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#43 what maybe doesn't seem so clear is that hospitality at the Fine Dining level, and again it wasn't defined really for us, unconscious impressions are so key. You may not notice it on a conscious level but when you walk into a place and the host/hostess is impeccable in manner and appearance, you know it's going to be a higher end experience. These people mortgage their entire lives to create these sorts of places. If they didn't discriminate then they wouldn't be *****.

This really feels like another phony product of the New York "union/social justice-lite" complex. Look at the sponsors and affiliates of the study and group.

I have a few lady friends who were bartenders for years, but all of a sudden about seven years ago bars stopped hiring "older" experienced women in favor of very young and cute women. Always glad to see someone getting work, but this is blatant discrimination.

Don't customers discriminate? Does a Mexican Sushi chef make us question authenticity, regardless of his/her skill?

KAT: You're right on...

Ah excuse me everyone, when was the last time...whoops, I mean when is it going to be the FIRST time you see a woman with a high-paying (server) job at one of these restaurants? They're only hired as eye candy at the reception desk. I guarantee you'll have servers of every color and nationality at the top places before you see even one woman (just as happened in boardrooms and in politics).

It's about socialization. And the owner's disrespect for their customer's racism.

I've worked in private clubs and some of the best restaurants this country has to offer.

You MUST be able to sell to the clientele.

I'm a good looking six foot tall white male. Our society is much more sophisticated than those that are doing the hiring realize.

I am so glad this is changing!

If you don't have NYC restaurant experience, it is hard to get a job at a higher end restaurant in Manahattan regardless of color or accent.

This study is flawed on so many levels

What was the breakdown off race of the customers at these restaurants?

I hang out at a diner on the UWS with my quirky, neurotic, friends, and all of the waitresses are, ah...shall we say "well endowed".

1. The "front desk appearance" issue sounds as though the people making hiring decisions are presuming that their clientele are racists/sexists. If I were a patron of this type of restaurant, I'd be insulted.

2. How uniform was this discrimination among this type of restaurant? If I could afford to eat there, I'd want to know if there were any that didn't discriminate, so I could make a point of patronizing them.

One important thing to remember is that you need at least several years of NYC restaurant experience to find a job at higher end places in Manhattan. If the applicants did not have this experience, they would probably not have been considered.

This is ridiculous! As a professional "eating outer" I don't care about anything except the servers professionalis. How they treat me personally, not how they look, not how much they weigh and most certainly not their race!

The employers who openly practice these hiring tactic should be sued!

Speaker is WRONG - wine stewards are often women

did you look at women owned, black owned fine dining?

or, asian owned fine dining?

Well, now I've listened to the entire show I am wondering if this lady has actually worked in the restaurant business. It's a salty environment, almost always unfair, and almost never follows labor rules and laws.

Hi, I definitely think there is discrimination in fine dining in NYC.

I do not often see women or blacks as servers.

However, when I am paying $150++ per head not including wine/liquor, I don't care about the race or gender of the server, but I CANNOT STAND straining to understand the person.

Their English should be impeccable.

I am sorry to say that many Latino and even some of the so-called "fancy European" servers present the amuse bouche and I have to ask 4 times for them to repeat what it is, even though when I finally understand what they said, each word is a word I know. It is frustrating and unpleasant.

I speak 2 languages in addition to English and lived in Europe for several years. In Europe there is terrible racism and sexism in restaurants - let's not have that in NYC.

Congratulations to your guest for bringing this research to the fore.

Do whites without accent given preference over whites with European accent.

I have been to many high end restaurants. While the waiters are usually men. The managers, front end and wine stewards are quite often women.

When you say people pay "gender tax" or "race tax", do you mean lower tips from customers or from restaurant pay checks?

So let me get this straight. Did you also look at ethnic restaurants? Is a soul food restaurant racist for hiring blacks? Is a high end Chinese, Indian restaurant wrong for hiring Indians?

I think the study suffers from a fatal flaw. The job applicants were lying. We have to acknowledge that a good interviewer might have been responding to subtle and not-so-subtle signals of deception.

It is true.
I am an Afican immigrant. I worked as a witress for six years when I was a student. Paricularly, the Eastern Europeans with Blue eyes and blodne hair has much more greater chance for their looks even if they have not good command of english. It is also true if one is documented or not so that they can abuse the undocmented.

There is a lot of racism in the industry.

It is brutal industry

If the qualifications were invented, then the study has no validity. 18 hours of training?!?! This is an insult to all waiters. People who take pride in the profession of waiting continue to improve their craft over years, not hours.

I do not doubt for a moment that there is substantial racism in the hiring practices of NYC restaurants, but flawed studies like this contribute to the public's suspicions that social science is pseudo science.

So-called fine dining restaurants are selling you a certain type of atmosphere - the food alone isn't worth the high price. I don't waste my money in such restaurants.

Many or most restaurants offer a food of a certain nationality, and you would expect the staff to be the same. Many years ago, while attending Purdue University, I decided to try the one Chinese restaurant then in Lafayette, Indiana. The waiter was obviously not Chinese, and the food was barely Chinese - I think it came out of a can of Chun King.

Wow! Talk about superficial?! Glad I am a good looking BLACK GIRL!

If I walk into a Japanese, Chinese, or Korean restaurant, I much rather be served by Japanese, Chinese, or Korean staff and not Jamaican or French or Hispanic!

Interesting comment, Olivia. More and more NYC has become a town where it is no longer possible to have a creative career and have a paying job to support it. Among other things, costs are so high that just doing the "day job" takes up all of one's time.

So basically the warning now to employers is that if an applicant is too good to be true, it means that it's set up.

I don't doubt that there's some racism, but if it's true that black applicants with European or Jamaican accents have a better chance than African Americans then you need to distinguish between race-based discrimination and cultural discrimination, because you can be sure that white applicants suffer from the same discrimination, and at what point is it the employers right to be discriminating on those terms? Your guest is describing exactly the dynamic herself.

And can test subjects sue the testers for discriminating on terms of attractiveness?

yes, it's all about image but not always about race. As a control, did they pair up a good-looking black man with a homely, overweight white woman?

This is so real and I am so happy to hear you talking about this. I have been a server in this city for 5 years and every time I have had to pound the pavement for a new position I am challenged on my qualifications and asked a myriad of questions. It's really ridiculous when you have so much experience and are treated like you're not even qualified to serve crab cakes.

Did they test women applying to high-end restaurants? I find that there are typically none to a token number of women servers at restaurants where the tips will be high.

Why do expensive shops hire atractive people?

I bet a drop dead gorgeous women will beat out an ugly one.

Brian,

I'm sorry, but this feels as if the conclusion preceded the study. If you have an organization called the Restaurant Opportunity Association, of course they're going to find problems in hiring, particularly if they send phony job applicants to employers.

Bob

So does "Hooters" break the law in any way?

AS A PERSON OF COLOR FROM THE WEST INDIES. KNOWING THE DISCRIMINATION PROBLEM IN THIS COUNTRY...I USED MY ACCENT TO GET HIRE IN THE RESTAURANT ...I SPEAK FRENCH, SPANISH AND A BIT ON ITALIAN..MOST OF MY EMPLOYERS ARE STUPID. THEY TOLD ME THAT I AM NOT A BLACK AMERICAN BECAUSE I SPEAK SO MANY LANGUAGES. BRYAN, IT IS INCREDIBLE WHAT'S GOING ON OUTHERE.

I couldn't agree with comment 13 more.

How much did the candidates' attractiveness come into play? I have had drop-dead gorgeous servers of different races in fancy restaurants. Model-good-looks are certainly a factor. How did the candidates look? Were they equally beautiful?

Are there not some circumstances where it's fair to discriminate on the basis of race -- for instance, Japanese restaurants wanting to hire Japanese, or at least Asians?

although i'm sure there is racism in the restaurant industry, as there is everywhere, this study sounds completely un-scientific. this group clearly had an agenda when they conducted this "experiment."

How much of the applicant's appearance is an employer able to take into account? Can they legally pick more attractive candidates over less attractive?

Did they take into account wine knowledge? Many immigrants are from places that do not have a wine culture and don't know as much about wine. This is very important in the fine dining setting.

oooh. well it's hard to fake waitering experience. It is. It seems easy but it's not.

Where the applicants equally good looking? I would think a really good looking black woman would be just as valued as a server as a really good looking white woman. I mean the wait person is also a sales person.

If its a fat and ugly minority vs. a good looking white person, I would think the good looking white person would be preferred.

I mean at most clubs and high end bars, you generally see good looking women behind the bar.

Brian,

Can you ask your guest if these applicants had to take tests as part of their interviews? I worked in fine dining for 7 years, and it was imperative that I had extensive wine knowledge as well as high-end liquor knowledge.
I also had to discuss my food knowledge in interviews, which was also extensive...

You can't lean this in one training session.

Did the applicants actually have the experience or was their resume made up? Employers can sniff this out. Also, people know each other and staff at equal level restaurants in the city.

She's TOTALLY RIGHT!!!

Obviously these practices are based on the restaurant owners experience of what works or doesn't work. It seems you want the restaurant owners to engage in social engineering.

Yes,

Because European accents are viewed by Americans as a sense of sophistication.

Here we go again.

Where these qualifications on the resume made up? Where these actual people who were qualified to work?

As someone who has toggled between waitering in this city and temp work, I think the industry has changed since I moved here. There is discrimination all over the place, even against people like me who have acting work between waitering jobs on my resume. Restaurants don't want people like that anymore!

It is no longer a job for actors or people looking to stay loose and make money while living their lives. I am not saying there isn't racism in the industry, but when you don't take on artists to wait tables, you're left with people from all over the world ready and available for work. Many of the 'finer dining' places I have worked have had a larger number of people who've immigrated to NYC for a better life. These people stay and they work hard for their children and respect the jobs they have.

I am refering to The Plaza, The Four Seasons, places like that.