WYOMING — After the Thursday morning breakfast rush had faded but before the lunch rush got underway, Avenue Restaurant and Catering owner Dave Krappa looked around the dining room of his Wyoming Avenue eatery and took a breath.
“The biggest downfall right now is the shortage of staff,” Krappa said.
“We set up interviews, we allocate time for them, they don’t show,” he added. “When they do show, they look around and see how short-handed we are, how busy, and walk out the door.”
Krappa is not alone. Restaurant operators around the region — like their counterparts across Pennsylvania and nationwide — say they are struggling to recruit staff as demand continues to rebound from its decimation during the depths of the pandemic last year.
But the much-discussed labor shortage affects restaurant and hospitality businesses in other ways that may be less immediately apparent to the consumer.
The shortage affects not just who’s doing the serving but what’s available to serve. A change in unemployment benefits and proposed legislation in Harrisburg could bring some relief, industry sources say.
Shortages of goods
Producers are having trouble producing the goods restaurants need thanks to their own struggles in finding workers. Compounding the problem, vendors who sell and deliver those products to the restaurants are hit by their own shortages of goods and lack of enough employees to package and deliver those goods.
“Every single morning from vendors I’m getting emails or texts saying ‘hey, there’s not a lot of cases of this you’d better grab it.’ Or ‘hey, we don’t know when this or that is coming back.’ Or they discontinued a certain item because they don’t have the people to produce it,” Krappa said.
The paucity of people power means what you see on your plate at your favorite diner may be more expensive than it used to be, if it’s available at all.
“Anything that requires employees for production and delivery is affected,” said Lindo Sabatini, third-generation owner of Sabatini’s Pizza in Exeter, which operates a restaurant as well as a bar and bottle shop.
Consider the humble but beloved chicken wing.
Before the pandemic, wings might cost $2 to $3 per pound, Sabatini said. Now he’s looking at a cost of $4 to $5 per pound. A 40-pound box of assorted chicken parts went for $36, but has climbed to over $80.
“I could probably list 30 items for which the cost has gone up 100% or more,” Sabatini added.
Armand Mascioli, owner of the Grotto Pizza chain, says he has had to raise prices in his restaurants, but that the cost of wings in particular is something he has struggled with, as vendors are charging more and the available wings are smaller.
“We’ve had a robust wing business. It’s one of our staples,” Mascioli said. “The customers are disappointed when they see the price increase.”
Grotto has considered gently urging customers to choose items other than wings in its three area locations — Harveys Lake, Edwardsville and outside the Wyoming Valley Mall — he explained.
“It’s embarrassing,” Mascioli said.
John Longstreet, President and CEO of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, sees the collision of staffing and supply trends statewide.
“I’ve heard about shortages in just about every area of the menu. If you’re going out to eat, you’re going to see more menu items unavailable,” Longstreet said Friday.
“Companies that deliver supplies are telling restaurants they no longer have the capability of providing them service,” he added.
Legislative remedy for labor shortage?
Like restaurateurs at street level, Longstreet sees the labor shortage as key to the industry’s woes.
“Folks are going out, applying for the jobs, then don’t show up,” Longstreet said.
That’s something that frustrates local restaurateurs, as Krappa and others indicated.
“They waste our time and don’t even bother to come in,” Sabatini said. “They just don’t even show up.”
Mascioli sees the same thing at Grotto.
“We’ll set up six or eight interviews and maybe one will show up, two at the most,” he said, adding that there have been cases of people who were actually offered jobs and simply never replied or came to work.
What can be done? Longstreet and PRLA have been working with the industry and lawmakers to find solutions.
He and area business owners the Times Leader spoke with hope some relief may come with changes to the unemployment system. Temporary federal benefits end Sept. 4, which could mean potential employees have less of an incentive to turn down jobs, employers said.
Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry regulations do require unemployment recipients to prove what they’ve done to seek work.
Longstreet said PRLA has spoken with the Department of Labor in the past week about “ghost interviews,” and was told that the agency considers not showing up for an interview as the equivalent of refusing to look for work.
He is hopeful potential legislation could result in a strengthening of those regulations and their enforcement.
State Rep. Shelby Labs, R-Bucks County, announced earlier this month that she intends to introduce a bill to clarify the state’s unemployment law regarding actions that can disqualify job seekers from collecting benefits if they “discourage their own hire.”
The proposed House Bill 1819 would not create new policy “and would not create any additional requirements for any claimant who is searching for and applying for work in good faith,” Labs wrote in a memorandum.
According to Labs, here’s what it would do:
“My legislation will clarify that a claimant is not eligible in any week that they discourage their own hire by taking actions including, but not limited to:
• Failure or refusal to attend a job interview or other applicant selection activity related to a job the claimant applied for without good cause;
• Refusing a job prior to an interview or a discussion of the details of a job with the employer; or
• Failing to make a good faith effort to obtain employment, as evidenced by any statement or other actions of the claimant intended to discourage the claimant’s hire.
“My bill will also require that the Department of Labor and Industry create forms, or update existing forms, within 90 days of the effective date to enable employers to report claimants who discourage their own hire,” Labs added.
Promoting hospitality jobs
In the meanwhile, PRLA has been focused on getting the word out that jobs are available in the sector. They have an initiative called “Level Up” in which openings are promoted on a variety of platforms.
“We’re trying to encourage people to consider the hospitality industry that might not have considered it before,” Longstreet said, “whether career oriented or looking for a gig job.”
There are upwards of 1,000 positions listed on the group’s jobs board, he said.
At the same time, he said that individual restaurateurs are getting more creative as well.
“Some businesses are enhancing referral programs,” he said, such as offering hefty sign-on bonuses for positions including cashiers and line cooks.
“I’ve never seen that done before,” Longstreet said.
Other approaches
Restaurants also have had to figure out other ways to survive, Longstreet said, such as branching out into takeout and delivery and modifying their physical spaces.
At Avenue, for example, Krappa added an outdoor patio, an investment he believes will make the restaurant more attractive and also serves as a backup if indoor dining is affected again in the future.
One change that has been noticeable across the industry: Most eateries have been changing hours and days of operations.
“The biggest reason for the change in hours isn’t public demand for the services but staffing,” Longstreet said. “They have to pick the prime hours of operation.”
The good news, Longstreet added, is that many customers seem to be taking the changes in stride and adapting, as Grotto has found.
The chain’s Gateway Shopping Center location in Edwardsville is no longer open on Tuesdays, while the Harveys Lake location has pushed opening hours back from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The various locations also sometimes have to close early due to lack of staff, Mascioli said.
“Our customer base has been very sympathetic and understanding,” he added.
Avenue Restaurant and Catering used to be open 24 hours on the weekends, which Krappa has ended, and he’s also closing around the holidays — including Independence Day and Labor Day — to give staff more breaks.
Right now he has a staff of about 25, and understands why the pandemic prompted some to leave.
“A few decided to change their careers because restaurants got hit so hard. They didn’t want to take a chance that something like this happened again. I don’t blame them,” he said.
But with demand for dining out re-surging and Avenue’s catering business growing, Krappa said he could use at least 15 to 20 additional employees.
In the meanwhile, the shortage means Krappa is working lots of long hours, finding himself in the kitchen of his family business more often than he used to be.
“Luckily I do have a lot of key employees here, loyal ones. But we’re looking for a lot more,” he said.