Kitchen Sync | Talk Show: 005

Topics this week: Unrelenting rise in hospitality vacancies | Daniel Clifford's search for chefs | BHA responds | Nightclubs' days are numbered | Bedford Irish Club reunion | Byron Hamburger review | Management Tip - LinkedIn hacks.

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Show Notes

Daniel Clifford of Midsummer House laments the shortage of chefs.

Skills shortage: The headline says Number of job applications fall as hospitality vacancies rise in Big Hospitality, but I haven't seen the actual report by CV Library as yet.

Daniel Clifford at Midsummer House shares his own struggles to get decent chefs. Looks like a major problem for all the top guys... could it be that elusive work-life balance is creating the shortfall?

The BHA, in its response according to Boutique Hotelier said "...in just two years, over 2,500 businesses have helped to change the lives of over 43,000 young people by creating new career opportunities..." What does that actually mean? Someone...? Anyone....?

Chef Hermes doesn't mince words on the issue with an acerbic editorial that singles out the BHA in particular..."Finally, I come to an organisation which is more concerned with appearances than actual results. The BHA is so far out of touch with grass roots workers it beggars belief. They champion a pointless cause like ‘Cut Tourism VAT‘ and their ‘Big Hospitality Conversation‘, because their main aim is to create jobs, yet they don’t realise we can’t fill the vacancies we currently have." Ouch.

Here's that original story in Restaurant Magazine: Why more chefs are heading for the pub. Someone should ask Gordon Ramsay and Jean Christophe Novelli how that strategy worked out a few years ago.

Hospitality and Catering News reported on UK nightclubs closing at ‘alarming rate’. "Figures show that in 2005 there were 3,144 clubs. That went down to 1,733 this year." Most high street pubs have become quasi-nightclubs now anyway, haven't they?

My parents saw the writing on the wall for nightclubs and sold theirs back in 2004. The 'Bedfordshire on Sunday' ran a pictorial entitled Tom and Mary Kilroy raffle off Bedford Irish Club memories as they get ready for a big Irish Club Reunion on September 26th. Most likely, there'll be scenes.

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