Susannah Luthi of the Washington Free Beacon reports an inconvenient fact for California’s left-wing governor.
California’s fast food franchisees must hike their minimum wage to $20 an hour under a law Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.) hailed as “extraordinarily beneficial.” His own luxury restaurants, meanwhile, are paying their workers less.
Active job listings for Newsom’s PlumpJack Cafe, which touts its status as “Lake Tahoe’s premier dining destination,” advertise “busser,” “host,” “server,” and “food runner” positions with $16 hourly wages. The restaurant is located steps from Palisades Tahoe—California’s top ski resort—and features a full bar, fine wines including a $5,300 bottle of Burgundy, and high-priced entrees. Pan-roasted Norwegian salmon, for example, costs $49, while the prime New York strip costs $67.
Another Newsom-owned restaurant—the Balboa Cafe, located in San Francisco’s fashionable Marina district—is also hiring. The restaurant seeks an “on-call cocktail server” for $18.07 per hour, according to an online posting. The cafe also offers a full bar and an array of luxury items, including a $38 charcuterie board, $27 wild mushroom risotto, $24 “mussels mariniere,” and a $38 filet mignon.
The restaurants’ hiring sprees come as the Newsom-backed fast food minimum wage law, which took effect Monday, prompts layoffs and price hikes across California. Starting this month, pizza chains will permanently fire hundreds of workers, state records show. Burger King and other fast food franchises responded to the law by raising prices.
Newsom praised the fast food minimum wage mandate, which he signed into law last September, as “a big deal” and an example that the “future happens [in California] first.” He also said the “foundational principle” advanced by the law is “inclusion.”
For California state assemblyman Joe Patterson (R.), the discrepancy between the wages offered at fast food joints and Newsom’s restaurants shows the governor “doesn’t show any sympathy or concern for his own employees.”
