Michigan restaurants are facing a variety of difficulties a few weeks after Governor Gretchen Whitmer encouraged residents to pause indoor dining to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Bob Ostendorf, owner of Stella’s Blackdog Tavern, in downtown Plymouth, told Michigan News Network despite the ongoing capacity restrictions, maintaining adequate staffing remains a major challenge.
“Continuation of the unemployment benefits on the federal level certainly gives people less motivation to work more than the number of hours they actually need to work to sustain their lifestyle,” Ostendorf said. “We find a lot of people don’t want to work the 40 hours that you need out of them. They’ll work 20 or 10, and of course, that’s complicated by the fact that they are exposed to more people in the service business. So you worry about the risk to them as well.”
Ostendorf says he’s currently facing a 30 to 40% staffing shortage.
