It's kind of crazy. We've had a mass exit from my company in the last few months. What at first looked like it was mainly a hospitality industry issue (and a little bit retail) now has to be viewed in terms of the broader job marketplace. Surprisingly, the restaurants we've been to in the last month or so seem to have been well staffed, but now we're starting to see it hit other local businesses.

On a side note, the famous Bob Chinn's recently announced it was shutting down for about a month. They said it was due to the new Cook County requirement to prove vaccination for restaurant entry. I believe that was the final straw, but it seemed like they had been struggling with both staffing and supply chain for a while now. Hopefully they get things figured out and reopen -- and restore the quality they were once known for. But it wouldn't surprise me if they don't. These other issues layered on top of staffing issues may be the end of a lot of restaurants.

Our nearest neighborhood sit down chain restaurant has reopened after, I think, a year’s closure. It’s a Beef O’Brady’s. I don’t know the facts, but the rumor was everyone quit due to lack of business and low pay. The restaurant has been taken over by a franchisee from a nearby town. We will be trying it out Thursday night. I have no idea what to expect but will keep expectations low. I’m not a huge fan of the concept but I want this place to be successful because it’s the nearest bar to my house where I can sit and order food when I’ve had enough to drink, and they actually serve something I would consider drinking and eating.

Cava is introducing a new type of restaurant that doesn't need Servers according to this article:andLink: Tomorrow's News Today - [EXCLUSIVE] First of its Kind "Cava Digital Kitchen" to Debut in Sandy Springs (February 23, 2022)
pizza takeout places

I'm a little unclear on this. Does the customer walk up to a counter to get their food when it's ready?
If so, this seems like a typical fast-casual setup but without the human cashier. Even Panera now has cell phone or kiosk ordering and you just pickup at the counter, although they still have a human cashier as an option. Am I understanding the setup correctly?

Sounds like it. All ordering is done via app or call.... then you go pick it up....

all the fast food places here now have apps although they also have in-store ordering as well.

Thanks, but, no thanks.

Read about a survey yesterday, and forgot who did it. But they found 72% of people who quit during the "great resignation" regretted it. The context was that the grass wasn't always greener in the new job.

Not necessarily related in any way, but in November last year we were personally seeing server/staff shortages everywhere. We didn't go out much in December because COVID struck the household, but in 2022 we haven't seen it at all, and have in fact had really good service the last few times we've gone out. Maybe restaurants have figured out how to deal with it, maybe now the extra federal benefits and holidays are over, or maybe the "regret" mentioned above. Or maybe all three and a few other factors, but I almost forgot it was a thing until I saw a new post here a few days ago. Wondering what people are seeing in other areas?

I feel kind of bad for service staff, but at the same time, I have no plans to dine out or have drinks out anytime soon... the one time I went for drinks during covid, the place I went to had nearly doubled their prices (not sure whether supply chain scarcity / "covid tax" / etc.)... so screw that.

We're definitely eating out less often due to inflationary prices. Yesterday, I picked up two Reubens with chips from a local deli for lunch, as I figured we should eat corned beef...$37...and that wasn't holiday pricing. It's not stopping us from going where we want, just doing it less often. I haven't yet seen it impact drink prices, but it's not like booze has ever been cheap in the Chicago area anyway. But I would refuse to eat anywhere that makes up some kind of surcharge, whether it's attributed to COVID, inflation, health care rules, etc. Fortunately it's not common here.

while I enjoyed the joys and value of at-home cooking during pandemic, I definitely just better appreciate restaurant dining & drinking. My last dive bar bill was $29 for 2 pints, one g&t, and a $10 tip because my friend and I were the ONLY patrons at 6p! Then a mad dash for book club with more drinking.
but I’m tipping 25% more than ever before - I used to just do 20%.

I kind of miss the greater value of take-out that we did a couple times a week at the height of the pandemic. Pouring your own beer and wine at home is a big money saver. But I can’t resist the pleasure I get from sitting at a bar. We will usually engage nearby drinkers in conversation. And almost inevitably end up ordering food as well. However, we are doing it once a week now, on average. We were already generous tippers and little changes that, except poor service attributable to the server (not the kitchen or other patrons or management, for example).

My wife has dinner out planned for my birthday, the first one since months before COVID started (if not close to a year before), to a rural restaurant that's (long been) only open for 1 sitting per evening just 4 days a week (so the "A" team is always on). We haven't been there in nearly 7 years so interesting to see the changes.

This is why I don't feel bad for the servers. I think generally people are being more generous and the servers are making money. I know I'm tipping a little more, just because we're so happy to be sitting inside a restaurant (it's been all over the place here over the last two years). The only time I feel bad for the servers is when they're being required to enforce mask rules or vaccine mandates. You could tell they were not comfortable with it, even when customers were trying to be totally compliant with the rules. Hopefully, those things are behind us now.

Of course, except for the 1 in 10 zealots out there, who would want or enforce this with any enthusiasm? For the life of me, I still find it astonishing the FA Union wanted the Fed mask Exec Order, and can only assume that during the spur of the moment, they were incapable or unwilling to understand the notion of unintended consequences.

From today's NumLock News:

During this past session of state legislatures, at least 10 states introduced or passed bills that in some way are designed to help the restaurant business. About 90,000 restaurants in the U.S. closed from March 2020 to May 2021, and those that endured are working against inflationary pressures as well as decreased foot traffic in many downtowns. The National Restaurant Association’s projections put 2022 restaurant sales at $898 billion, which would be up from the $864 billion in sales logged back in 2019. However, that’ll happen when they’re short-staffed: Employment will rise by 400,000 this year to 14.9 million jobs, which is still down half a million since 2019.