This Week at Rotary
TODAY'S CATCH WITH KATHI TURNER
This week the club welcomed Kathi Turner, joined by her husband Jim, for a candid and engaging look at an industry most of us enjoy without ever seeing behind the kitchen door. Over thirty-five years, the Turners have built a small family of restaurants starting in Melrose, where they opened their first, and growing to two locations there, one in Salem, and a market and restaurant in Gloucester. Beyond running her own businesses, Kathi currently serves as Chair of the Board for the Massachusetts Restaurant Association.
Much of Kathi's talk pulled back the curtain on what it actually costs to keep a restaurant's doors open. One figure surprised the room: credit card fees rank as the third-largest expense restaurants face, and they run far higher here than what European operators pay. Combined with rising labor costs, those pressures have pushed the price of dining out steadily upward. Kathi offered a vivid example, the average tab for a party out to dinner has climbed in recent years from around $100 to well over $150.
Workforce is the other issue keeping restaurant owners up at night. Immigrants make up a significant share of the industry's employees, which puts immigration reform squarely on the minds of owners across the state. On both fronts, credit card fees and immigration, Kathi and the MRA are advocating at the state and federal levels for changes that would help businesses in Massachusetts and nationwide.
For all the talk of costs and policy, Kathi's central message was about community. Dining out, she reminded us, does far more than feed people. Restaurants create much-needed jobs, and she works tirelessly to change how those jobs are seen, making the case that the restaurant industry offers a genuine and rewarding career, not just a stopgap.
She speaks from experience. Kathi began her working life as a prosecutor before finding her way into restaurants, an industry that has now been her life for more than three decades. It's clear she wouldn't trade it.
We're grateful to Kathi for sharing her story and opening a door into a world that shapes our communities more than we often realize. Every time we gather around a table in Salem, Melrose, or Gloucester, we're part of it too.
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