Robb Mandelbaum
Forbes, Nov 4, 2016
Richard Warner expects good things to happen at his two Bingo Burger restaurants if, as polls suggest, Coloradans vote next week to increase the state’s minimum wage. The measure would give the lowest-paid workers a raise from $8.31 on December 31 to $9.30 on January 1, and then an annual 90-cent bump until the minimum reaches $12 in 2020. Wagner already starts his employees in the $9.50 to $10 range — anything less tends to attract novice workers and “you can’t run a restaurant correctly if you have too many inexperienced high-school kids” — and he’ll probably have to boost pay for his employees, if not next year, then certainly in 2018. But he expects to recoup that revenue by raising prices. “I think most of my customers support people making a living wage,” he says. “Once I tell them why costs are going up, they will definitely understand.”
Warner and his wife opened their first Bingo Burger in Pueblo seven years ago, after seven years operating an up-market restaurant — not a particularly lucrative trade in a struggling city. Last year, they opened their second 40 miles north in booming Colorado Springs, and they hope that within a year or so, they’ll be able to begin opening Bingo Burgers an hour north in Denver. The minimum wage, [Warner] believes, will at least partly fuel that growth. “I see some of the people who deserve these raises as potential Bingo Burger customers.” So his support for the ballot measure, he explains, “is selfish in a way.” ...
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Copright 2016 Forbes