Why Priya Raman Closes on Mondays and Publishes Her Payroll
Five restaurants. Twelve years. A staff retention rate double the industry average. She'll tell you it isn't complicated.
Priya Raman opened Common Table in 2013 with $80,000 in savings and a leased kitchen. Her group has grown to five concepts across Austin. She is known within the restaurant industry for two decisions that most operators still find strange: publishing every position's pay range, and closing every restaurant on Mondays.
The restaurant industry is losing people. Priya's group is keeping them. Her operating decisions are unglamorous, structural, and reproducible.
- 01You are hiring for the version of the person you'll get on their worst shift.
- 02Standards are the kindest thing you give a team.
- 03Closing one day a week is not a benefit. It is an operating decision.
- 04Publish pay bands. It removes the worst conversation from every hiring decision.
- 05The general manager rewrites the operating manual every year. It stays alive that way.
Why Mondays
Restaurants are the only industry where the norm is that the people who make the food never see their families at dinner. I decided in year two that we would close Mondays across the group. It cost me maybe six percent of revenue. It saved my staff. It is not a benefit. It is an operating decision. My food cost is lower on Tuesday because we prep with intention. My general managers plan their weeks. My chefs get married and have kids and stay.
"Closing one day a week is not a benefit. It is an operating decision."
Pay transparency
The first restaurant I worked in as a nineteen-year-old, my male co-worker was making three dollars more per hour than me and neither of us knew. When I opened Common Table I decided we would publish the pay range for every position on the wall, next to the schedule. It is uncomfortable for the first six months. Then it becomes the least dramatic part of the operation.
"You are hiring for the version of the person you will get on their worst shift."
Hiring
I do not hire for the interview. I hire for the version of the person you will see at the end of a Saturday night double after a table sent back a steak. That is who they really are. So the second interview is always a trail. Four hours. Real service. I want to see them tired.
The operating manual
Every restaurant has a manual. Ours is different because the general manager rewrites theirs every year. Not the corporate office. The GM. If the manual is out of date, it is because the GM has not done their job. If the manual is thick, it is because the GM has not done their job. The manual should get shorter.
Failure
I opened a sixth concept in 2019 and closed it in fourteen months. It was a great restaurant that we ran badly because I did not have a strong-enough GM to run it. I learned that the concept does not open the restaurant. The person opens the restaurant.
Priya Raman's operating principles, distilled.
Two interviews plus a four-hour trail shift. GMs run their own hiring.
Would I be proud of this if it were on the wall of the kitchen? If not, don't do it.
Closed Mondays. Published pay. No yelling on the line.
90-day retention, table turn on Fridays, food cost variance.
Opening a sixth concept without a GM ready to run it.
The person opens the restaurant. The concept does not.
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