Staffing, food costs, supplies dampen restaurant reopenings

But “(full reopening) is a double-edged sword,” said Todd Mill, owner of the Rail Station & Ale House, 29 N. Columbia St.

Back in March 2020, Mill said he and his staff distributed about 17,000 free meals in the two months after Gov. Jay Inslee shut down businesses across the state.

The project started as a way to avoid wasting the excess food they had after shutting down. It ended up becoming popular, so they decided to continue as long as possible until the money ran out, according to Mill.

Now a year later, it’s a huge relief to move forward with business as it is meant to, but the restaurant does not have enough employees to serve at full capacity, Mill said.

At 21 employees and a maximum capacity of about 400 people at the restaurant, the staff can handle, at most, about 80% capacity, he said.

“Customers are dying to come out and eat,” Mill said. “(On Wednesday) I had to turn away 40 people who wanted to come in and eat because I just didn’t have the staff to serve them. I said, ‘It’s going to be a couple hours.’ They got angry and left. I don’t have the staff to serve them right now.”

Mill said the restaurant operated with about 28 employees before the pandemic. He is looking for experienced cooks and prep cooks along with some servers and dishwashers to bring the restaurant back up to speed.

“For a long time, we were trying to keep employees working even when there wasn’t any work,” Mill said. “Now, we’re at the point where we have so much work that we don’t have enough employees to do it all.”

Concerns about labor will likely continue until the majority of the workforce returns sometime in the fall or winter, according to Shiloh Burgess, Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce executive director.

It is an issue of childcare for many families, Burgess said.

“Parents want to make sure their kids are going back to school full time,” she said. “There’s a lot of folks that are hesitating making any kind of move until they know their kids will have stable care.”

This labor shortage is probably the valley’s fate for the summer, according to Burgess.

“(The community) has done well in a lot of ways, but there’s still some ground that we need to cover before we can really be back to full operations,” Burgess said.

Salvador Rubio, owner of two Mexican restaurants in Wenatchee and Yakima, said his businesses have avoided this issue by holding onto his pre-pandemic employees.

The entire staff all decided to return or stay on while working fewer hours when they reopened back in February, Rubio said. Now that the state has fully reopened, his 19 employees are working full time and are happy to be back to normal, he said.

And his customers are happy to be back, according to Rubio. The first weekend after reopening, Rubio saw many familiar customers coming back and is appreciative of this community that has supported his business and staff.

One thing that has not returned to normal is the price of food, which has skyrocketed since last year, Rubio said.

Transportation issues and increased labor costs in manufacturing may be affecting this increase in price, according to Burgess.

Restaurants like Ay Caramba Tres Amigos and Rail Station are seeing food prices double, with some items becoming scarce. A 40-pound box of chicken that cost $60 pre-pandemic has now doubled in price, according to Rubio.

“It’s noticeable when I buy supplies,” Rubio said in Spanish. “But while we have clients, we’re going to make it. We’ll be able to survive.”

Along with cost increases, Mill said he has to work around whatever random assortment of items are out of stock with his suppliers.

“(The supplies) just don’t come in,” said Mill. “I’m three and a half weeks out now that I can’t get lemon juice. Every day it’s something new.”

For South restaurants co-owner Price Gledhill, the full reopening also brings mixed feelings.

Sales this year so far have been about 15% better than in 2019 despite getting a late start into the year. The governor moved the North Central region into Phase 2 of his “Roadmap to Recovery” reopening plan in February.

“It’s been fabulous as far as the community support for both restaurants when we reopened,” Gledhill said. “People are hungry. They want to be out. They’re tired of being cooped up.”

The issue, like Rail Station and so many other businesses, is South restaurants don’t have enough staff to increase to full capacity.

The restaurant at Pybus Public Market is doing well, but for the Leavenworth restaurant, capacity is at about 50%, Gledhill said. Five positions are open at the Leavenworth restaurant, mostly servers and bartenders, he said.

Gledhill said he has added benefits and increased wages to try and make the positions more desirable, but for now they will have to make do with what they have.