APPLE-METRO CHAIRMAN & CEO ZANE TANKEL TELLS FOX BUSINESS THAT BECAUSE OF THE OBAMACARE MANDATE “WE WON’T BUILD MORE RESTAURANTS. WE WON’T HIRE MORE PEOPLE”
Apple-Metro Chairman & CEO Zane Tankel spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Stuart Varney about his concerns surrounding the Obamacare mandate with his Applebee’s restaurants. Tankel said that Obamacare will cost him “millions of dollars across our system,” and as a result, “we won’t build more restaurants. We won’t hire more people.” When asked whether Tankel is looking to move to a part-time work force he said, “we are evaluating, if it’s possible to do without cutting people back I am delighted to do it, but that also rolls back expansion, it rolls back hiring more people.”
Excerpts from the interview are below:
On whether Obamacare will take away from profitability:
“Sure it does, look there’s three ways it has to come back. It’s real simple, more efficiencies, reduce overhead or raise prices. Let’s look at each. In this environment you can’t raise prices particularly in our space, it’s not possible. Efficiencies, hopefully we got all of our efficiencies. We’ve just faced three terrible years in the environment and the economy. We’ve been enforcing and putting more and more in every year. So then it’s cut back on overhead.”
On how much Obamacare will cost a restaurant of 300 employees:
“We’ve calculated it will be some millions of dollars across our system. So what does that say, that says we won’t build more restaurants. We won’t hire more people. Exactly the opposite effect on what the President.”
On whether he plans to move to a more part-time work force:
“The models been set, I am sure all our people are watching this right now so I don’t want to make any commitments one way or another. I want to simply say we are looking at it, we are evaluating, if it’s possible to do without cutting people back I am delighted to do it, but that also rolls back expansion, it rolls back hiring more people, and in a best case scenario, we only shrink the labor force minimally.”
On what President Obama needs to do going forward:
“I think he’s got to sit down, get in a dark closet. He’s got to use the White House to make friends, forget about dinner with Malia and his wife and all the kids and invite the various parties over to the White House. Use that asset as previous Presidents have done. Have them for dinner instead of quitting and going to dinner with the family. He’s the President of the Unites States.”
