Applebee's exec says high gas prices could help them cut wages. Now the restaurant faces a backlash.

To Applebee's franchise executive Wayne Pankratz, surging gas prices are an opportunity for his business, rather than a downside. That's because, as he told managers in an emailed memo, the pool of people who work at Applebee's live "paycheck to paycheck" and will be forced "back into the work force" to earn more. 

Pankratz also saw another silver lining: High gas prices will increase costs for competitors, who won't be able to increase wages to the extent they had been. "We all competed to hire out of the limited applicant pool and there was a wage war," he wrote in the March 9 memo. "They will no longer be able to afford to do this."

The result, Pankratz predicted, is "hiring employees in at a lower wage to decrease our labor [costs]."