Chef Nico Garza would really only like to talk about one thing: kitchen efficiency — how data down to the minute of prep time and milligrams of ingredients can help a restaurant optimally function.
But his recent experience opening a new downtown restaurant has him instead talking about wage structures and investor power.
Last spring, Garza helped open the House of Má Vietnamese home-style restaurant, with operating owners Louis Singh and Eric Treviño of Singhs Vietnamese restaurant, consultant and beverage director Jeret Peña, and restaurateur and hotelier Chris Hill. It shared a kitchen with Hugman’s Oasis tiki bar, which opened simultaneously in the Witte Building on the River Walk.
The restaurant opened Apr. 30 but closed unceremoniously three weeks later, after a dispute over how staff was to be paid. The incident presaged changing dynamics in the food service industry, as restauranteurs grapple with high staff turnover, supply chain issues and workers leaving the industry altogether.
Garza honed his ideas on kitchen efficiency working as a chef at Singhs for three years. He credits his data-driven approach with helping the North St. Mary’s Street restaurant survive the pandemic, as the kitchen was able to nimbly respond to changes in supply and demand as conditions shifted.
The restaurant’s workers were also able to make it through the uncertainties of the pandemic thanks in part to the wage structure employed by Singhs: all...
Claims linking Melania Trump to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have circulated widely across platforms. Two viral allegations gained particular traction: first, that Emmanuel Macron shared...