Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Restaurant workers in limbo
Industry makes a slow recovery
As a industry that was crucial to the South Florida economy begins a slow recovery after major pandemic losses, restaurant workers are gradually returning back to their jobs.
But for many, it’s not industry they are ready to return to yet — if at all.
Hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers were laid off or furloughed due to the pandemic, with the entire state making a slow crawl back to recovery. Numbers at the beginning of the pandemic were grim for South Florida, with Broward County loosing about 50,000 hospitality jobs in a month.
After more than a year, a recovery is looking possible, according to Florida International University professor Eric Beckman.
“I think we have turned a corner. People need to eat and people like the experience of dining out and the convivence of not having to cook all the time,” Beckman said. “As the vaccine becomes readily available, I
think we are headed in the right direction.”
While some workers follow the recovery back into dining rooms and kitchens, others haven’t. Here are some of their stories:
Marketing to brewery manager
Kiersten Miller jumped in to the restaurant industry in August of 2020, after her marketing job at iHeart radio took a hit due to dwindling sales. Working as a general manager for Coastal Karma, a brewery in Lake Park, Miller made the jump back to the restaurant industry after seeing the way the local community tried to support smaller mom-and-pop businesses during the pandemic.
“It was second nature,” she said. “It was a business I had gone to before COVID, and it was a business I wanted to see survive after it.”
Working there wasn’t without its trouble: the restaurant was shut down for a couple of weeks as the restaurant struggled to find workers. The owners having to jump in sometimes, Miller said.
She eventually made her way to a PR firm in West Palm Beach, and now bartends at the brewery on weekends, wanting to keep the connections she made with customers. Seeing other coworkers leave the industry wasn’t uncommon, as a few of her colleagues left the industry all together to seek work in other fields like nursing or accounting.
“It was partially due to COVID and the hours changing and not making consistent money,” she said. “But with many service jobs, it’s hard to make consistent money.”
Still waiting to be called back to work
Many service workers were laid off in the beginning of the pandemic as uncertainties made traveling and hospitality difficult. Hernan Gonzalez was one of those workers. Laid off immediately in the early days of the pandemic from his job at the Diplomat Resort in Hollywood, he is still waiting to be called back to work.
“I miss the contact with people. I like to talk to people. I love to merge with other cultures,” he said.
At 69 years old, Gonzalez had been with the Diplomat for 18 years, working in the fine-dining steakhouse as a captain and sommelier for wine. When the resort shut down and furloughed its staff, he relied on unemployment benefits and did some virtual work. With one child in college and mounting school bills, he is eager to get back to work, missing the face-to-face contact he had with his customers.
“It’s been a very stressful year. Our freedom was taken due to this
pandemic and people are feeling the financial and mental pressure,” he added.
Savings depleted, server got job back
Alec Smith, a server at a restaurant in the Fort Lauderdale airport went back to work a week ago after being laid off for a year during the pandemic. March employment numbers for the hospitality industry show that Florida is making a gradual recovery, though not all jobs lost during the pandemic have been regained.
For year, Smith survived off his dwindling savings. Now, he’s back to work at the Red Stripe Bar at the Fort Lauderdale Airport. He used a combination
of unemployment benefits, his savings and food stamps to make it through the pandemic before he was finally called back to work.
“I could have looked for another job, but nobody was hiring,” he said. “I didn’t want to find another service job where I had to put myself at risk.”
“It took away a sense of life”
Some workers were able to keep their jobs as restaurants adapted to the changing times. Jacquie Parsons, 20, was fortunate to keep her job as a hostess after EVO Italian in Tequesta switched to take out early during the height of the pandemic.
“You get into the restaurant business because you meet so many people because you love to meet people,” she said. “It took away a sense of life. It was a really weird time.”
Changes in the restaurant came right as Parsons and her boyfriend had signed a lease for a new apartment, with new bills on top of school to pay for in an industry where job security is not guaranteed. With the uncertainty of the pandemic, Parson ended up delaying college for a summer while waiting for things to calm down with the pandemic.
Now, the restaurant, like many in South Florida, is back though not operating at full capacity and with added safety protocols. Leaving the restaurant industry wasn’t an option for Parsons, as it’s the place where she feels most at home.