As Vancouver's pre-Olympics frenzy gathers steam, the restaurant industry is firing up its grills in anticipation. The tally of tables this year is unprecedented, with 30 new rooms recently opened or about to do so, and 800 new seats in a three-block radius in the Gastown neighbourhood alone.
Whether it's French bistro, nuevo Latino or the endlessly proliferating small-plate fusion joints, diners are gaining an increasing wealth of choice. But behind the scenes is a turf war that's got restaurant staff changing allegiances as freely as suburban swingers on a Saturday night.
In the past year alone, chef Robert Belcham and sommelier Tom Doughty left C to open Fuel, manager Paul Grunberg moved from Nu to Lumière to Chambar, and general manager Edwyn Kumar left Lumière for CinCin in a direct swap with manager/sommelier Sebastien Le Goff.
Meanwhile, chef Colleen McClean departed Feenie's for Rare, manager Andre McGillivray went from Lumière to Le Crocodile to Boneta, and Keith Nicholson moved from Nu to become wine director at Bearfoot Bistro in Whistler, B.C.
As chefs kitchen-hop and servers hold out for better pay and conditions, restaurateurs are struggling to maintain consistency in the face of enormous upheaval - while looking over their shoulders for other industry members on the prowl for good staff. The once tight-knit community is suddenly learning how to negotiate the rules of serious competition.
No one has seen more high-profile turnover this year than Rob Feenie. The fact that between his two restaurants, Lumière and Feenie's, he employs 100 staff necessitates a degree of fluidity, but it doesn't explain the mass hemorrhage of staff that has taken place.
"I had a period where my chef Marc-Andre [Choquette]quit, then my sous-chef Jeremie [Bastien]quit, then Antoine [Baillargeon]- his right-hand guy - he quit, then Guillaume [St. Pierre] who was doing the fish, he quit - it all came within a month for me," Mr. Feenie recalls. "Then the same thing happened at Feenie's - all these people left and went up to Chow. It was a big hit for us."
While he's happy for Chow's chef - former Lumière employee Jean Christophe Poirier - for branching out on his own, he is less impressed with the mass enticement of his staff.
"There is a level at which certain people will always follow colleagues, but they took an entire kitchen. Enough is enough."
Harry Kambolis, owner of the impressive trio Raincity Grill, C and Nu, says he's dismayed at the depths to which his colleagues are sinking. "People will try to poach anybody at any time," he says, "and, sometimes, it's more aggressive than others. It used to feel a little bit more respectable - people were less likely to walk in and start offering jobs."
But former employees say they were ready to jump ship for a good reason: cash.
"I walked out of Nu and straight into another job for [$12,000]more," one former staffer shrugs. Another suggests that if Mr. Kambolis is losing staff, it's no one's fault but his own.
"Harry," the industry insider says, "needs to pay his staff more."
Mr. Kambolis counters: "We're spending more and more and still the turnover is higher than it's ever been." And it's causing industry standards to slip, he adds.
"It's inevitable, in some ways," he admits. "You can't keep on opening restaurant upon restaurant - maybe 70 in the past year - and things stay the same.
"The community has crumbled. It really is everyone for themselves right now."
The Irish Heather's Sean Heather opened two restaurants last year. Salt was a winner right out of the gate; Lucky Diner has already closed.
At Salt, Mr. Heather employed local celebrity bartenders Jay Jones (Nu) and Chris Stearns (Lumière) to give the bare-bones meat and cheese concept a glamorous edge. Behind the scenes, Mr. Heather was accused of poaching.
"Absolutely not," he insists when pressed. "They had both left their previous jobs."
But poaching, he says, has become endemic locally. "Maybe I should be flattered, but I get a bit upset when someone comes for dinner and tries to poach someone while they're working and I'm sitting in the building. That's happened twice recently."
To keep his staff happy, he's digging into his pockets: "It's an absolute disaster. I'm doing medical and dental, paying way more than I ever have before."
Mr. Jones and Mr. Stearns have long since moved on, but Mr. Heather is sanguine: "You don't need the dream team past a certain season. Now I'm all about getting guys who are solid and are going to want to stay."
Few of those accused of poaching admit to the practice. "That's a riot," snorts Eli Gershkovitch, who recently opened the TransContinental in the SeaBus terminal building and has been accused of pilfering staff. "We don't poach," he says. "But we do expect our senior hires, our managers, to bring their networks into play."
Half an hour later, a more muted Mr. Gershkovitch calls back. Having talked with his staff, he admits: "If a staff member is out to dinner and experiences great service, then they may suggest that the server check us out. Have we ever asked someone to leave their job and join us? No. Has somebody said, 'Hey, if you're interested in picking up some hours ... ?' Absolutely."
But Robert Clark, executive chef at C, says the constant revolving door has always been a part of the industry.
What matters to customers of high-end restaurants, he says, is not how many cooks or servers leave, but the name on the door. "It doesn't matter how many people leave Lumière, or who owns Lumière," he explains. "Rob [Feenie]is Lumière."
He expects rising costs of both staff and ingredients to separate the culinary winners and losers. "C and Nu and Lumière will be able to pay more and still be standing afterwards. There will be many more who won't weather that storm."
Some restaurateurs are now looking beyond the city for staff. Glowbal Restaurant Group's proprietor, Emad Yacoub, has decided to start looking internationally, working with Immigration Canada and advertising on craigslist.org in North America, Australia and England. Mr. Yacoub, who is about to launch Italian Kitchen, his fourth restaurant in the city, is also employing specialized international recruiting firms.
"It's sad, where we are right now," he says.
For those with fewer resources, there's little choice but to get their hands dirty. A visit to Boneta finds celebrated cocktail impresario Mark Brand - co-owner of the new venture - up to his elbows in suds in the dish pit.
The roster at Boneta currently looks like Lumière redux: Former sommelier extraordinaire Neil Ingram and manager Mr. McGillivray are both co-owners, while the kitchen is in the hands of former sous-chef Mr. Bastien and pastry chef Paul Croteau.
Mr. Brand is bullish. "There's definitely bad blood out there, but we are an open book: Our staff come to us," he insists. "When I was at Chambar, I was approached every single week by someone offering me more money, but I loved it there, so I stayed."
For his part, Mr. Feenie says he has nothing but good wishes for the Boneta boys. "Neil Ingram was a wonderful sommelier for eight years," he says. "He gave me plenty of notice and we gave him a decent sendoff. Personally, I am very proud of Jeremie. My only concern was that he is still young and I wasn't sure if he was ready."
He did, however, draw the line when they took his dishwasher out for coffee at the White Spot opposite Lumière.
"That guy has been with me for 12 years. You've got a place full of my former employees; going for my dishwasher is below the belt."