California fast food workers now earn $20 per hour. Franchisees are responding by cutting hours

Lawrence Cheng, whose family owns seven Wendy’s locations south of Los Angeles, took orders at the register on a recent day and emptied steaming hot baskets of French fries and chicken nuggets, salting them with a flourish. Cheng used to have nearly a dozen employees on the afternoon shift at his Fountain Valley location in Orange County.