HALIFAX (CBS) – Fire destroyed a restaurant at the Halifax Country Club overnight.
Flames broke out at Shanks restaurant around 11 p.m. Sunday which set off an automatic alarm.
By the time firefighters arrived, the building was engulfed as the fire was burning above the sprinkler system. It took them about an hour-and-a-half to put the flames out.
“We have a pretty long distance from the fire hydrant to here, we had another truck assist in shuttling water in,” said Halifax Fire Chief Jason Viveiros.
“I felt pretty down hearted about it. We built the thing 6,7 years ago. It was beautiful! It was a brand new restaurant,” building owner John Peck told WBZ-TV.
Fire destroyed Shanks restaurant at the Halifax Country Club. (Photo credit: Halfiax Police)
There’s no word yet on where or how the fire started.
PORTLAND, Maine — Weeks after Portland was anointed Restaurant City of the Year by a prominent food national magazine last summer, longtime chef King Bishop left his job at one of the Old Port’s most popular dining spots.
For a restaurant industry facing a statewide labor shortage, a move like Bishop’s might be the canary in the coal mine. The 36-year-old graduate of Southern Maine Community College’s culinary program had worked behind the line at Street and Co. for 13 years — seven of those as head chef — but the dream of operating his own restaurant was being packed away for another. Bishop became a full-time caregiver and launched Candy King, his own cannabis company, making specialty edibles and distillate.
“If I could get the same hourly wage to cook with cannabis, it’s much more appealing,” Bishop said. “I felt like I couldn’t be the only person who is bailing on the restaurant industry.”
As it turns out, he’s not. As restaurant owners in Portland and beyond struggle with a back-of-house labor shortage that they say threatens their business model, Bishop and a wave of other cooks responsible for elevating the Maine food scene over the last decade are finding better wages, less stressful work environments and greater opportunities for advancement in cannabis. Equipped with years of training, cooks are becoming caregivers, bartenders are now “budtenders” and pastry chefs make better livings as specialized cannabis chocolatiers and candymakers.
“Every [medical marijuana] caregiver I talk to is hiring staff and the staff is coming directly from the restaurant industry,” said Andy Pettingill, co-founder of Evergreen Cannabis Co., a grow room and caregiver service based in Cumberland.
Nick Schroeder | BDN
Evergreen Cannabis Co. co-founders Sergio Hernandez (left) and Andrew Pettingill (right) and Pettingill's wife Kristen stand in one of their marijuana grow rooms in Cumberland. Evergreen's founders are two among a growing number of former restaurant industry professionals to jump into the cannabis industry.
“There’s a science to making edibles,” said Jules Muzyka, who left her post at French restaurant Marche in Lewiston last year to make medicated artisanal chocolates, gummies and candies with Wind Hill Growers in Manchester. The skills required to be successful in a restaurant’s kitchen are also necessary in the boutique edibles market. “Everything has to be perfect for these things to come out right.”
Like Bishop, many experienced chefs broke into the industry around the time of the Great Recession, which initiated a period of wealth stagnation from which millennials as a generation haven’t recovered. It’s over that same span that the Maine food scene acquired its clout. Now Portland chefs, who have generated a ton of money into the hospitality industry and not seen much of it trickle their way, are seeing the industry shift away from fine dining and toward counter- and “fast-casual” service. Additionally, rising housing prices have pushed low-wage food workers to the outskirts of the city, where transportation costs and longer commutes negate the savings from lower rent.
As restaurant owners, many of whom face tight margins, wrestle with the decision to slash or consolidate kitchen positions rather than pay higher wages, the cannabis industry is another way for cooks to make money with their skills.
Bishop said a line cook’s typical pay in Portland is between $12 and $14 an hour — though the industry-standard practice of sending cooks home in the winter months to keep their hours down makes their annual income less predictable. A talented line cook or sous chef can make as much as $15 to $18 an hour. Salaried cooks make between $35,000 and $45,000 a year.
Many dispensaries and cannabis wellness centers offer starting wages of $15 per hour, with specialty-cooking positions and by-the-pound trimming jobs that pay much more. Many expect more will join the wave once marijuana is available recreationally in stores, which could happen in some Maine towns and cities as early as next summer.
Working gracefully
While there’s a lot of culinary expertise that binds restaurant and cannabis cultures, the distinctions between everyday work across the two industries are plentiful. Pettingill and Hernandez, both in their 40s with young children, said a key difference is flexibility, namely being able to work more reasonable hours and spend time with their families.
Another difference is baked into the environments. Working in kitchens is intense, fueled by the adrenaline rush of banging out high volumes of orders at a standard of quality while juggling distractions and requests.
Work in the cannabis industry is much chiller.
“You go from working underneath somebody for 90 plus hours a week in a restaurant to being your own boss, so it didn’t feel like the same work,” said Charles Doherty, a medical marijuana caregiver who founded Highbrow, a glass gallery and wellness boutique, with three friends in 2017. “My responsibilities are greater now, but the stress of the restaurant industry always felt like more. It’s kind of a high-ego industry.”
Many salaried chefs said they’d typically work 12-hour days, rarely seeing the sun. Few have health insurance, and calling in sick is “frowned upon” behind the line.
“It’s a grind — the pay’s not quite always where it should be for line cooks,” Bishop said. “It needs to be a livable wage for the kind of work people are doing. You don’t see a lot of 40-year-old cooks. It kind of breaks your body after a while.”
Rather than higher wages, many veteran cooks are “paid” in titles or with the opportunity to work under prestigious chefs. While this is beneficial in an industry that functions on relationships, it can also function as a soft ceiling for more advanced cooks.
“When I was a cook in fine dining restaurants in New York City, what they did to give you a salary was give you a title,” Hernandez said. “You’re ‘chef de partie’ — what that really means is that they call you the chef of that station to put you on salary and work you 80 hours a week.”
In the restaurant industry, you have to earn your way through, Bishop said.
“That means you make no money, and what you’re being paid in is knowledge. [Owners] will say ‘This is a learning kitchen’ — but I think that’s a bad premise to get someone to stay at your restaurant,” he said. “I’d get it if I were working at a place like The French Laundry, but I don’t see that here in Portland.”
For a long time, what motivated chefs working in Maine restaurants to get through the grind was the dream of starting or running their own place. That dream is considerably more difficult in cities such as Portland, where overhead costs are high.
“There’s a lot of outside money coming into Portland,” Bishop said. “A lot of these restaurants aren’t just being created by locals. It’s difficult to keep up.”
Even those who went to culinary school say the chances of seeing a return aren’t great.
“It’s an absolute racket,” Doherty said. “You rack up debt [to go to culinary school] and get into the restaurant industry, and you’re making $12 to $14 an hour. You’re handcuffed, you’re stuck in debt.”
Doherty, 34, ran many popular midcoast restaurants before making the leap to Highbrow, which now has four stores in the area. A former sous chef at Fog Bar and head chef at Black Bull Tavern, Cafe Miranda and Trackside Station, he said he often worked 90 plus hours a week at the Rockland restaurants, a schedule that can take a toll on anyone.
“It’s a really deep hole to crawl out of,” Doherty said. “Even by the time you pay off everything, you might just be old and tired.”
Just how big is the wave?
The migration of kitchen professionals moving from restaurants to cannabis may constitute a wave, but it is not a flood — though the pending timeline that would legalize recreational cannabis could open the gates. Food industry and hospitality trade groups explain the labor drought by citing factors such as a low overall unemployment and higher costs related to a rising minimum wage, which hit $11 an hour statewide this year and will be raised to $12 in January 2020.
Steve Hewins, director of Hospitality Maine, a food industry trade group, sees the workforce shortage as a demographic problem at the state level — in other words, not enough people.
“Cannabis doesn’t stick out to me to have risen above any other issue,” Hewins said.
Troy R. Bennett | BDN
Buds produced by Evergreen Cannabis Co., a growroom and caregiver service based in Cumberland, sit on a Portland windowsill. “Every [medical marijuana] caregiver I talk to is hiring staff and the staff is coming directly from the restaurant industry,” company co-founder Andy Pettingill said.
Those with financial stakes in the food industry aren’t pointing to cannabis as a direct culprit, but the trend is hard to ignore. The BDN talked with nearly two dozen medical marijuana caregivers and dispensaries in the area, and nearly all of them employed people who recently worked in traditional kitchens.
Meanwhile, Portland restaurants are feeling the squeeze.
“Everyone is going through it,” said Austin Miller, who opened the Japanese-inspired restaurant Mami in 2017. “Front-of-house workers are easy to find, but it’s hard to find cooks for sure. We resolved to start everyone at $14 to 15 an hour — that’s the lowest level just to get interest in the job.”
Miller said the labor shortage is dictating what restaurants are able to cook and produce on their menus. He said that hasn’t affected Mami, but has heard of some restaurants “dulling down” their menus because they can’t do what they want with staff they have.
David Iovino, longtime chef-owner of Munjoy Hill’s Blue Spoon who sold the restaurant in 2018, said he noticed last year that his regulars were getting pushed out of the neighborhood, and openings for staff positions weren’t getting replies.
“I used to get 20 resumes for an ad for a cook,” Miller said. “Now I’m getting about two.”
My wife and I and our 4-year-old son were out to dinner last week. It was a medium-nice restaurant, not fast food, but not super fancy either. My son is a normal, active little boy, and it’s hard for him to sit through a whole dinner, so we let him explore the restaurant a little. I noticed our waitress giving him the hairy eyeball, so we asked him to stop running. He was pretty good about it after that, but he did get underfoot when she was carrying a tray, and she spoke to him pretty sharply to go back to our table and sit down. I felt it was completely uncalled for, and she should have come and spoken to us personally instead of disciplining someone else’s child.
I tipped 5 percent and spoke briefly to her manager, who gave noncommittal replies. My wife agrees with me, but when we posted about it on Facebook, we got a lot of judgy responses.
—It’s Hard for a 4-Year-Old to Sit Still
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Dear Sit Still,
Yeah, this is your fault. It’s hugely your fault. Of course it’s hard for a 4-year-old to sit still, which is why people usually stick to fast-dining establishments while working on restaurant manners. It’s why one parent usually responds to a fidgety kid who wants to “explore” by taking him outside the restaurant, where he can get his wiggles out while not taking laps around servers precariously carrying trays of (often extremely hot) food and drink.
A kid “exploring” a restaurant is not a thing. When you did intervene, it wasn’t to get him back in his seat. It was just to instruct him to “stop running.” You weren’t parenting, so a server did it for you. She was right. You were wrong.
Your son is not ready to eat at a “medium-nice” restaurant again until he is capable of behaving a little better. You can practice at home. You can practice at McDonald’s. You can try a real restaurant again with the understanding that one of you may need to take him out when he starts getting the urge to run an obstacle course.
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I doubt that you will do this, but I encourage you to return the restaurant, apologize to the manager for complaining about your server, and leave her a proper tip.
Mend your wicked ways.
Dear Care and Feeding,
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I just found out my 12-year-old daughter is the result of my wife’s affair. The affair partner emailed me, having looked at Facebook. I did testing, and my wife confessed. The affair ended a long time ago, and I love my daughter with all my heart. I just … can’t function right now. I can’t look at her, and I cannot look at my wife. We have been happily married for what I thought was 13 years, and I do not want to get divorced. I want to move on, but right now, I’m stuck.
I don’t think my daughter has noticed a change in me. I’ve tried to act like nothing is different (I haven’t even begun to process the necessity of eventually telling her), but it feels like I’m walking through quicksand.
—Please Help
Dear PH,
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This is a nightmare. I am so sorry. Your reaction is incredibly human and normal. We can table the “telling your daughter” bit for now, because what we need to focus on is your mental health. You need to take time off work, if you can. Go stay with family or friends for a week or two—no Motel 6, I want you surrounded by love—and talk to a therapist every single day. Take out a loan if you need to. Sell some plasma. This is an investment in you staying alive.
Have at least one friend whom you tell the truth to, whom you can vent at. Someone who will not spread it around. Tell your kids you’re on a business trip. Tell your wife that you’ll be in singles and couples counseling once you come back but that you need this break to reset.
When the dust settles, you may decide you need a divorce or a trial separation. I can already see you lifting up the task of Being the Bigger Man, and that’s great, but it can also break you. She’s still your daughter—legally, as well, in basically any state I can think of, but you can do your own consult on that. This is a one-day-at-a-time scenario if I have ever seen one.
I would like to hear from you in a week, or in two weeks. I’m worried about you. I’m very sorry.
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• If you missed Sunday’s Care and Feeding column, read it here.
My 4-year-old son can’t get fully vaccinated. He is on immuno-suppressant drugs for the heart transplant that saved his life, and any live vaccines are totally off the table. We are, like any sensible parent with an already immuno-suppressed child, completely pro-vaccine. Herd immunity is not a talking point to us. It keeps our child alive.
We already have to do a lot of keeping him out of class and social gatherings during cold and flu season in order to protect him, but as people become more educated about vaccines, we’ve found ourselves unwelcome at private homes in which parents ask about vaccination status. We do not blame them for this, especially when they have babies and small children. We also always explain the medical reasons we cannot fully vaccinate him, and people have been warmly apologetic. But he still can’t come over for play dates.
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“Felix” is now old enough to start to notice that his social life is different from that of his classmates. He’s informed about his own health, at an age-appropriate level, but I would love any advice about how to help him through this.
—It’s Not Fair, It Just Is
Dear Not Fair,
Oh, poor Felix. And poor you! Having a medically fragile child is like nothing else in this world, and I don’t think anyone really recovers from it completely. I have a dear friend whose daughter has one of those severe peanut allergies where a washed knife used previously to cut a sandwich can be lethal. He says the hardest part is being constantly afraid she will die, and the second-hardest part is needing to scare his own child, something the rest of us devote a lot of time to avoiding. He can’t say “everything will be fine.” He has to say “you will literally die if you are exposed to a trace amount of peanut dust.” He doesn’t have a choice.
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Felix has a tough row to hoe in life. He will miss out on things he wants to do. You are correct that these parents are making the right choices for their families, and you are also correct to feel sad on his behalf. Felix is going to benefit hugely from the internet, from phones (CLEAN YOUR PHONES, EVERYONE), and from the myriad of ways children now honestly prefer to connect with one another in lieu of poking dead things in creeks with sticks. Felix is a 21st-century man. If he can’t come to a good friend’s birthday party because they have a baby, he can Skype in. He can do group projects during cold and flu season via technology.
I am glad that you answer questions about his vaccination status honestly. You’re good parents, and you’re good people. Be honest with Felix about how it’s not fair. As he gets older, you can talk about how it may be helpful not to compare his life as an immuno-suppressed child with that of a child with a functional immune system. Do your best to hear and empathize with his challenges, while also cultivating gratitude for the modern medicine that has allowed him to live.
You are in my heart. So is Felix.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
My eldest daughter will be applying to colleges this year, and on her list are (almost exclusively) very expensive schools she can almost certainly get into. Her guidance counselor says she can pretty much pick and choose. We’re in that tricky financial spot where we cannot possibly pay full-freight at these schools, nor are we sufficiently poor to qualify for the (excellent) need-based aid that the Ivies and some other colleges offer. And we have two younger children who will be coming up behind her in two and four years. We haven’t sat down and talked about this yet, partly because I don’t know how to tell her that all those years of “focus on your grades for college” are going to come down to an Excel spreadsheet that doesn’t reconcile with our finances. I feel like I have failed her. We can send her to our decent state university, or she can take out loans, or we can take out loans.
—What Do I Say?
Dear WDIS?
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You have not failed your daughter. This is the very first thing I want to tell you. The second thing is that you, yourself, cannot take out loans. You need to be thinking about your own future, not to mention you will likely find yourself in a similar position with your younger kids.
The greatest gift you can give your daughter is transparency. Now. Sit down, eat some ice cream, and say, “We are so unbelievably proud of your accomplishments, and as you start to apply for schools, we need to talk about the degree to which we can contribute financially, and what our other options are.”
If you haven’t already done so, please go look at the Ivy schools’ financial aid sites and run the calculators they provide. Harvard and Yale, etc., now charge nothing for families who make under an amount you may find surprising (this includes housing, grants for books, and so on). There are people for whom Harvard is affordable and their state school isn’t.
Your daughter has a lot of options: two years at the state school before transferring to a “dream school,” cutting costs and her loan burden. Four years at the state school without loans. Finding and applying for every small scholarship she can get her hands on. Her guidance counselor can be an invaluable reference for these opportunities, many of which aren’t handed out every year because people don’t know they exist and don’t apply for them. $200 from the Rotarians, $500 from the Knights of Columbus, $1,200 from the local Junior Commerce people—it adds up. Don’t leave a dime on the table.
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If you are able and willing to pay state school tuition, you can tell your daughter that if she has her heart set on a pricey private school, you will contribute what you would have given for the state school, and she will have to make up the rest between scholarships and (her own!) student loans.
The key to avoiding hopelessness is options. Give her the information. Give her the numbers. She’s a smart kid. Do what you can to avoid the worst-case scenario: her taking out full loans at a name-brand school for four years. That being said, this is, in many ways, her first move into adulthood. Let the numbers talk for themselves, and don’t try to pressure her. I want this conversation to be about openness, positivity, pride in your daughter, and realism without judgment.
—Nicole
More Advice From Slate
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I just want a yes or no answer to this argument my wife and I are having. I want my child to go to the circus with me, and my wife is politically opposed to circuses. Can I take her?
Alabama-based investors paid $2.7 million for two Wendy’s buildings at 2501 S. McKenzie St., in Foley, and 371 S. Greeno Road in Fairhope, according to Andrew Chason of Marcus & Millichap in Fairhope. He and Bennett Long of Cirrus Group handled the transaction. The Foley restaurant is on 1.17 acres just north of Tanger Outlets. Fairhope’s Wendy’s sits on almost an acre just east of Thomas Hospital. Both Wendy’s restaurants will continue to operate at those locations.
Investors paid $680,000 for a 5,791-square-foot restaurant building at 830 W. Interstate 65 Service Road S., near Airport Boulevard in Mobile, according to Tim Herrington of Herrington Realty. The building is leased to La Cocina Mexican restaurant which will continue to operate at that location. La Cocina also has a restaurant at 4663 Airport Blvd., in Mobile.
Watch for Robinson Grove, a 14-lot subdivision on Walker Key Drive off Canal Road in Orange Beach. Local builder Greg Kennedy plans to build single-family homes there and amenities include a pool and boat access to Terry Cove.
Flippers Seafood & Oyster Bar will be closing its restaurant at Bear Point Marina off Bay La Launch Avenue in Orange Beach when its lease expires at the end of the year. Flippers has operated at the marina for 12 years and plans are in the works for a new location in Gulf Shores.
Watch for a Nissan car dealership to locate in a former church building on Ala. 59 near Baldwin County 20 and O’Charley’s Restaurant & Bar on Ala. 59 in Foley.
