Chefs Have Become the Missing Ingredient

The public’s growing appetite for dining out and a chronic shortage of qualified cooks are feeding a labor crisis in the restaurant industry, in which it’s harder than ever to find people willing to stand in front of a hot stove.

Food service and preparation jobs are the fastest-growing occupations nationally, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which predicts a 17% increase in chef jobs between 1996 and 2006. The industry grows fatter each year, with sales ballooning from $42.5 billion in 1970 to a projected $354 billion in 1999, according to the National Restaurant Assn.

Busy people are cooking less at home than they were even two years ago. This continues a long-term trend that has turned dining out from a special occasion to nearly a constant, especially for dual-career families.

“Two things have collided: The food industry has posted its eighth consecutive year of growth, and unemployment is at historically low levels,” said Karen Kraushaar, spokeswoman for the trade association. “There is definitely a labor crisis.”

California’s rolling economy created nearly half a million jobs in 1998, its best performance in 15 years and one that only heightens competition for employees. The state’s jobless rate fell to 5.6% in February, the lowest since 1990.

“Lately, it’s getting more difficult to get really good cooks,” said Jeff Sage, general manager of Chevy’s Fresh Mexican Restaurant in Encino. He relies largely on referrals from his employees, but also recruits by tacking up notices at colleges and on job boards.

Sage considers himself fortunate to have lost just two or three cooks out of 16 during the last year at Chevy’s, which offers benefits and pays cooks $7 to $10 an hour and up. Managers throughout the industry struggle to attract and keep their cooks, who are often lured away by competitors or simply quit the field in favor of work that doesn’t keep them on their feet all day.

“We as an industry have identified that labor will be our No. 1 challenge in the next decade, not only among chefs and prep cooks but middle management as well,” said John Zaruka, a board member of the California Restaurant Assn. and owner of Wedgewood Banquet Center in Ventura.

Employers are coping by offering better pay and benefits, including health care, child-care subsidies and flex time, which allows employees to choose their shifts.

The industry also hopes to leverage its reputation for offering almost unlimited advancement opportunity to recruit more black, Latino and other minority job seekers who may lack work experience. “You can start as a dishwasher and end up as the executive chef at some restaurants,” Kraushaar said. “That’s the magic of it.”

To boost the image of food service as a bona fide long-term career, the California Restaurant Assn. has launched a program that teaches high school interns restaurant management and culinary skills. About 1,500 students from 35 high schools across the state signed up during its first official year. The program, which places students in part-time paid jobs and gives them a taste of various restaurant careers, has proved so popular that it is expected to double in size next school year, said Shannon Forbes of the restaurant association foundation.

“We’re hoping to retain some of these students in this industry and create interest in the industry as a viable career for these people, instead of just a job to do while they get through college,” Forbes said.

While the worker shortage is most obvious at family restaurants, finding willing, qualified help is an issue even at the elite restaurants sought out by graduates of professional cooking schools. Chefs still face long hours and physically grueling, often repetitive work, and the pay is usually meager, at least at first.

Nevertheless, students are attending culinary schools in record numbers. Many graduates hope to work their way up the cooks’ ladder to management, move to a better restaurant or master the skills needed to strike out on their own.

For recent grads, typical annual salaries are often well under $15,000, although hotels are said to offer better wages and benefits. At a larger restaurant, it can take years to rotate through various jobs before reaching sous-chef or executive chef positions. Even then, most cooks earn modest incomes. The median salary for executive chefs is $40,000; sous-chefs, $27,500; and pastry chefs, $26,000, according to the National Restaurant Assn.

Then there is the common, though perhaps undeserved, reputation of Los Angeles as a weak market for fine dining. “For lots of people coming out of culinary schools, L.A. is not their first choice,” said executive chef Bill Bracken, who orchestrates 35 cooks, the menu and kitchen operation at the posh Belvedere restaurant in the Peninsula Beverly Hills Hotel. New graduates gravitate to New York or Chicago, he said.

“Others with unrealistic expectations don’t want to put in the time and energy” to earn a top position, Bracken said. “They want the title and want the pay and they want it now.”

The glittering prospect of success and celebrity status helps lighten the drudgery for newcomers facing years of paying their dues. Public awareness of the business is growing through such celebrity chefs as Wolfgang Puck and Emeril Lagasse. Meanwhile, top hotels are paying executive chefs $80,000 to $90,000 and up, said Ellen McShane, vice president of admission and sales at New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, Vt.

Recent institute graduate Hans Goplen had his pick of jobs in such places as the Cayman Islands and Hawaii before grabbing an entry-level cooking post at the Peninsula. His skills and training were highly valuable upon completing courses at New England Culinary Institute, which promises a job to every graduate. “The market is definitely there,” said Goplen, 27, who began working at the hotel as a student intern in 1997 and welcomed the chance to stay on at a top restaurant.

“Right out of school, most cooks don’t make much money at all, but the potential is good if you’re good,” said Goplen, who earned a two-year associate degree in occupational studies in culinary arts, and paid tuition that runs $17,690 a year. Other top schools include Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y.; Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I.; and California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. Most of Belvedere’s sous-chefs are culinary school grads, but a few are able to advance without it, Bracken said.

“Once you’ve gone to culinary school they move you up quickly because they know you’re serious about cooking,” said Goplen, who hopes to open his own restaurant someday. A debilitating knee injury that sidelined him from the kitchen for five years only confirmed his lifelong desire to become a chef.

“It’s always been a passion of mine,” he said. As a boy, he baked cakes and prepared tuna dishes for his friends. Now as a cook at the restaurant’s fish station, he often prepares more than 250 servings of fish dishes during a busy weekend shift, among them a scallop appetizer with Peruvian purple potatoes, Maine squid and a brown butter sauce. In about three years working at the restaurant, Doeblas Soriano, 25, has moved up from entry-level cook, or pantry cook, to being the saucier--in charge of the sauces. He’s pleased with his progress so far, nine years after emigrating from El Salvador. Even though he didn’t attend culinary school, he is soaking up knowledge from his colleagues who did. “Working here gave me a chance [to move] up and learn more,” he said. “No doubt about it.”