We came back from a nice week long vacation at Myrtle Beach. It was a great trip. The weather was nice, especially since there was a tropical storm or something somewhere around the area. Some of you know, I am not the biggest fan of going to the beach and was not looking forward to this trip, mainly because the kids can make the beach very stressful. Oddly though, they were not too bad. Payton actually played in the ocean and even though Logan was afraid of the ocean a bit, he just did the sand thing. I ended up having a great time and got a much needed relaxing week.
This post is not about the trip though, not like how I normally talk about our vacations. Nothing major happened, nothing too crazy. Instead, I want to talk about the restaurants. Or maybe I should say the labor shortage. It is interesting to me that I wrote about bad service at the beach two years ago…
It seemed that almost every restaurant had a sign saying “help wanted” and there were plenty of times when a place would put people on a waiting list because they did not have enough help.
I wrote that back in 2019. That was before COVID-19. One of the things I hear frequently is the notion that people are not working because they are getting the unemployment money/extra coronavirus benefits. However, many of us in the restaurant industry have been seeing a labor shortage for a few years. Anyone trying to point to one thing or another as the reason for the shortage is probably being disingenuous . There are a multitude of reasons and it is a complex issue.
Here is some advice for those of you heading out to places like this.
- Be patient! Restaurant workers are doing the best they can. They do not want to hear about how they should hire more people or how they should pay everyone more. The hostess does not make those decisions and just wants to get through the evening. Also, speaking to the manager during those busy times is not going to help the situation. The reason you may not see a manager walking around talking to tables anymore: they are in the back cooking, prepping, doing dishes. Trust me, they are working.
- Have a plan. Winging it at the beach now is going to leave you a little upset when you find out there is a two hour wait for a table. Know which places you want to eat at and call/check online to see if you can set up a reservation. It will definitely relieve some stress.
- If you do have a reservation, do not be shocked if there is still a wait for a table. I know, it sounds weird, but this happened to us a few times. Basically some busier places just use a reservation as their way of putting your name on the wait list.
Those are just some simple things you can do to cause yourself less stress when thinking about a place for dinner, especially somewhere like Myrtle Beach or other vacation destination.
One thing I did notice was that the smaller restaurants, especially the ones with very small menus seemed to be doing quite well. I wonder if that is something we will see in the next few years. Smaller places that have very limited offerings, that way they can keep the staffing to a minimum. Just something to keep an eye on down the road.
