RESTAURANT WORKERS ARE STRUGGLING TO FIND JOBS
lined up interviews, but the jobs seemed to fizzle as the pandemic approached. On a Thursday in mid-march, Danaher staged — restaurant-speak for an unpaid tryout — at a restaurant called Good Fortune.
“It was supposed to be super-busy, but they had 10 covers on the books,” Danaher said, alluding to the sparse crowd.
Chris Tiba, Good Fortune’s sous-chef, said the position would have been Danaher’s if not for the looming industry apocalypse. “He did such a phenomenal job,” Tiba said. “He was super-focused, hungry for his craft.” (Good Fortune has gone out of business, and Tiba is collecting unemployment.)
The state suspended on-site dining four days after his tryout. Danaher tried to file for unemployment, but the website was overloaded and the phone lines were jammed.
His girlfriend, Alessandra Llanes-diaz, also an out-of-work cook at the time, moved in so they could quarantine together. They drew down their bank accounts buying ingredients for meat sauce, which they planned to freeze, and stews.
“It was what we call staff meals,” Llanes-diaz said. “A bunch of veggies and things in a pot.”
By mid-april, Danaher was inquiring at pizza joints and even a Dunkin’ Donuts, but got no takers. He scouted out grocery and retail stores. Toward the end of the month, he briefly took a contractor gig making syrups for a company that sold cocktail kits, but the work died down a few weeks later.
Around the same time, the industry was staggering back to life. In Chicago, the Michelin-starred Elske, known for its moderately priced tasting menu, began opening three days a week to offer takeout
“Our first meal was Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and cucumber salad,” said David Posey, the chef who co-owns Elske with his wife. “We thought we’d go through that in a week. It was enough for one day.”
In Nashville, Tenn, Tony Galzin, the co-owner and chef at Nicky’s, revved up his coal-fired oven and sold housemade pizzas and fresh pasta to go. In Washington, Cork Wine Bar, an early fixture in the city’s booming 14th Street corridor, did a brisk business in Seder boxes.
Later, as dining restrictions eased and government aid flowed, many restaurants found they could come close to breaking even while paying workers fairly. Instead of resuming traditional table-side service, Galzin asked customers to order from a counter. Several former waiters took on other jobs, and Galzin distributed tips evenly to all staff members, who
earned between $16 and $20 per hour, more than many had pre-pandemic.
Elske limited its menu and served customers on a patio as well as inside near the windows. Alison Miller, the restaurant’s former assistant general manager who became a server this summer, said she took home at least $1,000 most weeks.
Still, the restaurants could rehire only a small fraction of their workers. Nicky’s eventually brought back just over half
of the 34 people it once employed; Elske brought back about half of its 16. Diane Gross, a co-owner of Cork, had to lay off nearly two-thirds of her pre-pandemic team of 30.
Overall, full-service restaurants accounted for more than three times as many job losses as limited-service restaurants like fast food, according to the Labor Department.
Data compiled by Ziprecruiter show that job postings at high-end restaurants like Morton’s and Ruth’s Chris dropped nearly 45% from March to May, versus only about 20% for the likes of Mcdonald’s and Burger King.
By July, the enhanced unemployment benefits, which Danaher started receiving only in May, were about to expire, and his finances were looking grim. He came down with COVID the next month, though his symptoms were mild.
Once he recovered, he occasionally made money cooking for private dinner parties, but it was at best a down payment on his rent. He needed a full-time position, but felt his experience was pricing him out of the market.
“The guy next to me,” Danaher said of one tryout, “he was green — he was wearing, like, Nikes and jeans.” (Pros generally consider nonslip shoes a must.)
In late September, Danaher finally landed the job at Fulton Market Kitchen. “It was a good chef; they make all their sauces and pasta in-house,” he said. He started at $16 per hour. But with infection rates soaring, Illinois ended indoor dining in Chicago before the end of October.
The restaurant closed and canceled a series of Andy Warhol-themed dinners it had planned for Halloween weekend. “I understand why we have to shut down,” said Relu Stan, Fulton Market Kitchen’s co-owner. “What I don’t get is why it’s always such short notice.”
Stan laid off his staff rather than pivot to takeout, as he had initially done in the spring. “There’s no money in takeout and delivery,” he said. “Not for us. Our food doesn’t travel that well.”
Other restaurateurs, like Posey at Elske, were making similar calculations, pushing still more employees out of work. According to Ziprecruiter, job postings at many high-end restaurants fell in November.
Not long after, however, Danaher caught a break: A restaurant called SplitRail asked if he could pick up two shifts per week. “He’s a BRILLIANT cook, one of the most employable people I’ve ever met,” the restaurant’s chef-owner, Zoe Schor, who had worked with Danaher years earlier, wrote in a text.
Concerned about safety, Schor had kept Split-rail strictly takeout and delivery during the pandemic. Winter even seemed to bring a bit of hope: Her restaurant specializes in comfort food like fried chicken and matzo ball soup — the kind of food that sells well in cold weather.
Danaher, who just moved into a new apartment, has now been guaranteed four shifts per week through the end of the year. Beyond that, who can really say?
“I’m incredibly grateful,” he said. “It is enough, but it’s just enough.”