Speaker 1:
The restaurant industry is also dealing with the same type of shortage. Spectrum Bay News 9’s Gabrielle Arzola tells us what one Anna Maria Island restaurant is offering to get more workers on the payroll.
Gabrielle Arzola:
The restaurant industry is a people-centered business. You can see it at The Chateau on Anna Maria Island. With these chandeliers and candlelit tables, it’s an experience.
Speaker 3:
It’s like dining at home. We don’t rush you out. We don’t rush you in. That’s what people love about this place.
Gabrielle Arzola:
They hold onto that family experience. But with the lack of workers, it’s taken a toll.
Buddy Foy:
We’re stretched. Our current staff, they’re pushing it 50, 60 hours a week.
Gabrielle Arzola:
Owner Buddy Foy tells me when his restaurant and every restaurant was shut down in Upstate New York because of COVID, he opened up this place four months ago, just so his team could work again. So you left New York out of necessity, really, because you couldn’t work up there.
Buddy Foy:
Yeah. We left New York out necessity. We were handed another mandate that just made it impossible to function.
Gabrielle Arzola:
Over a dozen cooks and servers flew down to get back to work. But with more business coming in, they need more people, except they can’t find those people.
Buddy Foy:
I never thought in a million years growing up in this business that the government would ever be my competitor.
Gabrielle Arzola:
Right now, the maximum you can get from Florida’s unemployment system is $275 a week. With President Biden’s COVID Relief Bill, you can receive an additional $300 a week. So Buddy has been offering a $250 bonus for folks to start working, but still have tons of positions open.
Buddy Foy:
We had to reinvent ourselves for COVID. And now, we’re reinventing ourselves post-COVID.
Gabrielle Arzola:
It’s unclear when the restaurant industry will bounce back, but Foy hopes his state will step in to help sooner rather than later.
Buddy Foy:
We believe we’ll come back. We just need it back sooner. We need it now.
Gabrielle Arzola:
I’m Gabrielle Arzola, Spectrum News.