Of course, this is a long -cherished wish.
So is it going well for you and your colleagues?
The problem is that the minimum wage should be increased at the same time, there are 15 euros in conversation. As a result, the effect of tax reduction fizzles out for companies. Due to the industry, the gastronomy is a classic minimum wage industry, in which many dishwasher and service staff only receive the minimum wage. In my company, 45 percent of the income is already flowing into salaries and another 34 percent. This should be clear what a minimum lighter would mean for us.
Today it is 12.82 euros.
And there are also night surcharges and holiday surcharges and for service staff, which is still tax -free. Seen in this way, this is a relatively lucrative profession. Overall, most minimum wage recipients in the gastronomy are already earning more than the future 15-euro minimum wage recipients in other industries.
I have already done this in the newsletter that I send regularly, and I would like to say it again and again: The increase in the minimum wage not only affects wages itself, but also means a disproportionate increase in non -wage costs. Employers have to pay almost 20 percent of additional social security contributions for every euro wages. As a result, the effective minimum wage cost burden for restaurateurs increases not only to 15 euros, but real to more than 18 euros per hour.
In combination with the already extremely high personnel cost rate, this will bring many companies into an economically precarious situation. Because the higher personnel costs inevitably lead to increasing prices, which in turn slows down demand. Many companies will be forced to rethink their personnel planning, to shorten working hours or in the worst case to delete. The absurd is that the employees will hardly have anything from the wage increase.
Don't you think that the employees may see it differently?
Almost half of the additional income collects the state directly again via taxes and taxes. And what is left is almost completely eaten up by the inevitably increasing living costs. The fact is: In the end, the actual winner of this wage price spiral is only the state.
You still have to put all of this in the subjunctive.
Yes, of course, also the tax cut. Anyone who is happy about them should still hold back, because it is far from being decided. And what the words of politics sometimes apply, the gastronomy on this topic has experienced, the seven percent were an election promise of Olaf Scholz.
We are in 2025, five years after the beginning of Corona pandemic. Has the gastronomy overcome this crisis?
Not at all. The hotel and restaurant association speaks of the fact that the average of the companies currently makes 15 percent less sales than in the pre-corona year 2019.
Is that the same in your restaurants?
No, luckily not. It is actually excellent for us. Of course, the margins have broken in and now narrower. With a very good visit we can compensate for this, we are fully booked almost every evening. But you know what is going on in Frankfurt as a whole.
Are you talking about the numerous restaurants that have recently been closed?
Yes, and unlike before, new ones are not opened in themselves. The city, especially the city center, threatens to desolate when it comes to gastronomy, but also in terms of retail.
And politics in Frankfurt, especially traffic policy, contribute to this by destroying more and more parking space in favor of bicycle paths. Wherever this happens, whether it is the Oeder, whether it is the Grüneburgweg, whether it is Eschersheimer Landstrasse, and business people always report on subsequent loss of sales. Nevertheless, this madness continues.
To what extent does that affect that?
My guests come to a large extent from outside, by car. If parking spaces fall away when the city becomes more unattractive because in the course of the traffic conversions there are traffic jams everywhere, then this affects my guests and therefore too. I am also Frankfurter, I love my city and it just hurts what happens here. And I say that as a passionate cyclist.
As such, they should actually approve of it when the city becomes more bike -friendly.
Frankfurt is not a bicycle -friendly, Frankfurt is hostile to the car. My office, for example, I have that at Rathenauplatz. This place is a huge, barren, gray area. Hundreds of bicycle parking spaces could be created on this area. But that doesn't happen. Instead, the parking bays come away in the streets.
Before the business of Louis Vuitton on Goethestrasse you can now connect bicycles, well. And all of this does not even lead to less car traffic in the city. The cars are only in traffic jams, the traffic jam level has increased, which could also be read in their newspaper.
The operators of 16 restaurants along Bockenheimer Landstrasse protested in an open letter against the plans to convert this street. There, lanes for cars are also to be eliminated in favor of widened bike paths. One of her restaurants, the “Mon Amie Maxi” is located on Bockenheimer Landstrasse, and you have also initiated this letter. Who reacted how?
The CDU faction informed us that it was in our opinion. And it is really dramatic: if the existing bike paths are moved to the road and lanes for cars are eliminated there, traffic jams will result, because this is a central inner -city traffic axis. And who wants to sit on the terraces of the restaurants when traffic jams are all, who are all towards the street? In addition, the delivery is difficult for the restaurants, which is all dangerous to exist. What is added: Nobody ever spoke to us, the residents, about this topic.
Among those who signed the letter are the best known and largest restaurateurs in the city, themselves, Micky Rosen and Alex Urseanu, the owners of the Gekko Group, and Gregor Meyer. What do you hope for now?
My hope is that it does not happen that these plans will not be pursued.
My hope is very small, honestly. On the other streets, the victims of the desolation, if I may say that, did not ask what they think of such projects. I suspect because the initiators of the measures know how such a survey would end. There is ideology behind it, and that makes it all difficult. But at least everyone should know that something happens to the will of those affected.
To person
Christian Mook, born in 1969, is the founder of the Mook Group, which can cater to up to 1000 guests in the evening. In addition to the” M-Steakhouse “, which he opened in 1997 as one of the first Steak houses in Germany, the” Ivory Club “,” Mon Amie Maxi “,” Zenzakan “and the high-rise restor” Franziskan “belong to the group. Mook is married and has two daughters. For local events like the plans for the Bockenheimer Landstrasse, the Frankfurt native has clear opinions. The fact that he gave up the “Krazy Kraken” fish restaurant in the pandemic and later its location in the Westend district, he also grown a local politics that fell victim to the parking spaces around the house. “My customers don't come with the cargo bike,” he says.
