I think, first and foremost, we need to do away with tipping, and just pay people more money. Mhmm. Right, that whole system is flawed. I don't think it should be the onus of the patrons to make sure that workers are being compensated fairly—that’s the responsibility of the ownership. I think that's a major thing, especially now, people are going out there and risking their lives to serve you, so they should have a proper wage. Especially if you look at what the cooks make, because they are the ones who really feel it. Not the chefs, not the guys that are higher up in the brigade, the actual cooks that are just on the line. I remember being in line cook and having to survive literally off of scraps, because your pay is so bad. You're working all these hours. And I've seen so many different restaurants do so many things, for them to survive as a restaurant, like I've seen restaurants implement a stipend where they say to you, ‘oh, you're gonna get paid $150 a day,’ and then they'll try to get like 16 hours out of you, because they're paying you X amount of money, right? So it's like, these owners find all these different loopholes, and ways to save money, and to make money. So I think overall, that it would be a better
restaurant ecosystem if we just paid everybody more money. In terms of anti-Black racism, I think if we’re gonna fix the system, we need to provide more opportunities for Black people and people of colour, and I think that starts with us. Like we just need our own—if we have our own restaurants, our own businesses, we could hire our own. I always preach to other chefs of colour when I meet them, I'm like, we’re not in competition. Like, I want us to all do well, I want us to push the culture and the food forward. Because that's how we're going to make progress for ourselves. To get respect as Black chefs, we have to collectively push the culture forward. So whenever I meet other Black chefs, I try to support them as much as possible. Because for me to get the AfroCaribbean food to the point where I want it to get to, I need everybody else to push forward as well, in terms of creativity, and working together, and doing events— things like that. If you look at other cuisines that weren't getting respect before, they created that space for themselves by doing their own thing. So I think we need more cohesiveness in terms of how we're doing things. More solidarity. Working together. If we show value in the work we do collectively, then other people can see our value, we create our own value that way. ADRIAN FORTE
What would a just restaurant system look like to you? There just needs to be a complete overhaul. And one thing I could say is that with COVID-19 happening, it’s kind of pushed people to reanalyze the overall system. It doesn't work. And hopefully something new can be birthed out of this and people can learn.
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