Milwaukee Restaurants and Service Workers Face Pandemic Stress

At around 4:30 on a Friday evening, the staff of Lazy Susan MKE, a casual fine dining restaurant in Bay View, is rushing to get set up for 5 p.m. opening. The servers are setting out menus, glasses and silverware, while the kitchen staff is in the back preparing for a busy night.

The hustling and bustling might seem normal, but ever since re-opening in May, the servers, bartenders and head chefs at Lazy Susan have had even more strenuous jobs than before. Like many other restaurants across the United States, they are dealing with a shortage of co-workers.

Eric Burmeister is a bartender who started at Lazy Susan seven years ago when it opened. His job went from serving cocktails and mixing drinks to wearing many different hats to make up for the short staffing. Over the course of the pandemic, he says he’s doing a lot more work at the restaurant.

“When we’re short staffed they need other people to cover and fill in the other spots,” says Burmeister, “so now my job involves bartending, hosting, serving and sometimes doing all three.”

The problems that the restaurant industry has faced due to the pandemic are immense. According to the National Restaurant Association, approximately one in 110,000 restaurants were temporarily or permanently closed in 2020. The National Restaurant Association also says that there were only 12.5 million restaurant industry employees in the U.S. by the end of 2020, which is 3.1 million less than expected.

Wisconsin restaurants specifically are experiencing many hardships. According to the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, approximately 93% of restaurants reported not having enough employees to meet demand. Eighty-five percent reported being at least 10% below existing demand.

Despite their location in the most populated city in Wisconsin, Milwaukee restaurants are experiencing many of these same problems. Jobs are more stressful for many Milwaukeeans who have continued to work in the service industry through 2021.

“There are so many big impacts the pandemic has had on the restaurant industry,” says Kristine Hillmer, CEO and President of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association. “When the first safer-at-home orders came about, the restaurant industry was one of the industries that was the hardest hit across the United States. It cost billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs throughout the pandemic.”

Hillmer says many members of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association are still seeing the negative financial impacts of the pandemic. Business conditions have not returned to normal due to losses such as supply chain issues and the worker shortage.

Last summer, Taylor Bradley worked as a bartender at Barnacle Bud’s, which sits along the Kinnickinnic River in Bay View. In the beginning of the pandemic, she was laid off but ended up coming back to work early, and her job has become much more stressful than before.

“The pandemic made my job really difficult because people didn’t really follow safety precautions and I felt uncomfortable working,” says Bradley, “but I had to work to make enough money since I wasn’t eligible for unemployment anymore.”

Josh Ehlke worked at The Laughing Taco for three years until January 2021 when he left the restaurant industry and had a similar experience as a worker in the beginning of the pandemic. The restaurant shut down for the first few months. When it re-opened, his hours were cut and there were only two workers per shift.

“If someone couldn’t make it in that day, whoever was working with them would be left alone,” says Ehlke. “This would mean that work would not get done for the next shift and it caused a lot of tension between workers.”

In March 2020 and until June 2021, A.J. Dixon, the owner of Lazy Susan, chose to do only takeout orders to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“I was fortunate enough that A.J. restructured her business literally overnight so that we worked out of a window selling to-go food,” says Burmeister.

Although quite a few Lazy Susan employees like Burmeister continued working through the pandemic, many part-timers chose to take a leave of absence. Some of them ended up finding other jobs after that.

If I get sick, then we would have to close the restaurant.

A.J. Dixon, Milwaukee restaurant owner

“I didn’t lay anybody off because my goal was to keep everyone employed,” says Dixon. “Everyone who left, left by choice.”

Dixon’s business had 14 employees at the beginning of the pandemic. She is now down to seven and still struggling to find new hires.

“It is extremely difficult to hire staff,” Dixon says. “I finally found enough dishwashers but I’m still short an entire person in the kitchen, which means if I get sick then we would have to close the restaurant.”

This is because Dixon and her brother are often the only two working in the kitchen.

Local chain restaurants have also had to deal with difficulties hiring. Casey Sazama Schneck, an operational director for Saz’s Hospitality group, says that their business has been put in a similar situation.

According to Schneck, many of Saz’s locations are experiencing difficulties with hiring new employees and as a result, they’ve had to decrease their hours of operation.

“Based on the number of employees that we currently have, we had to make a few adjustments to the days and times that we operate the restaurants,” says Schneck.

Places that used to be open until 11 p.m. might close at 8 p.m. and many restaurants are now closed on certain days of the week – usually Monday or Sunday.

“Finding a sit-down restaurant on, for example, a Monday night is much more difficult than other nights of the week,” says Hillmer. “All of that is because they can’t find the staff to be open late.”

Dixon says that prior to the pandemic, the restaurant was open every day of the week but is now only open after 5 p.m. from Wednesday to Saturday.

Wisconsin demographics make worker shortage worse

One of the biggest questions people in the restaurant industry are asking themselves is why there is such an overwhelming worker shortage. There are a few contributing factors.

According to Hillmer, one of the biggest reasons is Wisconsin’s demographics. The number of teenagers and young adults working has been on the decline.

“Teenagers aren’t working at the same levels as when I was a teenager,” says Hillmer. “It’s a very difficult and complicated situation and there are no easy fixes.”

Some parents don’t want their children to work, and many teenagers are involved in extracurricular activities and sports that don’t allow the time for a restaurant job.

Poor treatment from customers and low wages are often brought up. Fears around catching COVID-19 also play a factor.

Ehlke says that this was one of the biggest reasons he left the restaurant industry. He left Laughing Taco in January when the restaurant started allowing dine-in without any warning. He says that serving people without their masks on while COVID-19 case numbers were at their peak last year made him worried for his safety.

I was making more on unemployment than I would ever make working at a taco restaurant.

Josh Ehlke

He had to deal with frustrating customers at The Laughing Taco and that was another contributing factor in his decision to leave the industry entirely. He also says that this is one of the many reasons why countless others decided not to go back to working in restaurants.

“It can be an extremely thankless job with no benefits to back it up,” he says. “I fully understand why people would not go back to work. I was making more on unemployment than I would ever make working at a taco restaurant.”

“I feel that workers aren’t paid enough during this pandemic and are treated unfairly,” says Taylor Bradley. “Also, not a lot of people are working in the industry, so it is even more work for everyone.”

Bradley also says many people aren’t working in the service industry due to being uncomfortable around large groups of people while COVID-19 is continuing to spread. Dixon has a similar opinion.

“They went to find places with better pay, better working environments,” Dixon says. “Think about it, being a server during the pandemic? Would you really want to be around that many people?”

Dixon also says that because many servers make most of their money from tips, their unemployment benefits didn’t offer as much as workers in other industries. So, they went to find other work in other industries and ended up staying there.

Restaurant workers look to the future

The worker shortage has started a dialogue on the importance of good treatment and fair wages for restaurant workers. Ehlke says he no longer wants to be in the industry.

“I was never very happy working there and it felt like a dead end for the entirety of my time in the industry,” he says. “Some people can deal with the frustrations, but it is surely not for me.”

Dixon says the employees at Lazy Susan have worked very hard despite the difficulties of the pandemic and that she wants the restaurant to continue being a quality workplace with fair pay.

“All my workers get paid the same amount no matter what position they work because I don’t want my staff to have to work two or three jobs,” she says. “That’s just not it anymore. I appreciate them and they’ve worked really hard during all of this. Keeping them safe and providing them with a safe work environment is really important to me.”