Woodbridge Restaurants: It's Very Hard Now To Find People To Work

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — "Outrageous." "Unreal." "I've never seen it this bad in 19 years in the business."

One by one, multiple Woodbridge restaurant owners told Patch they are currently facing an unprecedented new problem: They cannot find people to come into work.

"I've owned this restaurant for 19 years and I've never seen anything like this before," said Paul LaGrutta, the chef and co-owner of Mullberry Street, a very popular Italian fine dining establishment on Rahway Avenue.

"It's desperately bad. Right now I'm looking for two bartenders, three servers, a bus boy and a hostess. I can't get people for love or money. I've never seen this before, ever."

It's a problem being faced by the restaurant and hospitality industry nationwide: A McDonald’s location in Florida is paying people $50 just to show up for an interview. Restaurants from New York City to Florida say they are desperate to hire staff.

Business owners say it's because of the enhanced unemployment benefits handed out under the second coronavirus stimulus act, the $1.9 trillion COVID relief plan signed by President Joe Biden in March of this year. Under the second relief bill, anyone collecting unemployment will have payments extended until Sept. 6, and they also will continue to receive an extra $300.

"A big part of it is the unemployment, and the extra $300 they're getting with unemployment," said Michael St. George, the general manager of Big Shots, a well-known Woodbridge bar and nightclub. "A lot of people I talk to in the industry are having the same issues. It's all over the place."

St. George said Big Shots is currently looking to fill general bar staff, kitchen staff, an assistant manager and servers.

"We put ads out and people say they want to interview, but they never follow through," he said. "We had three interviews set up this week for a kitchen manager. People responded, set up interview times and then they never showed up. And we offer competitive pay."

Tim McLoone, who owns 13 restaurants throughout New Jersey, told Patch last week he will start paying his "back of the house" staff like dishwashers and prep cooks $15 an hour, in part to try and lure people back in to work. He also said he thinks $15 an hour is the right thing to do and a livable wage.

Nobody is outright saying they don't want to return to work because they would rather collect unemployment, the employers said.

"Nobody says that to me; I think that would be a very brazen thing to say," said LaGrutta of Mullberry Street. "But I'm sure they are doing it. I think unemployment is a huge part of it. As a business owner, I get the notices from the state as to which of my staff are now collecting unemployment. Now, I could call the state and say I have jobs open; these people could come back to work. But I'm in the food business, not the employment verification business."

LaGrutta said the extended unemployment checks are "an incentive for people not to go to work. I think we need incentives to get people to work," he said. "To me, this is kind of like what communism is. You're on the dole, to use an old term, and you sit home. Now we're coming to the end of the pandemic and everyone is getting vaccinated. I got vaccinated. Let's get everyone back to work. Stop giving them money to stay home."

Restaurant owners across Woodbridge are encountering this issue.

"Absolutely, it's a problem," said the manager of Reno Diner, but declined to elaborate.

Another restaurant owner told Patch that some of his staff told him they would rather be part time, so they can collect the unemployment checks.

"Some people are telling us they are looking to work less than 20 hours," he said. "That's a thing across the industry."

"I really don't know what's going on, but we can use a busboy and a dishwasher," said Remy Hasangjekaj, the co-owner of Ristorante Venezia. "And this Friday, they're opening the bars so we'll need someone to work behind the bar. There are just not a lot of people willing to go back to work."

Gov. Murphy announced this week that bars will reopen fully Friday, and the 50 percent indoor restaurant capacity will end May 19. This comes as new coronavirus cases in New Jersey have plunged dramatically and nearly 40 percent of the state is vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

NJ restaurant owners reflect on state-ordered shutdowns; capacity limits

Although the return to normalcy is happening now, New Jersey restaurant owners cannot believe the past year they've lived through.

"I'm gonna give the governor's office the benefit of the doubt and say they've never experience or dealt with something like this before," said LaGrutta. "But I'v never in my life seen a time when every restaurant in the state — an entire industry — could just be closed with the stroke of a pen."

"We own this building, thankfully," he continued. "And we had to take out a second mortgage. It was either that or close our doors. But to keep us at 25 percent for a while there when we still had 100 percent of our bills to pay ... and then he flip-flopped back in August on re-opening. That's not leadership from the governor's office."

"We maxed out credit cards; we got PPP money (Payroll Protection Plan) and that helped. But I don't know if we'll ever be able to dig ourselves out of this hole we're in in terms of debt," he said.

Another manager at a very popular Woodbridge restaurant and sports bar, who did not want his establishment to be named, had this to say:

"Look, I want to tell you, in the media, how it is, how it really is on the ground in the industry right now: We are so understaffed right now that we've had to shut down entire sections of the restaurant. We're advertising on Indeed, online, on all the platforms; we even pay people for referrals. And we can't get people to show up for an interview or even call us back. It's affecting us big time. It's frustrating and it's concerning when we're trying to run a business and feed our own families."

"We have to convince people that we give stimulus checks, too," he continued. "It's just once every two weeks and you have to work for it. The jobs are out there. If you're unemployed at this time, it's a choice. It's not pandemic related."

Related: McLoone's New Jersey Restaurants To Pay Some Staff $15 An Hour (April 30)

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