This has also been discussed in Hawaii forum and TRs under the TR category. Insufficient staff because of uncertainty of upcoming business. Bandwagon clients like me who prefer saving money and now rarely go to any restaurant whether service or Carryout. I would gladly cook every future meal at home even if “cook” means to reheat something bought at Costco. I’m a decade in “overspend” so it’ll take me over a decade to just save money with groceries versus any restaurant. That the service is less just makes me less interested. I don’t really care about the reasons for service because it’s ultimately none of my business how others choose to live when I’m not affected. I’m already too busy making sure that any at-risk people aren’t coming near me when I’m out of the house.

No, but I think all nativists would be complainants of "poor" (or foreign-accented) English spoken by servers.

Back to the labour situation, it reminds me of a photocopied cartoon saying my bike mechanic had decades ago

boiled down t "fast good cheap, pick two" or not even one as far as its goes with trades where I am.

A few weeks back my sister told me about a restaurant near her being unable to find staff. The owner blamed it on overly-generous Covid unemployment/benefits. She was telling the story as a means of political critique ("government handouts," that sort of thing).

I was initially skeptical, but after thinking about it I realized that in certain sectors of the economy, this probably IS true. I mean, few people really plan to make a career of serving tables, do they? It's not like in France.

A few days later I saw the retort from the other side. "Employers are paying such low wages and have such poor working conditions that workers don't want to return if they don't have to."

Myself, I think both arguments are right. They're not really mutually exclusive, are they? (It's nice that people in this thread have maintained the objective, civil tone of the OP.)

I also wonder if the switch to take-out may have some lasting effect. I've gotten so accustomed to it, I doubt I'll ever return to as much eating out as before. Maybe they won't need as many servers going forward?

I see a lot of places going to an order-at-the-counter type of thing to save on staffing. This was already a trend in my area pre-Covid but seems to be increasing in popularity. Rising labor costs and regulations has made it difficult to maintain the status-quo so things are definitely changing. I worked in the biz for 15 years and have spent tons of time in restaurants as a consumer. When it's done right, ordering at the counter can be okay.... when it's done wrong it can be miserable. Mainly, places have to find a way to avoid making people just stand in line for long periods. Phone apps, tablets, enough counter staff, whatever... It's not even a matter of getting your stuff quickly. It's just kind of a drag to go out in hopes of spending time with certain people only to end up standing in line with a bunch of strangers waiting to order something.

The summer tourist season in the Florida panhandle has long functioned on the backs of H2B visas- typically college kids fro ma middle income country (Brazil, Romania, Russia, Bulgaria) who were here both for the money and because time spent working in America and really fluent language skills that often brought better job opportunities once they graduated. Summer unemployment here typically runs less than 4% so nope, not taking jobs away from local Americans.

Exactly what they were designed for. The issue last year, as I understand it, was that it was difficult to believe that after millions of US restaurant workers lost their jobs we needed a foreign labor supply to supplement. I think that time has passed and the visa program should be re-opened. Of course, the other issue is even with visas, it can be difficult to get into the country because of COVID issues. Just like all things COVID, it appears a return to normalcy may be a longer transition than we expected.

I saw an interview with someone from Challenger, Gray, and Christmas (the consulting firm) this morning. He largely confirmed the data shows that the increased unemployment benefits are a major reason for the problem. Paraphrasing him, people don't want to go back to work when they're making as much as they were at their job.

Living in Panama City, I’ve met quite a few of them. The same was true in East Tennessee - I was amazed at all the Eastern European accents behind the counters in Gatlinburg. It’s funny though, growing up it was different. There, Cape Cod was the place with a low population and high demand for seasonal restaurant and shop workers. I had friends that filled those roles between semesters of college and after high school, living in cramped dormitories and surviving Campbells soup and Wonder bread.

At least the Eastern Europeans are understandable. Not at all like the Comcast (or fill in the blank) call centers in India and the Philippines. Those workers seem to have larger English vocabularies but much thicker accents.

The story behind the “I don’t want to work there” is likely a combination of poor hours, poor pay, no benefits and poor patronage. The Subway in the same shopping center has cut back hours due to lack of help. I have read less than stellar reviews of the places that are failing to attract employees. That keeps the crowds low, and it’s a vicious cycle. Some of these places won’t recover, no matter what and might not deserve to.

I have been hoping that the places that close will reopen with new owners, new concepts. There will have to be some very good deals on spaces and equipment after the big shake out. But without employees, possibly not.

I’m a little tired of takeout after twice a week for a year. One way we are coping is lunch at 3 in the afternoon. Places are open and uncrowded. Service is respectable and the food comes out pretty quickly as well.

I'm sure that's true for some, and it's actually always been the case in the hospitality industry. The two new variables that have been introduced are a pandemic and getting paid the same amount to not work - so now they have a choice that didn't exist before. I can also see some people simply saying they don't want to work there because they fear contracting the virus. One would hope and assume that fear would be diminishing as people are vaccinated though.

It isn't just virus fear. In some areas, it is disgusting and disrespectful customer behavior, spewing political hatred at a server just trying to do his/her job. Last week, I had a server thank me when I went to pull up my mask as she approached. (Generally, compliance around here is very high, as well as respect for the comfort level of whomever may be around you.) When I was recently in Honolulu, I witnessed such behavior. The locals were beside themselves. On my taxi ride back to HNL, the driver was relaying a incident from the prior evening, when a waitress, who just got off her shift, broke down and cried in the taxi due to the barrage of disrespect thrown at her during her shift while she was just trying to have her customers obey the local rules.

I've lived in a "server shortage" region for years. Most restaurants can't pay enough for people to live around here - at least not on a single income. A dear friend (still mostly unemployed) had a job for 15+ years at a long time local spot, made a decent amount of money, and still needed a second part time job to make ends meet with a very frugal lifestyle (i.e., home cooking, one vacation in 5+ years, old car, etc.)

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. If I were a restaurant owner at the end of a not-great lease term, and my landlord wasn't willing to have a serious chat, I'd give thought to shopping around for a lovely built out space and move. There will be a lot of them - with multi-6 figure build outs, sitting vacant.

The extended federal unemployment benefits work out to about $7.50 an hour for a 40 hour week. If an employer is still trying to pay less than minimum wage because of the ‘server exemption’, basic economics would indicate that most people aren’t going to jump at a $5.63 an hour (FL minimum wage for tipped employees) and less than 40 hours per week.

Let’s face it, restaurants are competing with a lot of jobs that pay a lot more with less exposure to the public. Plus, the tips have been so poor due to the pandemic. You simply can’t afford to live on ‘server wages’.

Restaurants are in a squeeze but they are going to have to stop paying below minimum wage and expecting the customers to subsidize via tips.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/d...e=articleShare

Do you want to work for one of the restaurants? Maybe you can work as an investor / manager / staffer at your favorites.

it’ll be interesting if former restaurant consumers like me return or continue to eschew. Even with a busy baseball month of 2-3 practices / scrimmages on weekdays 4:30-6:30 plus the saturday game, I’m still preferring to just reheat / prep things in the fridge as opposed to getting carryout.

We still dine at home 6 nights a week. That usually involves preparing 3 meals and serving leftovers the other 3 nights. We’ve begun the hot season and so the screen porch is no longer comfortable and that’s where we would enjoy takeout. So, dining out is going to be one night a week.

We stopped at a World of Beer this afternoon after an hour of looking at flooring samples. At 3:00, happy hour had just begun and there were more bartenders than patrons at the bar. It’s Cinco de Mayo, fer Chrissakes. They started to wander in as we were leaving at 4:30. This is a place that, IME, is packed every time I go in. I hope the full staff is a good omen.

I don’t really want to work anywhere. I’m retired for good. I do like the idea of investing in a restaurant, but I don’t think that helps the staffing issues and I don’t enjoy losing money, which seems likely without servers and cooks.

Here's a take but I don;t think it is going to change any made-up minds.

https://www.eater.com/22417344/resta...benefits-risks

great read. Thank you.

It didn’t change mine. Here in Florida, I don’t see a lot of fear anymore. Vaccinations are open to every adult. The fear was amongst us old folks and we took to Pfizer and Moderna like they were the fountain of youth. I just don’t think workers are staying out of restaurants because they’re worried about getting sick. I think they’re staying home because it’s a crappy job that doesn’t pay well and there is an alternative means of income at the moment.