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BY SARAH KUTA
with Big Red F founder Dave Query PHOTOS COURTESY OF BIG RED F RESTAURANT GROUP
DAVE QUERY IS A BUSY MAN. WITH FOUR DIFFERENT RESTAURANT CONCEPTS — JAX FISH HOUSE & OYSTER BAR, WEST END TAVERN, CENTRO MEXICAN KITCHEN AND THE POST CHICKEN AND BEER — AND MORE THAN A DOZEN LOCATIONS IN COLORADO (AND ONE IN KANSAS CITY), QUERY DOESN’T GET MUCH TIME TO RELAX. AND HE’S PERFECTLY OK WITH THAT.
Query, a self-described workaholic at age 58, founded his Big Red F restaurant group 27 years ago and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down yet. We sat down with Query to learn more about his approach to hospitality and the restaurant business. What was the COVID-19 pandemic like for your restaurants? What pivots did you make and why? It was crazy. It’s hard to ever plan for something like that. One of our big focuses was tackling pay inequity during that time and making a switch to something we had talked about for a long time, but the pandemic gave us the opportunity to finally tackle that pay inequity between the front and back of the house. So when we reopened, we moved into a tip-sharing model and created top-of-market wages for every position. Colorado’s minimum wage is now $12.32 an hour and with our tip-sharing model, the lowest-paid employee we have now makes $22 an hour. We’ve got dishwashers making $22 to $24 an hour, and cooks making upwards of $28 to $30 an hour. And it’s been great. It’s really helped to close the gap between the front and back of house, which was already a huge inequity and for some employees, who are
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WINTER-SPRING 2021-2022
working two and three jobs, this was a great opportunity for us to really figure that out and stop that. You almost had to have a reboot. It’s hard to make a change just out of the blue, so coming out of COVID-19, everything was up for grabs at that point and so it wasn’t as hard to make a change because we had just lived through the craziest thing of our lives, why not do something else crazy? What’s your overarching vision for Big Red F restaurants in terms of expansion and future plans? We’re trying to take advantage of some opportunities coming out of the pandemic and we have plans to grow the Post Chicken and Beer joints, so we opened one in Estes Park and we’re opening one in Fort Collins. We also launched Big Red F Catering and Provisions, and we bought a food truck — we named her Queenie. She’s running around now as people are changing their catering and their partying habits. We’re trying to alter our ability to offer food in a way that lends itself to more of the outdoor and alternative event and party spaces, and certainly having a truck helps us to be a little more nimble in that pursuit.
