Desperate for help, celebrity chef David Burke hired his handyman for kitchen work

Celebrity chef David Burke, one of the most recognized chefs on television with 18 restaurants, five of them in New Jersey, said he was so desperate for help that he hired his handyman and his former housekeeper to work in his five-month-old restaurant Red Horse in Rumson. 

"I'm still desperate," said Burke, a Fort Lee resident. "Everyone in the industry is desperate." 

Burke said he, like many other restaurant owners, has cut back on the hours and days his restaurants are open due to a shortage of staff. David Burke Tavern in New York City, for example, is currently open five rather than seven days a weeks and no longer serves lunch. Burke's New Jersey restaurants include Ventanas in Fort Lee, Son Cubano in West New York, Drifthouse in Sea Bright, Orchard Park in East Brunswick. In two months, he plans on opening a restaurant in Morristown.

Burke hired Tony Edele, his handyman, to be the dishwasher at the Red Horse by David Burke. "I had to hire someone I knew was going to show up," he said. Edele had worked at Burke's house in Atlantic Highlands as a "jack of all trades," he said — gardening, landscaping and fixing things. 

"I had to hire someone else as my handyman," Burke added. "Having clean plates is more important than having a cut lawn."

He also hired his housekeeper as a busser, he said. "She was great. She worked hard." However, Burke said, her boyfriend proposed to her and she left.

Burke said he even marched down to the local Wawa in Red Bank to see if he could get day laborers to work for him. "I picked three and paid $20 an hour," he said. "I did that a couple of times, But after a few days, they said, 'We don’t want to work in restaurants.' They wanted to get off by 4 p.m. No one wants to work in restaurants." 

He even asked his restaurant cleaning services to send people.

"It worked for a couple of weeks," he said. "Then the car breaks down or the person doesn't want to get home so late." 

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Burke, as many other employers, blames the pandemic unemployment benefits for the restaurant labor shortage, saying that many restaurant employees are paid more staying home than working. The benefits are scheduled to end in September. Others, he said, know how badly they're needed and are asking for exorbitant salaries or raises, he said.

"I have people demanding more money or they're going to quit." One of his bartenders, he said, demanded $60 an hour."

"I can't find replacements," he said. "Once this is over, I'll throw them on the street. That bartender will be fired."

Not to mention restaurant work, despite how it may be portrayed, is far from glamorous: it's tough, stressful, often long hours and hot and sweaty. 

He said restaurants are pilfering staffers from other restaurants. "It's a dog-eat-dog world right now."

Burke said that next year to address the problem, if only a little bit, he plans to launch an apprenticeship program to train young people to work in restaurants.

"It will be an extended internship where they learn the front and back of the house," he said. It's going to be boot camp."

He said he plans to house some of his students in his house and have them learn by working at his restaurants. "We will be training line cooks, not chefs — linebackers, not quarterbacks."

Esther Davidowitz is the food editor for NorthJersey.com. For more on where to dine and drink, please subscribe today and sign up for our North Jersey Eats newsletter.

Email: davidowitz@northjersey.com 

Twitter: @estherdavido