Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Hospitality workers scramble for jobs
For many in South Florida, there’s less work, less pay
A third of South Florida’s hospitality workforce is gone and the ones who are left are dealing with an industry tasked with protecting their bottom line, not so much the employee.
That’s the reality for hundreds of thousands of industry workers, some mourning top-level careers or leaving hospitality behind altogether because of COVID-19.
“We have about 850 employers who regularly post positions with us about every three to 10 days. I post these jobs myself on the list serve. We are down 80%,” said Peter Ricci, who tracks hospitality employment trends and jobs as director of Hospitality Management
Programs at the Florida Atlantic University College of Business.
Even as the second round of Paycheck Protection Program loans kick off, industry insiders expect restaurants will not staff up to pre-pandemic levels.
“It is a buyer’s market leading to the best possible hires for the organizations and the worst possible job market for hospitality and tourism employees,” said Ricci.
Industry professionals are accepting jobs they are overqualified for, and other workers are returning to the same position for less money or fewer hours, according to Ricci.
Chevy Farrell, 35, felt helpless as he watched his hospitality career tumble like a Jenga tower — careful to build, easy to destroy.
In the summer of 2018, while juggling full-time restaurant work elsewhere, Farrell scored a part-time job as a statewide brand ambassador for Bar Hill Gin. It took him a year’s work to turn the opportunity into a full-time job, earning a $60,000-plus salary.
It took about a month into the shutdown for him to be furloughed.
“I know a lot of people struggled. It hurts. It really messes with your emotions,” Farrell said.
With street cred as the former bar operations manager for Sparrow in Fort Lauderdale and Ball and Chain in Little Havana, Farrell was hired back into the business, but not the way he pictured it.
“I am now a bartender,” said Farrell, who recently accepted two part-time jobs tending the bars at Louis Bossie’s Ristorante Pizzeria Bar on Las Olas and Glitch Bar in Flagler Village.
“It was a need,” said Farrell who has lived in Victoria Park with his girlfriend — also in hospitality — for three years.
“It’s time to make money because we burned through so much, through savings. Pretty much wiped it out. Living in South Florida isn’t cheap,” he said.
And despite being relieved to have steady work after eight months, Farrell says he also can’t deny feeling derailed.
“There is a little bit of disappointment coming with it, not being the person that’s running the show, or really using the experience that I’ve gained over the years...to where now I am just settling in and, ‘Hey’ these are your drinks, let me make them,’ “Farrell said.
The hospitality industry was not prepared to shut down abruptly for a crisis of this magnitude, say industry experts.
“When you close your doors and have no cash reserves, you have no option to furlough or lay off employees. It shows how week-to-week, day-today, cash-strapped hospitality businesses are,” said Ricci, who adds that having a six-month cushion for employees to land on would have helped.
“We weren’t well prepared and this left a sour taste for people who straight up say they don’t want to go back to the business,” said Ricci
Laurita Santacaterina is one of them. Early in the pandemic she lost her job as a casual dining server in West Palm Beach.
“I have helped out friends with little side jobs like helping a move, dog sitting, watching a friend’s apartment, but nothing steady,” said Santacaterina
“I was heartbroken after being let go,” she said. “The pandemic kind of changed my scope of where I want to pursue my employment in the future.”
Santacaterina found a new calling after receiving a free hot meal at a food distribution site.
“I didn’t have to think about what I was going to eat that night for dinner,” she said. “I started volunteering the same day.”
The former server is now a regular volunteer with the non-profit organization that helped her, Food Rescue US Miami/Broward. The organization shifted its original mission of rescuing food from big events for a more pandemic conducive mission: It gives grants to restaurants that make hot meals for hospitality workers and people in need. Taquiza in North Beach is one of them.
“Places like Food Rescue have been such a blessing for us that they are able to bring us a little bit of business and therefore feed the community. It’s a cyclical amazing thing that we are helping everyone out,” said Christine Martinez, operations manager for Taquiza.
Since the shutdown, the organization has funded numerous restaurants while providing about 52,000 meals.
“When we realized this would go on for a couple of weeks and there were more hospitality workers out of work indefinitely, that was when we decided we were going to partner with local restaurants and set up what we call community kitchens. That’s what I am most proud of in my life, is coming up with this idea,” said Ellen Bowen, Miami/ Broward Site Director for Food Rescue US.
Santacaterina hopes to continue this type of work. “I’m thinking now of maybe switching and seeing if I can get a role in an organization like this,” she said.
One of her fellow volunteers who is also a furloughed hospitality worker says she also may not return to the industry.
Alena Isengildina went from a group sales position at the Fountainbleu hotel in Miami Beach to working as a nanny this December.
“I was babysitting, overlooking homework, preparing meals here and there. I also helped the household. I would basically clean around,” said Isengildina.
The 37-year-old also picked up bartending and serving gigs to pay the bills, the types of jobs she never pictured herself going back to after working in sales.
“At the end of July, we lost our pandemic relief funding,” said Isengildina. “From September all the way to December, there was kind of no money whatsoever. I still highly consider stepping away from hospitality even though I love it, I love it with passion.”
John Moore held two top level positions as a general manager and brand director for Steel Tie Spirits in West Palm Beach. But after getting laid off, he picked up three bartending jobs.
“I really can’t think of any group that has been more hard-hit in terms of the ability to earn a living than the hospitality community,” Moore said.
The 48-year-old worked his first bar shift at the age 19 as a barback, and has worked in hospitality ever since. He recently moved to St. Augustine where he’ll be working with a team of people to create a new brand of liquor.
“When we get the new brand up and running, it is meant to, in part, rise up in support of the hospitality worker,” said Moore.