1/20 - How I Would Fix Noma
Sponsorships, Florida, Mr. Beast, and ABWC
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How I Would Fix Noma
Two weeks ago, Noma — the Copenhagen eatery often regarded as the world’s best restaurant — announced it will close in 2024 because the restaurant has become financially and emotionally “unsustainable.”
For years, Noma relied on unpaid interns working very long hours, doing wildly boring shit to sustain operations. This past October, Noma started meagerly paying its interns, adding $50,000 in monthly labor costs. After three months, Noma had seen enough to know this whole “paying people for their hard work” thing wasn’t going to work out long term.
As someone who paid full price for The Noma Guide to Fermentation, this sucks. A world where Noma is not cool, Rene Redzepi is not deified, and my useless life-changing fermentation book has no resale value is a world that cannot exist. That’s why I’m fixing Noma. Here’s how:
Sponsorships, everywhere.
**server coughs** “Tonight’s fifteen course, three hour tasting menu is brought to you by Better Help, the official therapy partner of Noma interns, line cooks, and waitstaff!”
Ads make money and Noma needs money, because if it had more money, of course that money would go towards paying interns.
If someone wants an ad-free meal, they can pay for a “premium” reservation. All proceeds go directly to the interns.
Noma To Florida
Some quick math would suggest that when Noma started paying its thirty interns, each intern took home around $1700 per month. That’s not nearly enough, but if you aren’t going to pay your employees a livable wage you might as well let them cook for old people and avoid income tax.
Also - there’s no seasons in Florida, so the “hyper seasonal” menu might become a bit more manageable.
Noma X MrBeast
Just because you’re Noma doesn’t mean you can’t share a stove with MrBeast. Lease the kitchen out at night, pay your employees, and maybe learn a thing or two about selling food for less than $500 per person.
ABWC (Always Be Winning Chopped)
A Chopped winner is paid $10,000. Noma should place a cook on every episode and that cook should always win. Collect the winnings and distribute to the interns. This should already be happening.
If you have any other get-rich-quick-so-you-can-pay-your-restaurant-employees-schemes on hand, please reach out. I’d love nothing more than to resell my fermentation guide at full price.
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