Hungry for help — Wooster restaurants face hiring challenges

Wooster restaurants are still pushing out great food. Omahoma Bob’s brisket, Green Leaf’s fried chicken and Spoon’s kale chips are still available, but the matter of actually serving them to customers has been a challenge.

One of the frontline industries hardest hit by the virus, restaurant owners are now finding it nearly impossible to find help.

“It really feels just like no one wants these jobs anymore,” Omahoma Bob’s Joe Laughlin said.

"I'm just thrilled to get out," said one woman, sitting down to a full plate of ribs.

"It's like we're finally free to go out and enjoy ourselves again," her friend said.

They're as thrilled to be dining out again as restaurant owner Laughlin is to see customers start pouring back in.

But just when he thought he'd finally be able to start building his business back after a devastating year, he's facing a new challenge: finding enough help to keep the food coming out of the kitchen.

"There's nobody to do these jobs," Laughlin said, "and it's really starting to get kind of desperate.”

Laughlin said he's so short-staffed he's had to cut his business hours, giving up a fair amount of needed revenue. At the same time, his family is working round the clock.

"My wife and I are here from eight in the morning 'til eight at night,” he said.

Some restaurant owners said they think it's understandable why many might not be racing back to work in the restaurant industry. Maybe they’re scared about contracting the virus. Some may have decided to leave restaurant work altogether for other more stable and better-paying jobs or maybe even gone back to school to be able to find more suitable work. And with the extra government pandemic unemployment benefits, some might simply be content to stay home.

"Why would people expose themself to the risks of working in a restaurant to serve people food when they could just make more money on unemployment?" said one local restaurant manager who asked that his name not be used for fear of hurting his employment status.

"Maybe it’s just really that sometimes it's not worth the money that you get paid when you're leaving work in the wee hours of the morning, hot, sticky and exhausted," he said. "You know, like, I make enough staying home."

Oklahoma Bob’s Laughlin said, “It’s easy to blame the government, but really, we’re facing lots of different challenges.”

Laughlin said he’s been trying to hire a line cook for several weeks. It needs to be an adult as they’re working with fire and knives. “It would be great if we could just raise wages, but we operate on a very thin profit margin as it is,” he said.

Laughlin said the restaurant also is facing other challenges. “The price of meat is skyrocketing, and we’ve had lots of problems with the supply chain,” he said.

Laughlin hasn’t lost his faith that things will improve. “God will provide. So far he has; it just hasn’t been easy,” he said.

"When you hear 'I can't find any workers,' you also should say 'at the rate I’m willing to pay.' Because after all, we are talking about very low-wage jobs," Kent State University professor of economics Anwar Biteki said.

Brandi Dewalt is the manager of Wendy’s on Beall Avenue. “Even though we’ve raised wages with incentives like $12 an hour and changed pay days from biweekly to weekly, we are still struggling," she said.

Dewalt said she has, at times, been doing the jobs of sandwich maker, order taker and coordinator all at once while still trying to train people who’ve never worked fast food before.

Dewalt said the work is hard for the wages. “I’ve had lots of people quit after a day or two because they just couldn’t handle the stress,” she said.

Dewalt said she doesn’t think most people are aware of just how bad it can get. “I’ve had customers in the drive-thru throw drinks at me. I’ve even been spit on. There have been days when we've had seven call-offs, but we still needed to hang in there,” she said.

Dewalt said she thinks the added cost of childcare — now that school’s out — also prevents people from taking jobs. “It doesn't make a lot of sense to make less than you’re having to pay out,” she said.

Green Leaf manager Robert Bell said business has "taken off like a rocket" since they came back, but Green Leaf also is facing the same shortage of workers. “We’ve had openings for servers, dishwashers and hostesses,” he said.

Bell thinks workers should find better conditions working there than working fast food.

“We’re a lot more flexible than big corporations," he said. "It’s less stressful here, and there’s less responsibilities in each position. Also, our owner is very thoughtful. We get holidays off, for example.”

Applebees manager Phil Marcinkoski said they’re having trouble finding people for all their openings including hosts, servers, cooks and even dishwashers. He said a problem he sees is people are applying but then not even showing for scheduled interviews.

“I’m hoping this all changes after the 26th (the date unemployment benefits stop),” he said.

Shelly Drouhard, manager of Hero House, said they’re still limited to takeout only because they can’t find staff. “It sure gets really stressful at lunch and dinner,” she said.

The restaurant has had to limit its operation to five days a week. “I see on Facebook people asking if anyone is hiring, and I just have to ask, ‘What — really?'” Drouhard said.

Spoon owner Jordan Smith said while some of its employees have returned since COVID-19, the downtown eatery is still very short-staffed.

“There have been days when in the past we would have had around a dozen people here, but we have to work with literally just three or four people,” Smith said.

Most of the restaurants surveyed said they would do interviews with people walking in off the street on the spot.

“We’re pulling out all the stops,” Smith said.

Only time will tell whether the situation improves or if restaurant owners will have to rethink their whole business model — not an easy ask for an industry with already thin profit margins.