www.whas11.com/article/money/business/jeffersontown-bbq-restaurant-closing-fdky-louisville/417-13fbfec3-7dda-4063-9700-5b788336f478
FDKY BBQ restaurant set to close on April 27th, Owners cite a "lack of people wanting to work" as one of the reasons
Amen. If you own a business and aren't able to pay your employees a fair wage then you shouldn't cry about your own failure.
User deleted comment
1mo
If the food is good enough, people will pay. Hell, even bad food if convenient enough. McDonald’s is always packed and their prices have nearly doubled. Good food, decent wages, and good management. I’ve had FDKY, and while I didn’t find it bad, there was nothing there that made me want to order again. Not like Mama’s. Different kinds of places, but BBQ needs to compete on many levels.
MCD maybe packed but I assure you the product mix sold is vastly different.
Goddamn now I want Momma's baby backs.
That's a long way of saying "our business is not profitable".
Like, if you try to give your employees $1MM a year at a restaurant, you can't complain that the customers don't want to pay for the food what it would cost to pay the workers that.
You can't complain when you fail to balance the equation, and you should understand what a livable wage is. Livable = fair, and any less is just not being an effective capitalist.
they went downhill when they started getting everything in boil bags. was some solid casual bbq before that. that liquid smoke shit was toxic af though.
Yeah I remember it being great when they had their location on 5th St downtown back in the mid 2000s. It was garbage the last time I went though. Boil bags would explain it.
Are you talking about Fire Fresh BBQ? Is that not different than FDKY?
Did you not read the article? They've had like five or six different names.
Fire fresh barbecue was a different chain. The owners and first restaurant were in Shelbyville. I worked there back in like 2007. They closed a year or so ago.
Boil bags start to come out once violations occur for serving undercooked food. Boil bags aren’t great, but they are much cheaper than civil judgements from lawsuits from your customers.
Just don't undercook your food?
I thought it was way over priced for what you got. And it was mid BBQ anyway
It's all supply and demand until the efficient market doesn't work for you but against you.
They should try pulling on their bootstraps or "projecting strength" until it works somehow....
I 100% agree, and feel this isn't said enough.
As someone who still works there, they weren’t shit wages. I made more here than any of my previous jobs in the corporate sector. But, I guess saying shit you know nothing about gets you upvotes.
lol quit lying for attention
Post a pay stub. We don’t believe you.
What do you get paid hourly?
$17/hour + tips.
17 an hour is better than corporate pay? Wtf are they even paying anymore??
I work at a fuckin gas station and make 18...
$17/hr + tips > $200 per 8 hour shift
roughly
How much do you make in tips at the gas station?
I mean, people leave a ridiculous amount of change on the counter.
However I also seriously doubt dudes claims anyway because service employees that get tips make less than minimum wage. 2.13 per hour is absolutely a normal waiter/waitress wage.
Is this legit? If so, they shouldn't have any problem finding help... Something is fishy. You get to keep tips AND make 17 and hr?
Well...I hope it's some good tips!
Got a title for that corporate sector role?
Cool. So what is the reason they can't find people to work these high paying jobs then? I assume people are working at jobs that pay less in the area, so something must be going on.
So why do people work in nearby restaurants for less money? Or is that still less than what other places nearby pay?
You’re a 🤡
I bet they fuck you on hours. That’s the new standard. Double the old rate at a quarter the hours. One of my old jobs tripled their pay but try to make everyone part timers.
Amen! People love to worship small business owners, but in my experience they are just as whiny, entitled, and exploitative of their staff as any Walmart manager.
I'm working my first office job ever for a large organization and the difference in how I'm treated is night and day. I will never work for a small business owner again for as long as I live. Nothing is ever their fault, they micromanage beyond belief, have no qualms being unethical if it means they get a leg up, will make you do menial work if it's slow etc etc I could go on for days the level of disrespect I've had at the hands of multiple SBOs, I'm sure I'll find new ways to hate working for a big org but I'm making more money and if it's slow I'm not expected to clock out or vacuum or look busy so I don't get yelled at
Seriously unemployment is 3.8%. People are working. This business owner just doesn’t want to compete with other businesses for labor.
How else is he supposed to buy a brand new SUV for each of his kids?
Hes going to accomplish that by closing his business? If things were going well and he could spoil his kids then this news wouldnt exist.
User deleted comment
1mo
Pretty rare for a business like that to own the property. No idea if this is the case with this business but often owners dont know when to quit and there is more debt than assets by a wide margin when they pack up shop. My dads business when it closed left our family with a 7 year bankruptcy payment equivalent to my parents' mortgage, AFTER liquidating the assets. My dad is fond of saying hed have been better off financially closing the doors a year sooner and going to work at mcdonalds.
My Dad is not an entrepreneur, he just was trying to do something he knew well, independently and as it grew he had to hire employees, then things started going south and he kept trying to save the business for the sake of the employees but every break that seemed like it would turn things around ended up being a loss instead of a profit. Ive known a lot of people with small businesses, some just working alone but a lot with employees, and the way people talk about small business owners is just atrocious. My childhood best friend's dad had a business, he acted as main salesman where he always dominated but also delivered products and even ran service calls where needed. He sold the business off that was eventually bought up by a major corporate conglomerate, and at that point they were set, house paid off, camper, boat, full outdoor basketball court at their house, multiple nice newer vehicles. He ended up buying a franchise of a business he was less familiar with, which failed, then tried insurance sales, took classes to get his license and by the end of the chain of failures they were back to having a mortgage on their house again, and in pretty desperate financial shape and i saw him randomly burst into tears over their situation. Employees never have to worry about that stuff. They can just go find a new job, theres no risk, they dont have sunk cost fallacy keeping them trying to make something work thats never going to work, up all night worrying about the business they sunk the family savings into.
These people that take risks arent guaranteed or entitled to success, but its a pretty sour shitty attitude in my opinion to crap all over them for attempting to go into business for themselves instead of working for the corporate conglomerates everyone whines about. The people who do the shitting want the same things, they want auccess, they want nice things for their family, they just are unable or unwilling to get things together to start their own business. If they ever do taste success they often quickly change tune and start complaining about taxes and the people they used to be.
Exactly. Facts are hard for some people.
on the other hand, I'm in Vegas right now and two slices of pizza and a beer is $32
Bdubs in E’town: 10 wings and rwo beers, $40. Paid that last week and had to reconsider my habits.
BDubs prices have gotten insane. I like their sauces, but I can’t justify their wing prices.
Yep. I've noticed this as well. That's the only reason I like Bdubs is for their sauce variety. But the wings seem smaller and prices only go up.
BOGO days are the only ones I consider going there.. any other days there are better food options or better values..
Hit up Jessie Rae’s. It’s not far from the strip. Might be a little shady at night, but it’s worth the risk of getting mugged dude.
Best places to eat in Vegas are the places off the strip. Restaurants on the strip are just overpriced for the convenience and novelty of them.
I'm here for work, it's not really a concern for me
That's because you're eating at the casino.... I was in Vegas for 2 weeks for work and never paid anything close to that
it's a food court in a convention center and I've been coming here multiple times a year for 10+ years and it's never been remotely this expensive
Eh convention center food courts are always ridiculous IMO
Louder for the knobs in the back.
Here! Here! Screw these places and their sob stories. Pay your people a livable wage and you would be fully staffed.
Lack of people wanting to work for bullshit wages
Yeah, if you can’t put out a quality enough product that people are willing to pay enough for, so you in turn can pay enough money that people will actually want to work for you - then this is what you get.
FDKY Barbecue had some name changes throughout its lifetime. It first opened in 2001 under the name "Firehouse BBQ." Then it was renamed "Firefresh BBQ" in 2006, "Bruce's Smokehouse" in 2007, "Crabby Jake's Fish House & Barbecue" in 2011, and finally FDKY (Fire Departments of Kentucky) Barbecue from 2013 to now.
It's a sign of a very profitable and well operated business when they are constantly changing names.
He got sued for infringing on Firehouse Subs and had to rename so yeah I'm not gonna trust this guy to know how to run a business
He had the name before they were operating in Kentucky. Then when they started operating here, he had to change the name. At least that's what the article says.
Holy shit. I worked for FireFresh BBQ in the early 2000’s. Had no idea FDKY BBQ was just them but rebranded. Lol it was shit back then and all management was pure trash. Kinda glad I never ate at FDKY now
But there was another guy in the thread saying they pay 17 per hour plus tips! You're saying that's not true/worth it to work for them?
I mean, if they're blaming people for not wanting to work for them I completely believe they are a shit employer.
I worked there as a teenager in 2006/2007 for $6.75 an hour. I can’t really attest to their recent business practices but back then management was mostly this one woman and her trashy family who absolutely should not have been running any businesses lol.
So you're saying it probably wasn't worth it even if they paid fair wages. Yup checks out. Lol
Ohhhh this place. My family and I went right when they opened and on the ride home we dubbed it "Shithouse Pork N Puke"
I am curious if the restaurant’s origins actually have anything to do with fire fighters or if the name was just chosen to capitalize on the imagery it invokes.
Firefresh being the one located downtown on Fifth that had this whole story about why they closed when they closed with a note on the door? And then someone with the city feeling petty and posting the eviction notice with the actual contradictory reasons underneath?
Couldn't just go out quietly? He just had to tarnish his shitty legacy. I'm glad his small business is burning.
Shitty people do shitty things.
And they always blame other people for their problems.
Why does this guy have so many haters? I’ve never even heard of this place. Lived in Louisville my entire life
It’s had like 5 different names, maybe you heard of Bruce’s smokehouse? No idea why people disliked him before this though
Mediocre barbecue is the #1 reason
edit: I will concede that their fried rolls slap
I liked the French fries
I like their brisket better than any of the other places around the area :/
That's fair but I also don't think that's a high bar, in my opinion this city has a lack of good brisket
Nobody wants to work. That's why it's 'work' and not 'fun'.
If you want people to do things that aren't fun, then you need to entice them to do those things with money.
The problem isn't that people 'don't want to work'. It's that business models that can't account for changes to labor costs without failing are NOT GOOD BUSINESS MODELS.
And that includes on the economy level. People want to be useful and fulfilled and successful, not exploited and ground down. These are hidden labor costs that are not being accounted for, which makes the other part of the cost much, much more important. Money can't buy happiness, but NO money buys a hell of a lot of sadness.
I've always said 'Money can't buy happiness, but it sure as hell can facilitate a lot of happiness'.
Money can't buy happiness, but NO money buys a hell of a lot of sadness.
Dude, this quote slaps. I'm using this for the rest of my fuckin life.
well fucking put
Instant translation: "The restaurant paid shit wages."
“Beloved” lol. Pay your fucking employees or get the fuck out of business.
I’ve driven by the jtown location literally thousands of times and never once had to be urge to stop in for food lol but yes, we all love it so much.
There's never many people there. If it's so beloved, where are the customers?
Facts: The prime age (25-54) labor force participation rate topped out under Trump at 83.1 in January 2020. It was again 83.1 in February 2023 and has been above that level every month since. This measure hasn’t been this high since before the Great Financial Crisis.
Dude’s perception is detached from reality.
Dude’s perception is detached from reality.
Anyone complaining about not finding work is crazy.
While I will say our economy to most of us may not feel like its doing well. Housing and food cost are outrageous and we all feel it so its hard to see the good parts of our economy right now but in regards to employment it's literally the opposite of No OnE WaNtS To WoRk....
It's literally EVERYONE basically has a job. AND big AND here wages have went up, so those of us who were HAVING to work 2+ jobs some of us may not need to because my one job paying me enough now. Literally everyone is already working.
I promise the restaurants/bars/businesses who are ran well, good management, treat staff well, pay well are not hurting for staff. I know for a fact because I worked for someone who owns several business and has zero problems finding and keeping help. This person is literally one of the best employers I've ever had. At any one place I worked for them over many years they had people on top of people willing to work and during and after covid they had many returning employees who still work for them to this day.
At this point anymore hearing a closing business/restaurant saying it's lack of people wanting to work is just dog whistle for I have no business running a business and I pay shit and treat staff like shit and I can't compete with my competition.
100%. Everyone knows that there is this certain caliber of employer who only continues to operate and is able to function because their employees have no other options. That's generally what I think of when I hear "no one wants to work anymore". Yeah, you have to do better, but you don't know what that is.
The margins on BBQ have made it so that mediocre doesn’t cut it, because for the prices that they need to charge to make a profit given meat costs these days, it ends up being a pretty expensive meal. And if I’m gonna be spending $20+ on lunch, I can do much better in this city than really any BBQ spot.
Of course, it’s easier to blame it on lazy people not wanting to work.
St Louis is an easy weekend trip if you want to find decent Q too. Even the Carolinas and GA have awesome joints that are easy drives.
Why would they do that with Owensboro just 2 hours away.
*Mostly jokes and good natured ribbing but for real ownesboro makes great BBQ
TBF, there's excellent BBQ in Louisville, too.
Just not at FDKY lol. Or Mark's.
Idk how Mark's is still in business
I don't either. It was terrible when it was a thing back in the 90's when there weren't any other options.
The chicken pasta salad. That's it. That shit is like ambrosia.
BBQ is also fairly easy to make homemade too. Don’t even need to travel farther than the local grocery store.
I recommend Red State BBQ in Georgetown. A little over an hour from downtown Louisville.
Precisely. Someone who knows the craft can command the premium required to pay living wages. Old dude here doesn’t have the chops to cut it. Or he’s just too lazy to put in the work to get there.
I don't know, I think restaurant business models are screwed unless you cater to upper class people.
thats the way it was in the 60-70's u didnt have McD's on every corner and never went to a restraunt as a family unless it was a special reason! or u were well off and went to the friday night supper club! otherwise it was way to expensive to eat out! i never thought we would return to that world but we seem to be! even though we gained 130 million people since then!
Went with a friend to Back Deck BBQ last month. Glad to finally find a good BBQ place in Louisville.
It's so good
Their burnt ends are fire. Used to eat there all the time when I worked in the hood. Also the wings are great.
This place just isn't that good.
Theres a donut shop down the road. One day they had a sign up suggesting people didn’t wanna work.
I looked around in there and I didn’t see any prices listed. People are just buying this shit without checking prices. Lining up to gobble it down.
She was complaining about staff not staying. Blah blah blah.
And thought:
“Lady. Its a donut. Raise that shit .25 a donut.
You just made $3 extra dollars every dozen, give it to the teenager working and going to high school that you fire all the time”
And I said that right to her face , in my imagination , on the car ride back to my house. Felt good.
I wondered how long that place was going to hold on. I’ve only been there a couple times in the last 6 months but it was dead empty the last time I was in there.
Their prices were always a bit on the high end but the last time we ate there, we got a kids meal, I got just a sandwich and a drink, and my wife got a meal and a drink. The cost was almost 50 bucks.
Nasty food and poor wages is the reason.
I'm gonna be honest, I hate the "nobody wants to work anymore" phrase and it's variants so much that if I would be willing to put a provision in the 1st amendment actually banning that phrase and making it's use punishable by life in prison.
It def makes me want to call the cops on them.
Oh, no! Where will we find a mediocre at best restaurant in J-town now?
I have some GREAT news for you...
I love reminding folks like this that it's the same free-market it's always been. It once was okay for workers to live in poverty due to the free market. Now it's okay for them to go out of business due to the same free market.
Shit wages. Shit food.
Gonna go out on a limb here and say people do not want to work for minimum wage.
is this a male only place? there are no women in the photo, what's up with that?
How dare you! Those men are heros!
Why are the owners not just working it 🤔
You prob paying them $10 hr
Considering pork is a relatively cheap meat compared to beef and seafood. If you make good bbq you can certainly pay better for a cheapish product.
I saw a local restaurant paying 7.25 an hour while looking for jobs the other day, pretty sure for a food runner position. Absolutely insane
Only way I could conceive myself going for 7.25 is if I was a high schooler looking for a job and I heard the job was cake or something. Restaurant work generally sucks way too much for that
Honestly even then 7.25 is still ridiculous. Crazy part is is that low wages like that aren't that rare in restaurants, especially in the back. Dishwashers usually make between 10-13 an hour from what I've seen, and it's just because there's always some crackhead who's willing to do the job for less.
Yeah I washed dishes in hs for 7.25 and I don’t even know how much you’d have to pay me to do that shit again
😂😂😂 I straight up wouldn't. I play piano and can't risk hurting my hands like that
Oh yeah for sure then lol still got nerve damage I’m pretty sure from the scorching hot dishes straight out of the machine
Servers still being paid 2.13/hr
People being asked to wash dishes while on their server pay when the dishwasher didn't show.
Uh no. The manager better roll up them sleeves if there's no dishwasher.
Exactly.
Food runner is usually tipped out. Not saying it's a great job, but not a shit as it sounds.
Yep! I read the job listing, nothing mentioning tips. It was pretty fleshed out too, I'd think that if you were writing an ad for a job you'd put in literally the most important detail.
You meant " a lack of people willing to work for YOU"
You're not entitled to workers.
No one has ever wanted to work. Thats why we pay people.
As someone who worked there I can say it isn’t the lack of people wanting to work, it was the fact that (at the time i was working there) they had 4 high schoolers running the restaurant making $10 an hour while we had shift leaders that were getting paid almost double and barely came onto the floor. It was impossible to have a day off if someone else on staff had the day off. For one of my friends birthdays (who was also my coworker) I requested off so i could go to her birthday dinner, months in advance and my time off was denied because my friend already had that day off and they couldn’t afford to be down two people in one night, but they didn’t want to hire more people because they said it wasn’t in the budget. My friends and I would be putting in 45-46 hour weeks on top of being in school just because we felt guilty for trying to leave knowing that they had no one. It was a good job at one point though.
Wage comments aside, damn I actually really liked this place.
Is the doofus in the pleated khakis the owner? Is that the walking vagina who didn't want to pay workers a decent wage? If so, good for them, they got what they deserved.
Or if he was a good guy, he may have got fucked by the razor thin margins and only one location. the restaurant game is cruel and will fuck you over. And in that case, the free market did its job and he couldn't compete. Shoulda pulled himself up by his bootstraps more. Why didn't he want to work harder?
Vaginas are awesome, idk what you're on about.
Yeah the thing about selling something like BBQ (or Mexican) is it’s pretty popular, but there are also a ton of really good options so if your food isn’t good, people will just go to the place down the street.
Except there aren’t a ton of really good bbq options. Asheville has a few top notch places. St Louis does too. Louisville? Our “top notch” is mid level at best.
There are def cheaper options that are less lousy though.
The owners actually aren’t pictured at all there (at least not from what I can see.) Don’t quote me on it but I do believe that’s Bill Dieruf, a former mayor of Jeffersontown in the khakis, lol.
Over priced and small portions.
Food was super mediocre and this guy sounds like a POS, this place will not be missed.
No, people don't want to work for peanuts. Pay your staff better. Minimum wage gets minimum effort.
Pay a living wage and people will work
Nobody wants to fund your profits without sharing in them.
My brother used to work there and he paid like shit.
I'm surprised that enough people want to work for any business to stay open nowadays. Who will think of the poor shitty business owners?
I have two questions because this comes up when people post about restaurants closing.
What do you all think is a fair wage to work in a restaurant?
What do you think is a fair price to pay for a casual restaurant bbq sandwich or burger?
A fair wage means for full-time hours you can afford a modest rent, utilities, child care in your area, and have some left over for other necessities/ emergencies
A fair price for a sammie is whatever enables my waiter to have a fair wage
You failed to answer either of the questions.
I read FABD at first and almost cried
Better headline: “Unemployed man complains that no one wants to work”
Orrrrrr pay your employees better and they’ll stay.
People pay upwards of $20 for a combo from a burger chain. You CANNOT attach rising costs to your downfall. You CANNOT cite people not wanting to work as a cause. California farmers did an experiment with the "they're taking our jobs" crowd. Paid them $25 an hour to pick produce, most quit within 2 hours. Same here in the south. Wages are stagnant, people have to work 2 jobs to make ends meet. It's an endless lofe threadmill. You keep pushing and pushing yourself and never get anywhere. Capitalism is rigged to benefit few at the expense of many. Fuck these guys, they know the root of the problem, they choose not to address it.
I thought that said Fabd for a second and got worried.
Lack of employers paying a living wage.
Never heard of it so oh well.
Right!
Well……
Anyway
I’ve never even heard of this place…
It must not be very good. This is the first I've ever heard of it.
Had meals there a few times over its life span. Just to give it a full chance.
They would have two staff behind the counter. Each time the food would be cold, not room temp... cold to the touch. The food would either have no spice, or be so spicy no one wanted to eat it.
There are far better BBQ restaurants in town to even consider repeat visits to a subpar BBQ restaurant.
There are a lot of ways to make money now because of the internet. Mom and pop places have to be AMAZING to stick around these days.
Saying your people “just don’t want to work” is identical to a coach saying “they need to want to win”. 3 things will make someone work. It pays enough, it’s fun enough, or they have an obligation they cannot escape. If that obligation isn’t a state or federal court… see items 1 and 2.
The fact that I’ve never heard of this place is probably a good indicator of why it’s closing.
Yup. People don't want to work for shit money, shit treatment by management/ownership, and shit treatment by customers.
- shitty food
- shitty management Bye! Hopefully we get something good in that location
So they paid minimum wage, got it.
They pay $7.35 an hour. I also don’t want to work for $7 an hour
Nobody wants to work. That should really bring in the business. The gap between the haves and have nots is growing.
“Lack of people wanting to work be exploited.”
Glad I never went there.
That’s got to be some of the worst BBQ Ive ever eaten. He has too much good competition nearby the Jtown location. I will go to Mommas every time over that swill.
Ahh yes the BS republicans business motto for failure… no it wasn’t the people not wanting to work for you it was you as the employer who made it unworkable.
Probably paid like shit. Good fucking riddance. If you’re a business owner struggling to find good talent because you refuse to pay more, please do the same and close up shop.
Way for them to advertise that they don’t pay well and they ran a toxic workplace.
So tired of that hateful, ignorant propaganda. People don’t want to work for pitiful wages.
If you can’t afford to pay, maybe don’t start your stupid business.
I recently opened an Amazon DSP with a partner. We pay more than the Amazon going rate, ofc benefits, provide snacks/drinks/etc, treat people like humans and accommodate their personal lives as much as possible…and guess what?
We can’t keep up with the people wanting to work through Referrals etc. The problem has NEVER been the employees.
Womp womp. No one wants to work any- No one wants to pay enough. Greedy clowns. Do it yourself if you don’t want to pay fair wages. Minimum wage would be $20.56 an hour had it kept pace with inflation. And if it kept pace with productivity and profit MUCH more.
Sounds more like 'We had problems, but THIS way I can blame it all on a phantom conservative buzzword rather than admitting any other failure on my part as an owner'
One time I found a detached human body part in my sandwich.
Well, why doesn’t the owner step up and do those jobs that they aren’t able to fill.
Sounds like the owner also doesn’t wanna work 🤔🤔🤔
Awful💔
Lack of people wanting to eat there from what I heard
Unemployment is very low and we just added an unexpectedly higher amount of jobs in the last count. So it's not that people don't want to work, but that people didn't want to work THERE.
This is hilarious. My husband tried to get a job with them in November and they said they weren't hiring. Oh well.
Lmao
They should sell that bourbon sauce nationally, it’s truly incredible.
Capitalism baby!
Glad their out of business
The unemployment rate is 3.8%! Economists thought 5% was technically full employment. There are more jobs than people to fill them. It's not that nobody wants to work, it's that's the workers aren't there
Be back in a month like Shenanigans and all them other crybaby small business owners
No. They just don’t want to work for his shit pay. I’m so sick of hearing that.