Restaurants are short of staff, and it’s taking a toll on customers and employees alike – Henry Club

Jeff Rothenberg has become accustomed to waiting long hours at restaurants, even when the tables are clearly open.

“At another restaurant we went outside in open seats, but when we went to the host, they told us the kitchen was short of staff,” Rothenberg, director of operations for a California-based fintech firm, told CNBC. “So although he had a place to sit, he was going to put us on a 30-minute waiting list to be seated.”

Rothenberg was on a 30-minute waiting list for about an hour, he said. Then, after sitting down, he waited for another 45 minutes for his food to arrive.

“It was the type of experience that didn’t make me want to eat that much,” he said. “I felt bad for the servers, because they were trying, but they could only do so much, not cook enough.”

This is a scenario that has been replicated in the food service industry since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020, and is taking a toll on restaurants and their employees.

The lockdown in the spring of that year led to layoffs and furloughs for many cooks and waitstaff, prompting the federal government to return billions of dollars in forgivable loans to small businesses. The disease devastated the American workforce, killing more than a million people over the course of two years, while sickening many more, According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

As states eased their restrictions, restaurant employment improved, although the industry is still down to 750,000 jobs – about 6.1% of its workforce – from pre-pandemic levels, according to May, the National Restaurant Association. According to.

Customers are seeing the difference. In the first quarter of 2022, customers reported more than three times as many staff shortages in their bark Reviews compared to the year-ago period, according to the restaurant review site. Mentions of long waiting increased by 23%.

Health care worker Nev Wright told CNBC outside the Firebirds Wood Fire Grill in Eatontown, New Jersey, “I think the experience since COVID has been different. I see that the restaurant industry has changed a lot.” “It wasn’t always like this – now it takes time, with expense and staff crunch and everything.”

The American Customer Satisfaction Index found that consumers were less happy with the fast-food chain this year than in 2021 – the sector’s score slipped from 78 to 76 out of 100. Customers were less satisfied with and about the speed and accuracy of their orders. Restaurant cleanliness and layout.

According to ACSI’s annual report, customer satisfaction scores for independent and small chain restaurants also fell this year from 81 to 80 out of 100. Some national full-service chains saw their scores drop even more year over year: Dine Brands’ Applebees dropped 5%, Darden Restaurant‘Olive Garden 4%, and Inspire Brands’ Buffalo Wild Wings 3%.

Restaurants aren’t the only businesses looking at customer service given the labor crisis. According to the Department of Transportation, US consumer complaints against airlines more than quadrupled in April from pre-pandemic levels. hotelier Hilton Worldwide On the company’s quarterly earnings call in May, CEO Christopher Nassetta said he was not satisfied with its customer service and needed more workers.

For restaurants, staffing challenges have put pressure on an industry already battling inflation and recovering sales lost from the pandemic. Alexandria Restaurant PartnersThe group, which owns and manages eight restaurants in Florida and Northern Virginia, has dramatically changed the way it does business.

ARP founding member Dave Nichols said, “We’re not sure where all the workforce went, but a lot of them have disappeared, from managers to cooks.

Now, Nichols said, his focus is on hiring and retention. The group opened a recruiting position and now has two full-time recruiters working to bring much needed employees into jobs with higher pay and better benefits than the group.

Nichols said, “Before, you could rent them as fast as you could. These days, that’s not the case.” “Our mission is to be the employer of choice. It comes with benefits we didn’t have before, for servers, busboys, and dishwashers. It costs a lot, but the turnover costs are huge, so we weighed it in.” “

But not all workers are taking home more wages, even if their baseline wages have gone up. Saru Jayaraman, director of the Food Labor Research Center at the University of California Berkeley and president of One Fair Wage, who advocates abandoning tipped wages, said frustration from mindlessness often leads to low wages for workers. In turn, low wages cause many restaurant workers to quit, further compounding the problem.

“It’s a vicious cycle of people being unhappy with service who may tip low, then they don’t come back, and sales drop,” she said.

The restaurant industry has historically struggled with high turnover. The issue has only intensified during the COVID pandemic as employees want better pay and working conditions, worry about getting sick, and have difficulty caring for a child. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the housing and food service sectors had a 5.7% rate in May.

Nichols said that despite the recent rollout of the ARP retention bonus and partner program, in addition to higher wages and better benefits, it has been a “battle” for the labor market to contend with.

Full-service restaurants have been hit harder by the labor crisis than limited-service eateries, which have 11% fewer employees than pre-pandemic levels.

And that means the dining out experience will no longer be the same.

“Going to a restaurant and bringing them bread with butter,” said Nicholas Harry, owner of Barrel & Roast, a restaurant in Red Bank, New Jersey, “the days are over.”