Restaurant restrictions loosened, but workers hard to find in Western Pennsylvania

Apr. 10—"Help wanted" signs at restaurants across the region are as noticeable as menus, as businesses scramble to hire enough workers to serve more customers under loosened indoor dining restrictions.

Restaurant owners and managers have been challenged to find enough workers to stay open longer and feed customers in a timely manner. The problem has become more acute since Gov. Tom Wolf raised the limits on indoor dining to 75% of capacity, while maintaining social distance requirements.

"It's hard to get people," said Joann Manns, manager of the popular Lupi & Leo restaurant on Route 30 in Hempfield.

A lack of kitchen help forced Manns to close on a recent weekday.

Too often, those who apply for open positions want to work on their own terms, Manns said. That includes requests to be paid "under the table," or without documentation and taxes — an illegal arrangement that would allow a worker to continue to collect unemployment benefits.

Others make appointments for interviews, often multiple times, but never show up, Manns said.

"That's the No. 1 challenge — to get staff," said John Longstreet, president of the Pennsylvania Restaurant and Lodging Association, a trade group in Harrisburg.

More people are either returning to work at restaurants and bars in the seven-county Pittsburgh region or are new hires. Employment in that sector has grown slowly in the past three months, reaching 66,100 jobs in February, up from 63,100 in December, according to the state's Center for Workforce Information and Analysis.

While that trend may give the appearance of a healthier industry locally, it remains 21,000 jobs shy of those seen in February 2020 — a month before pandemic-related restrictions and shutdowns came from state officials.

The staff at Parkwood Inn, a stalwart in Southwest Greensburg, knows for sure they need help. They have help wanted signs along Route 119 and on the heavily traveled ramp to Route 30.

"We're looking for people all across the board," manager Mike Nicolai said.

So far, the effort has not generated a lot of interest.

Parkwood Inn is in the enviable position of having customers. It's just a matter of being able to serve them.

"There's a general lack of applicants," Nicolai said.

Antonelli's Event Center in Irwin also is looking for workers, manager Joey Marshall said.

"Cooks are really hard to find," he said. "It hasn't been this hard to find people in the 15 years I've been in the business."

He has found one pool of willing workers: high schoolers. But they are limited because of work rules for teens and other activities they are involved in, including sports and extracurricular clubs.

Even Eat'n Park, the iconic Pittsburgh-based family restaurant chain, is not immune from hiring challenges. It is holding a corporatewide hiring event Tuesday for each of its restaurants, looking to fill 750 positions at locations in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

Jobless benefits not helping

The shortage of food and beverage industry workers is not limited to Western Pennsylvania, said Longstreet, whose organization represents about 2,700 members. It is statewide, even national.

Restaurants and bars across the country gained 176,000 jobs in March, down from the 309,000 brought back to work in February, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Though he believes the problem will be short lived, Longstreet said one factor working against restaurants filling vacancies is the government's enhanced unemployment benefits.

The American Rescue Plan, which Democrats in Congress passed and President Biden signed last month, provides jobless workers with an extra $300 in weekly unemployment benefits. That bonus pay will continue into September.

Dave Magill, owner of Mogie's Irish Pub in Lower Burrell, said that extra cash to the unemployed is to blame for the shortage of workers.

Banking on that is shortsighted, Marshall said. A good server could make that up could make that up in no time.

"I feel they could make ($300) on one good night," Marshall said.

Longstreet said he believes some of the problem stems to when Wolf shut down indoor dining for about seven weeks last spring, then increased capacity limitations until shutting down businesses again during the winter holidays — one of their most-lucrative times of the year.

With uncertainty over how many hours they could have worked last year, some employees left the industry, Longstreet said.

"People were afraid to come back to work," he said.

That problem did not hurt Stephanie Hernandez, who owns El Vacquero Mexicano in Ligonier with her husband, Alfredo.

"We opened in the midst of a pandemic, in August," Hernandez said.

They have so many family members and friends working in the restaurant on the Diamond that they are not vulnerable to the problem of attracting workers. But, when they have ventured outside of that circle, Hernandez said she has found the same problem other businesses are facing.

"They want to be paid under the table," Hernandez said, shaking her head.

Opening back up

Old Spitfire Grille in South Greensburg recently shut down for several months. Still, owner Kay Kim and manager Nancy Pastorius said they were able to keep most of their staff. A big help in that endeavor was the use of federal funds from the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which required recipients to keep a certain staffing level despite lower revenues.

The restaurant closed Dec. 10 when the state again restricted indoor dining before the holidays, limiting businesses to take-out service.

"It blindsided us," Kim said.

She reopened Wednesday — but not because the governor expanded the capacity for indoor dining, Kim said.

Better weather allowed them to tent spacious outdoor patios that hold 154 seats. Indoor dining at the restaurant remains limited because of social distancing requirements, she said.

Magill said his difficulty in hiring workers predates the pandemic and is worsening as restaurants are permitted higher capacities and more customers are coming. He wants to hire six or more workers.

"My people are putting in extra hours, extra time, and we're working shorthanded," he said. "We're short every shift, seven days a week."

Because workers are so limited, Magill said he has been hiring people with no experience.

"That's the only pool that's available," he said.

At Sam's Tavern in the Wall in Aspinwall, owner Sam Sieber said he has been working as a cook, dishwasher, host and server, filling holes in the schedule as he tries to hire employees.

"It definitely puts a strain on everybody," Sieber said, explaining that his restaurant staff is down about 30%.

He has been trying to hire for months. So far, he said he only found one person to work in the kitchen and recruited a friend to help.

"I just put ads out everywhere I can," he said. "We've tried to entice them with a higher hourly wage, but I know people who are offering even more than me and they can't get people either."

Pete Tolman, owner of Iron Born Pizza in the Strip District and Millvale, said he's facing the same problems.

"We've been trying to staff since the beginning of the year," Tolman said. "Now, more and more people are coming out, so the pressure's building."

Tolman said he has paid to post jobs on Indeed and Craiglist, in addition to highlighting job opportunities on social media for chefs, servers and hosts.

"It just makes daily life a little more hectic when we get busy," he said. "It's always nice to have the right amount of hands."

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