditional designers. Additionally, each expert-built website will include simple blocks of code that make it easy for Harri users to integrate their career portal into their restaurant's website. Harri users will be matched with their Squarespace expert by Crew’s intelligent project matching platform.

 "A July 2016 survey by the National Restaurant Association found that 75% of adults look up menus, 55% read reviews, 51% order takeout or delivery directly from the restaurant website"

“The quality of a restaurant’s food and service have always been the difference between success and failure in this industry,” said Luke Fryer, Founder and CEO of Harri. “Restaurants today rely too much on social media and review sites while not focusing on building a great website. That’s why we’ve partnered with Squarespace to ensure restaurant owners take control of their online presence.”

Recent data illustrates how important it is for a restaurant to have an engaging and updated Website. A July 2016 survey by the National Restaurant Association found that 75% of adults look up menus, 55% read reviews, 51% order takeout or delivery directly from the restaurant website.

To learn more about this partnership, visit https://crew.co/harri/. To learn more about Harri or to schedule a demo, visit www.harri.com. To learn more about Squarespace and its community of experts, visit circle.squarespace.com.

CONTACT:

David Barkoe

Carve Communications for Harri

david@carvecomms.com

917-359-7222

Restaurant Opening Alert: The Meatball Shop #7 is coming to town!!!

Founded by childhood best friends, Daniel Holzman and Michael Chernow, The Meatball Shop opened their first location on The Lower Side in 2010. Over the next six years, we expanded in the NYC market to six locations with our 7th currently under construction in Hell's Kitchen.

Our "ballers" are the most important part of The Meatball Shop family, and we are passionate about serving our guests simple, sustainable, and delicious food. We believe in creating a culture that promotes creativity and individuality within our communities. Our shops each have a unique energy & vibe about them, while staying true to our values and beliefs.

Our Hell's Kitchen shop will not only be the debut of our new design, but it will also be our first opening in two years in mid-January 2017. We are immediately hiring and training in our other 6 NYC locations. Until the restaurant opens, part-time employment opportunities will be available in our training locations. Opening experience not required but preferred. Looking for the best of the best to build a brand new team. 

High Volume Experience required.
By applying, you confirm you have said experience.

OPEN CALL Thursday, 12/22 10am-1pm

FOH - Bussers, Servers, Bartenders
BOH - Dishwashers, Prep Cooks, Line Cooks
The Meatball Shop, Underballs 200 Ninth Avenue Chelsea

Must confirm attendance via e-mail.
Must be available to start working 1/2/17!!!

Jackie McMann-Oliveri, PHR
TMS: The Meatball Shop
Director, Human Resources

2016’s Best Restaurant Technology Trends (And 2017 Predictions)

2016 Has Been a Wild Year…

    From cheap and chic poke bowls to the now possible Impossible Burgers the hospitality industry is innovating with great traction, with restaurant technology services right along with it.  This year has brought us systems to help make everyday operations easier for both guests and restaurants.  With 2017 right around the corner, strides will be made to make all hospitality processes not only easier, but more comprehensive to track.  While nothing is written in stone, one thing is certain, restaurant owners and operators have a plethora of products to help them grow their businesses bigger and better.    

Track and Maintain Your Customer Base

Gone are the days of using binders and handwritten notes to keep track of guest preferences and reservations.  There are a number of restaurant technology companies, to give hospitality businesses closer insights on their guests and help front of house staff cater accordingly.  One of the more well-known companies in this arena is Sevenrooms.  The smart CRM system aids in booking reservations, providing guest data, even integrating with various POS systems - helping restaurants, hotels and clubs alike to cultivate regulars and drive up sales.

iOS POS Systems Are the New Norm

For many F&B businesses, the old days clunky POS modules are behind them.  Tablet and iPad POS’s are increasingly more prevalent, especially with the QSR boom.  With processing, reporting and being user-friendly to boot, it’s a win-win for many restaurants.  There’s no question that future restaurant technology will continue to come in the form of glossy glowing screens with sleek, streamlined hardware.  Even mainstays like Digital Dining and NCR are starting to make the shift to tablet systems.  Major players to watch: Brink, Revel, and Square

"The NRA found in 2016 that 43% of Restaurant Operators said they offer Mobile Payment Options, 25% More will in 2017"

Getting on the Mobile Payments Bandwagon

In the past, it may have been difficult to conceive that one of the most important devices in your life would be able to fit into your pocket- but here we are!  App developers have recognized the restaurant technology competitive advantage: The smartphone is the new wallet.  Although Apple and Google have jumped onboard with “mobile wallets”, the ones appearing in the restaurant space are becoming more common amongst frequent restaurant goers.  Look into: Pay with OpenTable and PaidEasy

It’s All In The Wrist

    While there are mixed reports about the supposed dives and spikes of smartwatch sales, restaurant groups may want to at least look into them for their FOH Managers.  Industry trailblazers, Union Square Hospitality, announced their partnership with the reservation start-up, Resy, that will integrate with the Apple Watch.  As of the anticipated Union Square Cafe 2.0 opening, every manager on the floor will be able to receive alerts on their wrists to make sure guests get optimal service.  

"Using stats from the NRA, The Rail estimates the level of turnover will cost the average full-service restaurant operator $146,600 annually in 2016"

Paperless Smart Hiring

Recruiting staff and handwriting new hire paperwork is the bane of every restaurant operator.  Luckily, Harri’s Total Talent Solution allows restaurants to source, hire and manage their talent all in one system.  Providing a powerful way to help them attract the best talent for their hospitality business. Harri has created the most user-friendly and capable platform on the market to hire the right employees and retain them.  Made for the hospitality industry by a hospitality veteran Harri allows you to hire smartly.   

While we’re only mere weeks away from 2017, there has been signs of new restaurant technology trends for the year ahead.  Developments in mobile are moving forward with both visual and vocal aspects gaining prevalence as well.

• Handless Payments - Google has already been testing this out with some big industry names like McDonald’s, Chick-fil-a and Papa John’s.  Guests would just say “I’ll pay with Google” and a photo of them would appear on the POS verifying their identity- a terrific solution to long lunch rush lines.

• Communicating with Guests Via SMS - Everything from orders, ads to general customer feedback appear to be headed to text communication.  Companies like EZtexting, Optit and Slicktext are all leading the way here.

• Visual Marketing Continues Upward - Social media marketing will keep heading in the direction of video and images, there’s even talk of Snapchat driving more guests into restaurants.  

• Using Systems to Track Employee Productivity - With such a high saturation of new restaurant tech systems, like Harri’s TeamLive. Tracking workers' efficiency and sales will begin to gain popularity.

A User-Friendly Guide: Search & Connect

With the Harri Search & Connect tool The days of "post and pray" aka posting a job and simply hoping for the best, are finally over!

 Not only can you post an open position and gain organic applications, you’re even able to search through our candidate database of over 260,000+ jobseekers with our filters by location and experience.  Most importantly, you can connect with each of them directly, inviting them to apply or adding them to your "Shortlist" to save their profiles for a later time.  

How To Use Search and Connect:

1. Click on ‘People’ from the top right-hand corner of your top navigation bar
2. Use the filters on the left-hand side to obtain custom results for your exact needs
   • Based on location, experience, availability and skills 
   • You may choose select multiple profiles and choose to send out a mass message
3. To more closely screen candidates:
   • Select a job seeker profile to view more details (ie. tenure, education, picture, and self-description)
   • Searching via Keyword is a great option as well (ie. bartender, server, culinary, etc.,
   • Another choice is to search candidates by the most recent time they logged into Harri or who have currently updated their profiles - to screen the most active users 
4. If you want a candidate to be a part of your team, click on ‘Invite to Apply’ and send him or her a more personalized message.  (Adding pay rate, benefits and hours here is highly recommended) 

Need more help? View all of Harri's Employer Tutorials here.