A waiter works at a restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia, on June 3, 2022.
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images
Jeff Rothenberg has become accustomed to long wait times in restaurants, even when the tables are visibly open.
“Another restaurant we went to had open seats outside, but when we went to the host, we were told that the kitchen had little staff,” Rothenberg, a company’s chief operating officer, told CNBC California-based fintech. “So even though I had seats, he was going to put us on a 30-minute waiting list to sit us down.”
Rothenberg was on the 30-minute waiting list for nearly an hour, he said. Then, after sitting down, he waited another 45 minutes for the food to arrive.
“It was the kind of experience that makes me not want to eat so much outside,” he said. “I felt bad for the servers, because they were trying, but they could only do so much, without having enough cooks.”
This is a scenario that has been repeated in the food service industry since the Covid pandemic began in 2020, and is also affecting restaurants and their staff.
The spring blockades that year led to layoffs and layoffs for many chefs and waiters, prompting the federal government to back billions of dollars in forgivable loans for small businesses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the disease ravaged the U.S. workforce, killing more than a million people for more than two years and making many millions more sick.
As states eased their restrictions, employment in restaurants recovered, although the industry has still dropped 750,000 jobs, about 6.1% of its workforce, from previous levels. to the pandemic in May, according to the National Restaurant Association.
Customers are noticing the difference. During the first quarter of 2022, customers mentioned a short template three times more often in their Yelp reviews than in the year-ago period, according to the restaurant review site. Mentions of long waits increased by 23%.
“I think the experience has been different since Covid. I see the catering industry has changed a lot,” Nev Wright, a health worker, told CNBC outside Firebirds Wood Fired Grill in Eatontown, New Jersey. “It wasn’t always like that; now it takes time, with expenses and staff shortages and all.”
The U.S. customer satisfaction index found that consumers were less satisfied with fast food chains this year compared to 2021: the industry’s score dropped to 76 out of 100, from 78. Customers were less satisfied with the speed and accuracy of their orders and with the cleanliness and distribution of the restaurant.
Customer satisfaction scores for independent restaurants and small chains also fell this year, to 80 out of 100, from 81, according to the ACSI annual report. Some full-service national chains saw their results drop even further year-over-year: Applebees from Dine Brands down 5%, Olive Garden from Darden Restaurants down 4% and Buffalo Wild Wings from Inspire Brands down 3%.
“Everything is very strange”
Theresa Berweiler, a resident of Eatontown, said that over the past year she has been constantly met with early closing times and long waits at restaurants, even when they are not busy.
“I’m 64 and I’ve never seen anything like this,” the receptionist told CNBC Wednesday outside a local Chick-fil-A. “Everything is very strange. Covid has definitely changed the world, and I’m not sure for the better.”
Restaurants are not the only companies that see how the labor crisis affects customer service. U.S. consumer complaints against airlines more than quadrupled from pre-pandemic levels in April, according to the Department of Transportation. Hotelier Hilton Worldwide is unhappy with its own customer service and needs more workers, CEO Christopher Nassetta said in the company’s quarterly earnings call in May.
For restaurants, staffing challenges have put pressure on an industry that is already fighting inflation and recovering lost pandemic sales. Alexandria Restaurant Partners, a group that owns and manages eight restaurants in Florida and northern Virginia, has drastically changed the way it does business.
“We’re not sure where all the labor went, but a lot of them are gone, from managers to chefs and hourly workers,” said Dave Nicholas, a founding member of ARP.
A chef prepares food in the kitchens of Café Tu Tu Tango, a popular restaurant in Orlando, Florida.
Source: Alexandria Restaurant Partners
Now, Nicholas said, his focus is on hiring and retention. The group opened a hiring position and now has two full-time recruiters working to incorporate much-needed employees into jobs with higher wages and better profits than the group has ever had.
“Before, you could hire them as fast as you needed them. These days, that’s not the case,” Nicholas said. “Our mission is to be the chosen employer. This has advantages that we may not have had before, even servers, busboys and dishwashers. The cost has been huge, but the cost of turnover is huge, so we weighed. That. “
But not all workers take home more pay, even though their basic wages are rising. Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California Berkeley and president of One Fair Wage, which advocates tipping salary dropout, said frustration over staff shortages often leads to lower tips for workers. In turn, lower wages cause many restaurant employees to quit smoking, aggravating the problem.
“It’s a vicious circle of people dissatisfied with the service they can give less, then they don’t come back and sales go down,” he said.
The restaurant industry has historically struggled with great rotation. The problem has only intensified during the Covid pandemic, as employees seek better wages and working conditions, worry about getting sick, and have difficulty finding care for children. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the housing and food services sectors had a dropout rate of 5.7% in May.
Nicholas said that despite recent ARP launches of retention bonuses and partner programs, in addition to higher wages and better profits, it has been a “battle” to face the job market.
Full-service restaurants have been more affected than limited-service restaurants due to the labor crisis, with a 11% reduction in staff compared to pre-pandemic levels.
And that means the experience of eating out will probably no longer be the same.
“Go to a restaurant and have them bring bread and butter,” said Nicholas Harary, owner of Barrel & Roost, a restaurant in Red Bank, New Jersey, “these days are over.”