Video

Video: Illegal Pete’s founder discusses how raising hourly wage to $17 has grown his business

Employees get a food and drink credit, medical and dental insurance and tips, which all resulted to a 3.2-percent increase to the brand's bottom line.

February 11, 2016

Peter Turner, founder of Illegal Pete's, hopes his business model can serve as an example for other fast casual concepts. As productivity goes up, so should employee wages, he said.

"Workers wages have gone gone sideways for about 30 years," Turner said, during his 15-minute presentation at the 2015 Fast Casual Executive Summit. "I understand we're always looking at our bottom lines, but that fact that some of our workers have to works two and three jobs is problematic to me."

He believes that it's hindering the middle class, so he provides his employees with what he defines as a "living wage." For a family of four in Denver, for example, with two working adults, each adult needs to make $17.11 per hour to stay 300 percent above the annual poverty line, according to MIT, which Turner described as a "comfortable living" that all full-time workers should have.

Based on that info, Turner implemented employee raises, allowing each person to make at least $17.11 per hour. That figure, which includes medical/dental, a food credit and tips, resulted in a 3.2-percent hit to the brand's bottom line.

Watch Turner's session to learn how that cost translated into a 5.4-percent gain for the company.

Editor's note: Turner gave one of four 15-minute discussions at the Fast Casual Executive Summit. Watch the other installmentshere.