Restaurant managers are exhausted, and exasperated by the labor crisis. Restaurant staff demand better working conditions, better pay & benefits.

The truth is, they’re all justified in their convictions. I spoke with an industry veteran today that basically said “I’m this close to leaving the industry altogether”.

The team’s who’ve toughed it out through the pandemic and now find themselves STILL doing the work of three people as the rest of the country appears to be getting back to “normal”, are fraying.

I spoke to someone today that said they’ve eaten out twice in the past week and the service in both restaurants was awful. To the extent they doubled up on drinks because they didn’t want to wait 30 minutes for their second round.

Pre pandemic, the industry was cracked. That crack has now become a chasm, and I suspect will eventually fracture completely.

Owners, operators & managers everywhere are trying to make sense of it, but this event is so dynamic, so complex and fast moving it’s hard to analyze the layers objectively.

No one has the answer, and it’s hurting all parties, including the consumer, in a way that will change the industry for years to come. This isn’t going to get better anytime soon folks and the post pandemic surge is upon us. Buckle up.

I’ve said this before but it’s worth repeating. The widening restaurant gap will mimic the wealth gap in this country. The big will get bigger, and the small will be forced to get smaller. The mid-sized operators will languish or shrink.

All this to say, I have no solution to offer, but I believe deeply in this prognosis.