Quotes from Tom Douglas

I would love to see McDonald's pay more money.

We've become such a restaurant society.

I don't answer my phone in a restaurant.

Maybe there are too many restaurants. Maybe some of mine need to close. So be it. I'll live with the market place.

I try to eat in one of my restaurants every day, and I eat out in another restaurant every day. It's what I do.

Entrepreneurial people are never satisfied.

I think you owe it to your kids to teach them how to cook - you know, self-survival.

If you want something beautiful to put on the dinner table, pick up a sockeye, the salmon species with the most vivid red flesh.

I was $4,000 short on my first payroll.

How can anyone live off of minimum wage?

I pay a living wage, I believe in healthcare, I declare all my income, and I don't cut corners.

My wife and I decided to try and kick start our kitchens to a $15 minimum wage for cooks. I've probably had to go through and raise every menu price now by 50 cents because it took away my profit. I just underestimated what it was going to cost.

The state of Washington calls tips 'wages.'

I would say a full-time waiter in a high-price house could easily make $75,000, $80,000 a year.

I love restaurants from top to bottom.

It's hard to legislate what people eat. People are getting fed up with being told what they can and can't do. It boils down to personal responsibility. People need to read labels, do their research and act accordingly.

Every time you make a fruit crisp for me, you are my favorite person in the world. It's something delicious and warm, right out of the oven. I mean, what more could anyone want? And all you're doing is taking the best fruit of the season, putting a crumb topping on it and putting it in the oven.

I'm not exactly the best capitalist ever.

I was driving around the country when I was 19 and happened to run out of cash in Seattle, so I settled here.

Sweet Washington cherries and Walla Walla onions are two of my favorite local treats.

Thanks to the abundance of shellfish in Puget Sound, Washington State is the largest oyster producer in the country.

The lakes in Washington State give us tons of crawfish.

Every cook I knows loves to make pizza.

I'm a compassionate person, so if a product is 15 percent more than what I typically pay, and I see the purpose, I'll foster that kind of sustainability for the farmers/fishers.