“Everybody has a bigger piece of pie because we don’t have that traditional server.” Their bartenders guide guests to their tables, and their sommelier is bussing them. “Tom and I are cooking all day and then at night we’re shifting to the front of the house,” he added. “It crosses our hands, but goes directly to our hourly employees.” “Tom and I don’t touch any of those fees at all,” McFarland said. “The reason why we have the service fee is we’re unable to share a gratuity with the back of the house,” Rogers said. Plus they don’t offer an option to leave a tip. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)Īt John’s, it’s different on so many levels. The “Chicago Happy Meal” – beef fat fries and a martini cocktail, at John’s Food & Wine. And there are two schools, the old piled-high style of sandwiches, and the new style usually with better ingredients and technique, but more modest in their meat. The corned beef sandwich is a bit of an annual barometer. I’m so glad it’s working because I am so impressed and excited to see more of what they do. “Our prep guys are making a lot of money, and our dishwasher is doing very well.” And it’s not just the line cooks who are making more. “Every time I look at the numbers, it still is very shocking,” Rogers said. “And captains were making around 150k a year.” “When Tom and I were at Gramercy Tavern, we were making $10 an hour,” McFarland said about the restaurant in New York. In reality, I only made seven euros for an 18-hour day at a restaurant where the highest check while I was there was 50,000 euros at one table. But we had to clock out early, so we actually made less. When I staged at the Michelin three-star Alain Ducasse restaurant in Paris, doing the same work as a line cook, I felt lucky to officially make one euro an hour. “Our line cooks make $35 to $36 an hour,” he added. The cooks make significantly more than most restaurants, not just in the city, but anywhere in the world. And then the service fees are distributed across the board throughout the back of the house, as well as the front of the house.” “All our staff are getting paid above the minimum wage in Chicago. “We do charge a 20% service fee,” Rogers said. I walked in cranky (because someone stole my parking space!), but was immediately calmed by the careful service. Patrick’s Day 2024: 60 specials at Chicagoland restaurants and bars, from green beer to corned beef and cabbageįor me too as a diner. “And it’s been working really, really well for us.” “We offer a great deal of hospitality reimagined,” McFarland said. It is in fact fairly simple, unlike the sandwich that’s $17 and worth every cent. And that includes their business model, which sounds so revolutionary at a time with so much drama about service fees. The dining and bar area of John’s Food & Wine. “It’s this weird kind of back-and-forth method that’s also for the flavor,” Rogers said. “It took time and patience and practice and doing it for a long time and figuring it out,” McFarland said. When you wrap your hands around the warm seeded roll, take a closer look at the precise slices before biting a corner off the tender corned beef, smothered in nutty cheese and aromatic aioli, all brought to clarity with the sweet yet tart mostarda. It’s an amazing process for a sandwich that’s only served at lunch. Then they place the corned beef with melty cheese in a big sesame potato bun, toasted in clarified butter, with McFarland’s melted leek aioli and Roger’s quince mostarda. To build the sandwich, they add fontina on top of the meat, then melt the cheese. But wait, there’s more! They cool it, smoke it, chill it again, before slicing it seriously thick, then warm those slices in seasoned braising liquid. “We just cook until it’s super tender,” he added. They take brined corned beef, then cook it in almost a 50-50 ratio of ginger beer and a light lager with pickling spice, Rogers said.
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