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A Bartop Before Lockdown
I look down at my watch. It’s 11:30 p.m. on a Saturday night in August 2019. My feet are sore and my calves cramp up with each step I take in my glossy dress shoes. I’m trying to move as quickly as possible without falling on a floor that desperately needs to be mopped up. I reach across the countertop for two cold short glasses. Ice. Spiced Rum. Pepsi. Lime. Straw. Repeat. And slide each glass to a man standing at the corner of the bar, fighting for a spot at the counter.
“11 dollars please,” I say, while I wipe my sweaty forehead.
He hands me $15. A 10-dollar bill with one five that has been heavily worn out. I rush to collect his change at the cash register while my co-worker takes someone else’s order. I return with two toonies and send him on his way. He reaches his hand out with one of the toonies still in it.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I’m not allowed to accept tips. But thank you anyway.”
He smiles, exhaling out of his mouth and nose in amusement, then disappears into the crowd.
By this point I had been standing and moving my body as efficiently as possible for the last six hours to keep up with the long line at the bar. All I wanted to do was sit and take a break. But I felt too guilty to leave my partner alone with the restless crowd. So, I pushed through and maybe we would be out of here by 3 a.m. if we hurried. Just like I had the night before, the weekend before, and the month before.
Summer was a busy time where I worked. Fridays, Saturdays, and sometimes Sunday nights were dedicated to weddings, some of which exceeded the capacity limits of our ballroom — and pushed employees to their limits. Mondays and Thursdays were filled with private parties or tournaments.
I still don’t know which event I liked less.
As months went on, I slowly began to accept my job for what it was. I figured that I was just on a hard stretch at a busy place that was a little understaffed. Once I returned to school, I wouldn’t return to the industry again. I never expected my job to be easy. I was raised on hard work. I started working from the first week I was legally able to at age 14. But in summer 2019, I learned how gruelling the service industry is and gained a deep respect for those who work in it.
What I didn’t realize was how much worse it could have been.
A Fresh Start
March 2020 turned the world upside down. Lockdowns hit businesses hard. Restaurants Canada, a non-profit that advocates for the foodservice industry in Canada, reported in fall 2021 that at least 10,000 restaurants had closed.
From the outside looking in, one might say the hospitality industry was looking pretty good pre-pandemic. Sure, it wasn’t always a desirable place to work; a Statistics Canada study found that hospitality employees have the worst job quality out of any industry — based on the European Union job quality dimensions. This primarily accounts for hospitality’s low earnings, the inability to take time off, a lack of training opportunities, plus no medical or dental care.
But many people seemed to accept that this is the way it was and always had been.
As a restaurant owner or manager, why would you pay any attention to these statistics when business was good and resumes were always coming in the door? Restaurants are a popular place for young adults to start their first jobs: 22 per cent of Canadians worked in a restaurant one way or another as their first job — the highest of any industry.
There were always people to fill new roles, no matter how great or poorly they were treated.
But According to a Restaurants Canada Survey published in August 2021, 80 per cent of respondents said they were finding it difficult to hire back-of-house staff, and 67 per cent were having trouble filling front-of-house positions after the first COVID-19 lockdown across Canada. An alarming labour shortage had begun, revealing deeper issues in the industry that had been under the surface for a long time.
In November of 2018, stories of abuse allegations at Stella’s Café and Bakery started to spread throughout Winnipeg, first on social media and then in mainstream news outlets. These stories included anonymous complaints of sexual harassment, discrimination, bullying, and a culture where employees were discouraged from coming forward. These allegations gained a lot of attention in Winnipeg, and many people refused to give Stella’s Café and Bakery their business for some time. In response, two executives were placed on an indefinite leave of absence for workplace harassment and a human resources department was created. However, a dark cloud still looms over current employees and Stella’s Café and Bakery locations from its former allegations — making hiring staff a little more difficult than it previously was.
The Stella’s Café and Bakery story and others like it had already left a bad taste in people’s mouths when it came to working in a restaurant pre-pandemic. When COVID-19 came around and restaurants were forced to close, this was an opportunity for many people to get out and stay out. It forced restaurants to address the longstanding issues within the industry.
The Grind Never Stops
Tony Siwicki is the owner and operator of Silver Heights Restaurant & The Heights Lounge located on Portage Avenue. As the fourth generation of Siwicki’s involved at Silver Heights, Tony grew up there, “if we [Tony and his siblings] wanted to see my Dad and Mom, we came to work […] I’ve done everything from the bottom to the top at this place,” he said.
Tony met his wife at the restaurant, like his dad did before him, and now his kids work there too. “It separates us from a lot of other places [being family owned and operated], here you’re a sister and a brother, and there you’re just a number.”
How could a place like this have any trouble finding staff to hire? The owners here cared, they listened, and treated you as part of their big family. This didn’t seem like a place you’d hear about employees being abused and harassed. But Tony had to deal with something else — finding the right fit.
Tony has 30 employees right now, from the back of the house to the front house. He needs 40, at least. But Tony is picky about who he hires. They need to fit the family.
“I could probably hire 10 people right now, but I can’t just hire anybody,” he said.
The resumes that are currently coming in might not fit the work that is available or have the right attitude Tony’s environment requires. Tony says it’s a bigger risk to hire somebody and pay the huge cost of training and paying them over a month-span than it is to just hold out and wait for the right person.
“This industry was on razor-thin profit margins even before the pandemic,” he said.
That’s why wage increases scare Tony. It seems like a simple fix to bring in more qualified employees, but Tony says it’s not that simple.
“If wage goes up 15 cents, it’s an $18,000 hit to me a year,” he said, “For a small mom and pop place, it’s impossible.”
Tony explained that COVID-19 lockdowns have been a huge hit to his revenue. He is paying more for cleaning supplies, masks, dividers, food orders, and everything in between all while bringing in fewer people than usual. His rent and bills don’t change, but the prices of everything else are going up. Tony calls it the “aftershock” of the product prices post lockdown.
“Steak used to be $195 a case, now it’s $280 a case. Can I put the extra $10 for a steak on a customer? I’d like to, but then nobody would come here at all,” he said.
After the truck convoy and blockages of Canadian highways, that price was only rising for Tony and other businesses like his.
“We would see a lot more closures of restaurants from wage increases, than COVID-19 did,” he said, “Restaurant owners have to do something on their own, not by forcing them.”
Tony suggests a pay system based on employees making gratuity or not. This way employees are making sufficient wages no matter what. So, when business is slow on a given night and employees are making $0 in tips, their hourly wage is equivalent to what a busy night with tips would be. When business is busy and employees are making lots of tips, the hourly wage would decrease significantly. Some businesses already implement this strategy in some ways. One downside is it can have negative effects when sharing most tips in a tip pool.
Kristel Pastorin has been the head chef at The Grove Pub & Restaurant in Winnipeg for 10 years. She used to part-own three restaurants as well, including The Cornerstone Bar & Restaurant. But after COVID-19 lockdowns, she is left with just one. Kristel runs everything in the back-of-the-house and admits that it’s been a challenge to find quality staff when restaurants were allowed to re-open.
“There was a scramble in this industry to get everyone and anyone,” she said.
Pre-pandemic, The Grove was open seven days a week with 23 full-time or part-time staff in just the kitchen. Now, it has dwindled to just nine staff plus Kristel and being open five days a week.
“We’re just getting by right now with what we have. I could use at least three more people for the five days we’re open,” she said.
However, when Kristel explained more to me about why there were so few staff, it began to make sense. COVID-19 gave a clean slate.
When cases began to rise and the restaurant industry began to suffer in Winnipeg, businesses did what they had to do, let people go. Kristel admits to going through lots of staff in 2021, including terminations and people leaving with a bad taste in their mouth.
In response to this large influx in unemployed Manitobans, the Canadian government responded with compensation in the form of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). This provided financial support to employed and self-employed Canadians who were directly affected by COVID-19. If you were eligible, you could have received $2,000 for a 4-week period (the same as $500 a week).
With many restaurant staff making minimum wage, it would be hard to turn down an offer of $100 to $200 more than what you are regularly making Monday to Friday.
Like Kristel, many higher ups in the hospitality industry blame CERB for the low number of employees looking to rejoin the industry post-lockdown.
“They don’t have the desire to work hard anymore after sitting at home for so long,” she said.
Although Kristel may have a small group of current staff, she believes it’s one of the best staffs she’s had in a long time. She credits the pandemic. Working with the same people every day has brought them together as a group and had made it easier to be on the same page.
She believes that the restaurant industry requires hard workers who understand what it takes to be successful.
Some former employees requested new systems at The Grove before returning to work post lockdowns. After reflecting during their time at home, they wanted changes to their hours and pay.
Those people were not accepted back at The Grove after lockdown.
“They took it too far and demanded new levels of things that weren’t reasonable for this industry,” she said, “Only the good ones survive.”
Steffen Zinn owns Wall/Main Street Slice, Wienerpeg, The Red Ember Common + Food Truck, and Flatlander Hospitality Ltd. with three to four other people in Winnipeg. He was also a former sous chef at St. Charles Country club. Steffen has worked his way from the ground up. While his businesses mostly sell pizza and other stadium foods, his locations vary. Steffen wanted to be an entrepreneur from a young age.
“In my household, it was weird if you didn’t open your own business,” he said, “For me, the moment I wake up in the morning to the moment I go to sleep I think about work.”
Steffen opened a new shop during lockdown, Wall Street Slice, even though so many other businesses were closing due to lack of revenue. According to Restaurants Canada, eight out of 10 restaurants have been losing money or barely breaking even throughout the entire pandemic.
But Steffen decided to open Wall Street Slice. He noticed some of his shops like Main Street Slice had extremely high sales during lockdown due to takeout orders, plus “I was bored,” he said.
Steffen says despite the highs and lows of lockdown, he never really had a problem hiring and retaining staff. Post lockdown, 100 per cent of staff returned to Red Ember Common. So why was Steffen not having the same problems as many others?
“The best way to retain staff is just to be kind to them” he said, “We care a lot about leadership, culture, and really take all issues to heart and don’t brush anyone off.”
Steffen started his entrepreneurial career in the driver’s seat of a food truck called The Red Ember. The truck became popular for selling gourmet pizza in various locations in downtown Winnipeg every lunch-hour. Steffen said the original staff on the truck formed a very close bond. Enough so for Steffen to open several other businesses with some of them.
According to an article by The Conversation, many are fleeing the industry because workers often feel neglected, and that their employers do not believe they were worth investing in.
Steffen sees opportunity and potential in every person he has on staff. And they see the same in him.
“If you’re a young person working in this industry, it’s not just a dead-end job,” he said, “there’s opportunity to make it a career as well and if you show promise and care, you can start your own business and I’d be happy to join you.”
He says this is very different from chain restaurants that view you as just a body.
“In those bigger chain places, a lot of it is corporate greed and need to satisfy shareholders,” he said, “they want to see their returns at the end of the year instead of taking care of the staff.”
Although Steffen doesn’t have the same problems hiring staff as many other business owners right now, he understands why there is a problem.
“COVID-19 has been a huge disruptor from taking people out of the Monday to Friday work grind,” he said, “They realized they’re working jobs they don’t like, the wages aren’t going up, etc.”
Steffen says he can see how it can be demoralizing to work a minimum wage job that you don’t see a future in. Especially when the prices of everything else are skyrocketing and people are being treated poorly.
“It can be nice to serve and see peoples’ smiling faces at the end of the day,” he said “I guess one would just have to find the right shop.”
The Next Steps Across a Slippery Kitchen Floor
The labour shortage in the hospitality industry accounts for a large portion of the drop in the Canadian economy. According to the latest Labour Force Survey data from Statistics Canada, foodservice and accommodation accounted for close to half of all jobs added to the Canadian economy in June and July of 2021 (136,100 of 325,000). But there are still nearly 230,000 fewer workers in the foodservice sector than before the pandemic.
Jesse Friesen is the Executive Chef at Academy Hospitality. This organization accounts for popular restaurants like Pizzeria Gusto, The Merchant Kitchen, Gusto North, Yard Burger, and The Good Fight Taco. Jesse became aware of the staff shortage in February of 2021. He noticed for the first time the roles were reversed: business owners are desperate to hire and employees can choose where to work and bargain for higher pay, better hours, and better treatment.
This has led to forcing employers hands into providing better working conditions. The restaurant industry has always spent time and money attracting customers and increasing revenues. Owners now must consider their employees and put as much effort into providing greater experiences for them as they do for their external customers. Otherwise, their business may not obtain enough staff to stay open.
The pandemic exposed flaws in the Canadian economy, as it did with the hospitality industry. The industry failed to improve working conditions because there had always been new bodies eager for jobs.
So How Can the Hospitality Industry Attract the Right Employees?
It starts with being kind to employees, treating them with respect and listening to their opinions.
Set clear expectations on scheduled hours, breaks, cut times, and start times. This is one of the most common problems when left as a grey area.
Implement fair tip pools. Some restaurants find success in an even split between all staff working on a given night. Others prefer individual tip shares with a percentage going out to the back-of-the-house. No person should be making more tip money for doing less.
Prevent verbal or physical harassment. Whether its employee to employee or customer to employee. The idea that the customer is always right is a poor excuse to allow harassment. Defend your employees as if they are part of your family.
And where possible, increase wages based on quality of work. Far too often staff are working beyond their paygrade. The work you put in should reflect on your paycheque.
Although these solutions seem simple, they represent a major culture shift and not a lot of employers are willing to do them. COVID-19 has brought hardship in the form of illness, closures and loss of jobs. It also played a role in revealing existing issues in the hospitality industry and creating a forced opportunity for employers and employees to make lasting change in the industry. Now, business owners may not have a choice but to evaluate their operations and make things better.
Afterall, everyone in a working kitchen knows that if you aren’t careful, everything can go up in flames.