Liberty Restaurant Owner Steve Frangos was recently faced with a problem. With a tired staff that was about half of what he needed, and continued supply shortages that brought interruptions to the menu, Frangos was left to cut his restaurant’s daily hours.
Liberty Restaurant had hours, at one time, of 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. With the staff and supply issues, the restaurant is not open in the evenings most of the week, closing at 3 p.m. Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We don’t want to overwork our employees,” he said. “They get burned out. … How much strain are you going to put on your employees?”
For restaurant owners across central Lake County, the worry is familiar. As the economy continues its recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, restaurants are feeling the crush of its impact from all angles. Shortages in labor and basic supplies, and the rising cost of food, are daily issues, owners say, and many are not confident that it will get better soon.
As a result, some restaurant owners, including onesin central Lake County, are trimming business hours or even closing their doors altogether on certain days. Further, when some eateries are open, their menus are updated to reflect items that cannot be served at the time — mostly due to supply shortages.
“Restaurants aren’t open for lunch or they’re not open on Mondays,” said Scott Adams, president of the Green Oaks, Libertyville, Mundelein and Vernon Hills Chamber of Commerce. “They just don’t have enough staff and they have to give the staff they do have a break.”
Phil Gilardi, the husband of Tina G’s restaurant owner Tina Gilardi, described the situation as “ridiculous,” calling it a daily problem at their establishment in Mundelein. Keeping stock of asic food items is inconsistent from week-to-week, he said.
” (It’s hard to get) chicken, beef, cheese,” he said. “You name it.”
Michael Holleb, owner of The Claim Company restaurant in Vernon Hills, said there are many stipulations on ordering supplies. For his restaurant, onion rings, potato chips and fried goods, as well as some meats, have alternately been in and out of stock sporadically.
He explained that some non-food items, like soup containers, are also difficult to reorder. And other essential items have increased in price. A case of latex gloves, Holleb said as an example, have gone up in price to as high as $100, up from about $23.
“It’s the whole gambit,” he said. “You’re just constantly swapping. … All that adds up.”
The problem, officials have said, boils down to staffing shortages across several — usually interconnected — industries. While restaurants are having staffing issues, so are warehouses and delivery companies that supply products those businesses need, leading to shortages across the entire supply chain.
Several area restaurant owners mentioned the strike at the Sysco food distribution warehouse in Des Plaines as an example. At Sysco, which has more than 300 distribution centers worldwide, 125 workers went on strike Aug. 30 after the workers’ union and the company could not make progress on a new contract. The strike ended Sept. 2. Officials said this is one example of many across both the state and the country.
Adams said some business owners, even beyond restauranteurs, have told him they are lucky if they receive half an order they placed for some supplies. Frangos said it’s not unusual to place an order for 20 boxes of something like potatoes and receive just eight.
“It’s a game of shortage and a game with drivers,” Frangos said. “Bacon and potatoes at a breakfast place, it’s the No. 1 thing.”
Some restaurant owners say there are alternative ways to get some of the food supplies they need — though not always ideal. Phil Gilardi gave an example of the chicken served at Tina’s, an 8-ounce butterfly cut. He said he can find some products at local stores, but the cuts won’t be what the restaurant traditionally serves.
Holleb said some items, if substituted, would not have the same quality. As a result, a few things on his menu have been taken off completely until those same quality items are available to him again.
Mark Khayat, owner of Austin’s in Libertyville, said his restaurant is also seeing quality issues on some of these substituted items.
“It’s a weekly thing,” Khayat said. “It’s just all over the place.”
Related to the supply shortages, as well as other economic circumstances, food prices are increasing. Sam Toia, president and CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association, said from June 2020 to June 2021, food prices were up almost 10% across the state.
Khayat instituted a 5% surcharge on orders to held deal with the rising costs. But patrons were not happy with the charge, forcing him to raise individual item prices instead, he said.
“I don’t think people know how badly (supplier price increases) are affecting the restaurants,” Khayat said.
In terms of staffing, Gilardi said Tina G’s ideally needs about 12 servers, but in early September had just four. He also said he needed about two more cooks or dishwashers. Khayat said half of Austin’s is closed five days a week due to staffing shortages. The other two days, the restaurant is closed completely, leaving one day they seat the entire restaurant.
Some owners said for the most part things were manageable until the school went back into session, taking several of the college students working at the
restaurants away. Because of the staff shortage, Frangos said he has to take down his outdoor tents, since he doesn’t have enough workers to manage it.
Toia said statewide, the hospitality and restaurant industry is down about 90,000 employees from its peak of almost 600,000 total. Toia said a lot of these employees left for delivery and warehouse jobs, as well as to fill jobs in the budding cannabis industry across the state. He added that there is a hesitancy for many to return to the industry with COVID-19 still looming.
“There’s a lot of people that just did not want to go back,” Toia said. “They’re a little paranoid and scared.”
Staffing issues have forced some, like Khayat to reevaluate their systems totally. His Austin’s restaurant is implementing a system that will have customers be their own servers.
Further, rising coronavirus cases, tied to the delta variant of the virus, have business owners concerned the state could implement another occupancy limit, which Toia said would be “devastating.”
Adams, president of the local chamber of commerce, and many area business owners said they had expected these issues to get better as time went on, but they are not seeing results. In response, some owners, like Khayat, Gilardi and Frangos, said they are skeptical about what future months will bring.
“Everybody kind of expected by the time we got to (July) this year that things would be a little better,” Adams said. “But it just has not gotten better. It seems to be lingering.”
Still, Adams said he does think things will get better in the coming months. He said even with labor and supply shortages, people are still frequenting restaurants, shops and events.
In short, the business is there, and money can be made, as Khayat put it.
“There’s not a problem with business,” Khayat said. “I could probably have the best year I’ve ever had if I had the help and the products. … Our problem is getting the food and getting it out.”
