It's the Working, the Working, Just the Working Life

As I write this, the restaurant Porcelain in my neighborhood is having its last service. Porcelain opened as  an Austrian cafe by owner Mike Stamatelos right before the pandemic, then shut down like everyone else in March 2020. An out-of-work chef, Kate Telfeyan, who had previously run the Brooklyn outpost of Mission Chinese, started doing pop-ups called “Vaguely Asian” at the cafe, having moved to Ridgewood with nothing but time on her hands. Telfeyan and Stamatelos found common ground in the questions the pandemic brought up for many people about the service industry—low wages, abusive environments and meager benefits— and how to support the community and what that actually means, especially as a new business in a rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood. Soon thereafter she became the head chef at Porcelain, and then a partner. Her food is an exploration of Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese cuisines (to name a few)—generous, delicious, inventive, the stuff of dreams—dan dan lasagna, steamed egg with black vinegar, scallion oil and chili granola, kimchi-brined fried chicken with all the fixings, whole fish with coriander, hot & sour potatoes… the list goes on. Stamatelos worked service while Telfeyan ran the kitchen, they came together professionally over the ideas they both wanted for a restaurant, to prioritize its staff and give them a living wage. 

When the announcement came on May 26th that the restaurant was closing, Telfeyan posted some thoughts on Instagram about her experiences and the time, it’s well worth a read. What truly stands out for me is the following in the beginning:

“Through the lingering throes of the pandemic and the evolving to fit the ever changing needs of the business we strived to provide a unique experience for the community on our little corner of Ridgewood, all while prioritizing our staff’s well-being. The top priority was always to create a supportive and equitable work environment for our staff to pursue their passions, be it personal or professional. And though it’s devastating to have to close, it was never an option to continue operating if it meant compromising these values.” 

I don’t know Telfeyan personally, just her food, and I only know Stamatelos as a person who works in the from of the house. In fact, over the past few years it never dawned on me he was the owner, he was too kind and open and affable, he seemed to truly enjoy himself at work.

Later in the post Telfeyan goes on to write “To all the staff past and present, I am forever grateful for the time you spent with us, helping us do the thing and believing in the vision. You were and always will be the restaurant’s most valuable asset.” 

I’ve certainly heard this sentiment in interviews with owners and chefs…”oh we couldn’t do it without the team…” but I’ve never really felt it. We’re all disposable cogs in the restaurant machine to serve the business, and the business serves the owners. I have a lot of feelings for and about the people at Porcelain  for running their restaurant on their own terms and closing it on those terms. And I’m sad I didn’t eat there more often. 

We have to change how we treat workers in this country. That is a goddamn fact. This past January, the workers at Lodi in Rockefeller Center filed with the National Labor Relations Board, with a 2/3 majority of workers having signed union cards. A few days later, Mattos Hospitality, the Lodi restaurant group founded by chef Ignacio Mattos chose to not recognize the union, pushing it to a vote on February 27 and 28. At that time, 26 of the 47 ballots voted against unionizing. In the time that passed, between the January 25th letter and February 28th vote, workers spoke of union-busting tactics by the restaurant, like captive-audience meetings by management, bringing in a consultant to tip the scales in management’s favor, targeting staff according to their immigration status and a general spread of misinformation about unions on work premises.  

Lodi opened in 2021, the first restaurant in the Rockefeller Center revitalization project by Tishman Speyer, the real estate group who owns Rockefeller Center. This project brings exciting restaurants to what has traditionally been a mediocre restaurant-chain, beautiful Art Deco tourist nightmare in midtown, where people clamor outside the Today Show and go see the giant Christmas tree. It’s a smart idea, there’s a lot of foot traffic and everything is already expensive. A Rockefeller Martini at Lodi costs $22, a person in the kitchen there makes $18-$21 an hour. The workers’ requests were pretty reasonable, knowing schedules in advance, more transparency on pay and tipping for buy-outs, being properly staffed instead of chronically understaffed and more money. From their January statement: “We who labor together every day have no voice when it comes to our working conditions and the share of the wealth we produce.”

I thought if this union vote went through it would set all the workers at all the restaurants at Rockefeller Center on fire to also unionize. This project by a major NYC real estate group isn’t just for the sake of culture, know what I’m saying? Tishman Speyer cut sweet deals for the most prestigious restaurant groups in the city to be a part of this project, and that wasn’t just because they liked Mattos Hospitality’s other restaurants Estela and Alto Paradiso. The workers are right, there’s another hand in the till, and it’s Tishman Speyer, another layer of payout that comes on the backs of the staff. The real estate group is just another company store and this project is a very cool, very tasteful money grab.

This is a dangerous time. More people in this country are getting behind financially, and we still use the language of personal responsibility to explain it. We’ve been indoctrinated to believe that people have complete power over their lives. Meanwhile, stagnant wages and explosive rents cripple us, corporate greed with unprecedented bonuses for CEOs and shareholders are cos-playing as a recession. Years of the pandemic have doubled and tripled down on working people falling behind, and once you fall behind it’s nearly impossible to get ahead or really break even. Working people are not protected at all. In New York City, landlords have made incredible rent increases to make up for the pandemic, hundreds or even a thousand bucks a month. Even rent-stabilized apartments are in danger, the city is looking to make another high percentage increase for these leases. They just passed the largest increase in a decade 2 years ago. If we can’t pay our bills, we don’t keep our homes. If we don’t have a home, we become more vulnerable and it becomes more difficult to take care of ourselves. That’s the beginning of the slide we are living in.

Perhaps all these thoughts seem a bit disparate. They are not, it’s all connected.¹ What and who do we value, who is protected in our society? Restaurants like Porcelain trying to change the paradigm are necessary. We’re going to make a lot of mistakes while seeking equitable solutions for workers, especially in the service industry. The owners of Porcelain standing behind their values is important, and their transparency about it. Telfeyan and Stamatelos’ experiences and knowledge from this chapter of their lives will hopefully be pushed forward in search of more solutions. 

We need unions because owners and management cannot be trusted to know what workers actually want and need. How could they, even if they are in fact decent. Their priorities and agendas can be very different from workers, but theirs is the squeakiest wheel. Someone always says to just “get another job if you don’t like it”, but workers get invested too, and should get to come to the bargaining table with as much of a presence as management. For far too long we’ve lauded owners, to the point of laughable empathy and reverence. It’s time to correct the course, and sometimes that correction requires a hard turn. 

Brace yourself. 

1. Listen, I took out the stuff about Ronald Reagan. Another time. I promise.