Higher Minimum Wage Forcing Chefs to Look Beyond Restaurants

By Beth Kowitt of Fortune. Excerpts:

"Tom Douglas, perhaps Seattle’s best-known chef with his 18 restaurants, said margins for restaurants in his city are “so thin.”"

"Douglas’s payroll is going to be about $5 million more in 2016 for his 850 employees because of Seattle’s new $15 minimum wage, he said. Seattle is a “very expensive place to do business right now,” he explained, and that his company decided to sacrifice profits this year. “It turns out that was a good plan,” he added, “because that’s exactly what happened.”

“If we only had restaurants we would be out of business,” he said, in a nod to his cookbooks and line of rubs and sauces. “The restaurants would not be able to sustain this hit.”"