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askchapo @hexbear.net
blakeus12 [he/him] @hexbear.net

ethically owning a restaurant in a capitalist country

hey chapos. i have a few plans for what my future could be. long story short if I can't get into a university in china i will open a restaurant here in amerikkka to get by and do something i enjoy (cooking). how would i achieve this without becoming the petty bourgeoisie, or at least if i have to be the petty bourgeoisie how could i betray may class and further communist goals in amerikkka? any advice would be appreciated.

20 comments

  • I've quasi-explored this and there are a few obstacles and barriers to entry when specifically trying to establish a progressive dinery.

    1. The best way to not be a mini-tyrant is to perform most day to day operations yourself. However...
    2. Americans want variety like no other. 31 flavors? Make it 32. 35 would be better. More dining options will require more labor and source materials, and create a huge potential for waste.
    3. Most restaurants exist on thin margins of profit and usually flourish solely based on capacity. However, there are some styles of food that buck this trend (Italian and bbq are good examples because the source products are cheap; it's all about the prep).
    4. Retail storefronts are a ripoff. You will always be swimming upstream paying rent.

    Conclusion: in order to sustain and not be a tyrannical jerk my only suggestion is to open a roadside hot dog, bbq, or pizza stand and have 0 employees.

  • Make it a co-op after it is established. Joint ownership by the workers.

    • The issue is that if he does this, he has to compete with all the other restaurants around him that doubtless have a much more brutal approach to surviving in the market. I think the failure rate for small businesses is 70% within ten years—because we are in the imperialist stage of capitalism where you only really find any kind of success by exporting capital to the global south. Generally it's just the big businesses that have the resources to do that, although I've heard stories of tech bros taking advantage of imperialism to hire virtual assistants in Pakistan to do all their coding for them in Silicon Valley (WFH before WFH), so imperialism can also work directly for labor aristocrats sometimes.

      My dad worked as a chef in restaurants for decades and I also worked as a dishwasher in them for a few years. All of the owners I worked for were bastards, but the one who was the least psychotic gave up, sold everything, and moved away within ten or fifteen years, complaining (as the petite bourgeoisie always does) that he couldn't make any money. He opened two restaurants which were obviously the best for hundreds of miles in every direction—perfect food, service, prices, atmosphere, you name it. He was nice to his workers, cooked them free dinners every night, and paid them in full and on time. And he was driven out. Almost all the food around here is terrible and the owners are some of the most unbearable people I have ever encountered in my life. Plenty of them are libs, too. I don't think having a restaurant in America (whether it's a worker co-op or not) is a good idea. You can be the best of the best and still have an excellent chance of failing. It is also amazingly stressful, and as an owner it requires you to be working more or less every waking moment indefinitely.

      • I think the failure rate for small businesses is 70% within ten years

        Restaurants in particular are the worst of all out of that 70% because margins are so razor-thin.

      • This is great analysis of this. The restaurant industry is held up by stimulant addicted assholes. If you're not a stimulant addicted asshole, your restaurant will probably fail.

      • This is certainly a possibility, but the opposite can also happen. It really depends on where you live and probably also on luck.

        My owner didn’t run as a co-op but a “good” lib and is still in business, with nice, long-term employees etc. And yeah, she does everything from dishwashing to cooking to serving depending on what’s needed. It’s also mostly women, queer and bipoc people which is super cool.

        As Richard Wolff points out often, most business fail, but co-ops have a higher chance of succeeding than any other model.

        To OP, organise it as a co-op (if you legally can, there might be hurdles), but make sure to have profit-sharing, cross-train people so everyone can do multiple jobs, have equal power/voting etc. The core thing to remember when you think/make decisions is to NOT EXPLOIT PEOPLE. Your business cannot be a way for you to get rich at the expense of your employees. Either everyone at the business gets rich, or no one does.

        In addition to Richard Wolff, whose videos you can watch on YouTube to learn more about co-ops and Marxism in general, you can also look up Madeline Pendleton on Tiktok. She actually runs a successful business as a socialist, and has for the past decade. It’s astonishing to see the kinds of challenges that you have to face but also how, if you actually care about your principles, you can legit have something straight out of a socialist future in the present.

    • This has to be done carefully because it may violate the terms of the business loan. Best to have a proper up-front plan.

  • to get by

    If you want to make enough money to get by and spend all day cooking then don't open a restaurant

  • You're highly unlikely to become anything close to wealthy by owning a restaurant in the US. It's one of the hardest businesses to even make survive, let alone succeed.

  • There is no ethical production under capitalism. What you can do is try to limit the harms of capitalism in your working life (while fighting for revolution the rest of the time). Just want to point this out because you'll never be able to make business under capitalism ethical in itself and it's very un-fun to have an unrealizable goal.

    Anyways, all attempts to be less capitalist under capitalism have bourgeois elements, as you noted. You're basically ensuring that the people who do the work also have ownership and control, as that's the most you can do at the scale of one business. Every member of a worker co-op, under capitalism, has bourgeois elements. You're all owners, and the moment there is any difference in ownership and pay you've got exploitation knocking at your door. Also, at the end of the day, you've gotta get capital somewhere and so even worker co-ops are usually actually owned by a bank - they're running on business loans.

    With all of that said, it's still a better way to work and for the people who work there to live. It's similarly good to having a union.

    I would suggest you look into worker-owned co-ops, ask people who have them locally, get a sense for how you get capital and build a coherent business plan. You'll probably want to start solo and expect that this will be a learning experience. The idea of a food truck is a good one. You can also experiment with having a stall at events like a farmer's market. The most important part of running a restaurant is actually making good food that you can sell to make a profit. Are you ready for the speed and budget of a commercial kitchen? Do you have any killer recipes? Have you checked with other people to make sure they like them?

    I'm basically describing all the steps of making a typical capitalist business (e.g. market research) because it's inescapable even for worker owned co-ops. Behold, the bourgeois nature of organizing production under capitalism.

  • food truck (don't feed the landlords), no employees. exploiting yourself is the only way to go, imo.

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