I had an insightful talk with my son-in-law last week about the NYC restaurant business. He shared some interesting issues that I thought were worth sharing, in turn, with you all. He is the manager of an Upper East Side restaurant who only had to close for a couple of months during the height of the pandemic last year. They managed to hold on, adapting and shifting to outdoor dining, take-out and delivery. The city allowed them to have six parking spaces and they built a semi-permanent structure to serve their patrons. Thank goodness for outdoor dining.

There are three sides of this story coin I should share: revenue, staffing and customer’s awareness. One side is that business is booming as things have opened up in NYC and across our country. All industries are trying to find whatever their new normal is. Certainly, the revenue streams are starting to flow again. Phew!

The flip side is slightly more troubling. When they shut down last year quite a few of the staff remained on the payroll as they had been with the company for between 12 and 20 years. The owner stepped up and used PPP loans to continue financial support as a repayment for their years of loyalty. Unfortunately, the majority of the support staff wasn’t on that stipend and left to find other options or collect unemployment and have not returned. On a side note, so many people in the restaurant industry, who have spent their lives working a million hours a week, found out there is another side of life. Different options for work, making more money, in less time. As with other businesses, staffing restaurants is a huge issue.

The third side is perhaps the most disturbing: The patron’s attitudes toward existing staff. They are grateful for the regulars that have returned but beyond several handfuls of them the general traffic has seen a dramatic increase. Again, wonderful for the bottom-line revenue but rough for a short-staffed business trying to keep up with the demand. The customers lack of understanding and patience is the most surprising. My son-in-law shared several stories of patrons becoming very aggressive, downright rude and hurling vulgar quips. Some snapping their fingers and becoming confrontational to the point of being asked to leave the property.

This problem is everywhere. I think we need a public service announcement explaining that we’ve been in a pandemic and life is not lightning fast anymore. So, ____, relax and take slow sips of your Frosé, the food is coming!!!!!

I’m elated the restaurant business is coming back around the country. We all went through and are still going through a complete game-changing, life-altering pandemic. The fact that some people still have an "all about me" perspective and little empathy for frontline workers blows me away. I can honestly say my wife and I had all of our children work as servers, bussers, dishwashers and prep for our restaurant (yes, child labor). We did this mainly so they would never act like some of the patrons mentioned above. Human decency and work ethics are needed now more than ever!

My query this week is simple; do you have a greater appreciation for your fellow humans and an altered value of what’s important in life?

Live well.

The front line

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