A Week's Break

Finding time for rest for our restaurant team

Photo by Wonho Lee

Last month, our restaurant celebrated six months of being open by closing. Just for one week. If we continue giving our team one week off every six months, our team would get two weeks of paid leave per year. Honestly, that sounds inhumane to me. And yet, when we told our team that there would be a paid week off in March, many were surprised and thankful. Some said that they had never been given a paid break by another restaurant employer before. And such is the life of a restaurant worker.

I spent most of my adulthood working as a lawyer with what now seems like copious amounts of paid leave while living in countries that had even more copious amounts of public holidays. Except for the first few years of my career as a lawyer, I unabashedly used all of my allotted holiday. Even if many days were spent answering emails or on calls, I could get away from the office. When I moved to London from New York, for the first time, I had colleagues who also took all of their holidays, and I had bosses who declared that we don’t behave like Americans and just work 24/7, 365 days a year. We had four-day weekends for Easter and there was Boxing Day and several random generically-named Bank Holidays including the early spring bank holiday which conveniently coincided with my birthday. So I was able to spend my birthdays traveling.

Moving to Hong Kong, I found a work culture that was even more intense than New York with regular late night conference calls with the New York mothership. But then everything shuts down a week for Lunar New Year and several days for Mid-Autumn Festival. There is Qing Ming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Buddha’s Birthday. And then, though perhaps for not much longer, we have UK holidays like Easter and Boxing Day piled on top. There are 17 public holidays in Hong Kong, and the law requires employers give their employees at least 13 of those off.

So I have been surprised as I’ve found myself smack dab in the restaurant industry and faced the reality that restaurant workers rarely get public holidays off and certainly rarely are given vacations. I mean, I knew as an avid restaurant-goer that you could always eat Chinese food on Christmas Day, but I didn’t really know.

“Should we open on Christmas?” “Should we open on Thanksgiving?” These are questions that my husband and I discussed with our managers. Kwang has no qualms about working every day of the year, and when he worked for other chefs, no one got holidays off. Our sous chef, Matt, said that he’s worked most Christmas and New Year holidays since he’s been cooking in Los Angeles. For me, I have a hard time justifying our team members missing holidays with their family to cook for a half-full dining room. My answer is absolutely not.

But how absolute is my answer when the prospect is a holiday that would be busy at the restaurant? Weighing the financial realities of running a restaurant against our vision of what kind of business we want to run is the ever-present riddle we’re trying to solve. We have individual investors to whom we have obligations, and we want to build a business that will thrive for years to come — at least the ten-year duration of our lease, ha! And we want the people who make our restaurant possible to thrive as well, to feel fulfilled with their work and also their lives as a whole. Kwang and I still deeply believe that we can create a restaurant that is financially sound and that reflects these values as well.

As small business owners, my husband and I have willingly thrown ourselves and practically our entire lives into our restaurants. We carve out time where we can for our son and that’s really all we have time for these days. But we are owners, and whatever sacrifices we make, we know we will be the primary beneficiaries. I know that there are people on our team who are willing to make sacrifices for baroo’s success. But aren’t our team members giving up enough already?

Most of our team (and the entire kitchen team) spend five nights a week, including their weekends, working for us. For those with girlfriends, boyfriends, partners, they are missing the chance to go out for date nights to restaurants like ours since so many restaurants are closed when we’re closed. For those who are single, I feel guilty that it’s likely harder for them to meet the right person (the one!) while in the back of our kitchen or pouring wine for couples on dates. (I suppress my urge to try and matchmake amongst our team but if there ever is a likely match, I can’t say I won’t meddle!) Only members of our front of house team have taken personal days off (unpaid) to travel or otherwise have a break. Just one person among our cooks has asked for unpaid leave (not including sick days); and that isn’t for a holiday. It’s to cook at a pop-up in Seoul, and he’s certain to not be resting at all that week.

So, it’s been a hectic and packed six months for everyone on our team. And we gave everyone a week’s break. I want to give them even more. I can’t say when we will be able to, but I hope in the future that we can give our team at least four weeks of holiday a year, for the love of the universe. Most likely, people could take paid time off on their own schedules and we wouldn’t close completely. We’re weighing all of this always as we settle down more. Right now, we’re pretty busy as a newly opened restaurant, but what will it look like in another six months, in a year, in three years?

In the meantime, I relished seeing photos of our team meeting up in New York during break, over food and drink at buzzy, new places like Ilis and Coqadaq. Seeing pictures of Zack, one of our cooks, in a suit with his girlfriend at Ilis was a highlight! I loved hearing how Junior, one of our servers, worked in the recording studio with new songs he wrote, seeing our team camping in Joshua Tree and knowing that some were at home helping their parents. Then seeing how nice it was for everyone to be back at baroo, catching up with each other, was simply the best.

Kwang and I took our son to Korea for the week which was spent half with family and half running restaurant-related errands. It was 100 percent joy. Time to get ready for service, so more on our trip in the next letter!

xx mina