Blaine, Birch Bay businesses battle with staffing

The Rustic Fork Eatery closed for lunch three days a week starting July 13, while other restaurants like Bob’s Burgers and Brew cope with hiring. As state Covid-19 restrictions ease up, local restaurants are struggling to run at full capacity with fewer employees.

Gary Slavin, owner of The Rustic Fork Eatery, has had little success hiring this summer. The restaurant advertises open positions for dish washers, servers, prep cooks, line cooks and pizza cooks, but is particularly struggling with having enough cooks, Slavin said.

The Rustic Fork has been short-staffed since opening mid-December, Slavin said. When it opened with patio seating only, the business was manageable, but opening up the business in the face of lightening restrictions has them stretched thin.

“We’ve been fortunate that our staff has stayed on ever since we opened,” Slavin said. “Server-wise, we’ve been great as far as adding new servers, but kitchen staff – that’s where I’ve been advertising since May. Nobody is applying, and if they do apply, they’re not showing up for interviews.”

His current staff are working 40-50 hour weeks and can’t keep up with the volume of customers or hours, Slavin said. Starting the week of July 12, The Rustic Fork will be closed for lunch on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This allows the restaurant staff to take breaks and focus more on the evening crowd by staying open an extra half hour for dinner.

The hiring difficulties don’t stop there. Slavin is expanding his business to open Gateway 1890 Taphouse Seafood & Grill as well as a Blaine event center. Both businesses, set to open in September, face uncertainty with no staff hired yet.

“Right now, I’m at the mercy of low applicants,” Slavin said. He won’t be able to open the businesses without hiring a full staff.

Cody Hurlburt, owner of Bob’s Burgers and Brew in Birch Bay, has faced hiring difficulties for the last four months. Bob’s laid off many of its employees when the pandemic hit, manager Cody Bowden said. While they were able to rehire many of the original staff members, some former employees were unable to return for personal reasons, such as having to balance work while also teaching their kids at home, Bowden said.

The recent hires have been mostly teenagers with little restaurant experience, Hurlburt said, leading to a less experienced staff overall.

“We always do hire some teenagers, but in the 14 years that I’ve owned this restaurant, this is the youngest and most inexperienced my staff has been,” Hurlburt said.

With the summer busy season upon them and the continuing lack of experienced applicants, maintaining Bob’s high level of service and food quality has been hard, Hurlburt said.

Bob’s has been seeing comparable business to 2019, although Canadians typically account for around 20-30 percent of customers, Hurlburt said. The business’s biggest concern right now is getting staff trained and prepared for when the border reopens and business picks up.

While restaurants like Bob’s and The Rustic Fork are facing challenges, establishments like Peace Arch City Café & Bar, closed two extra days per week due to short staffing, wrestle with the same problem. Difficulty hiring restaurant workers extends past Blaine and Birch Bay businesses, but experts say it’s uncertain why food service is struggling to find employees.

Scott Bailey, a regional labor economist at the Washington Employment Security Department (ESD), said many reasons are anecdotal. This also isn’t the first time the restaurant industry has seen a shortage of workers.

“Before Covid-19 hit, there was a shortage of restaurant workers,” Bailey said. “Certainly not to the extent there is now, but I think that had a lot to do with the wages, benefits, working hours, working conditions, that whole ball of wax. And people finding what, for them, is a better opportunity elsewhere.”

It isn’t entirely accurate to call it a labor shortage, though there are limited workers. The week ending July 3, 400 people in Whatcom County who last worked food service jobs filed unemployment claims, Bailey said. That includes sit-down restaurants, fast food and coffee shops.

“Comparing that with 200 job listings [on Craigslist] and people being in the process of checking out their prospects, that’s not a huge pool to draw from,” Bailey said. 

Despite businesses struggling to be fully staffed, the state has seen an increase in restaurant workers in the past several months. Over the last three months, leisure and hospitality employment, which includes food service, has gone from 7,900 to 9,300 employed, Bailey said, an approximate 15 percent increase. The increase is likely due to a combination of seasonal business and the state reopening, Bailey said. 

Wages also play a role in the low number of applicants for some restaurant jobs. Although Washington has a relatively high minimum wage, wages have been stagnant for the last several decades, Bailey said.

“To the extent that the labor market is a supply and demand market, it’s much different than other markets,” Bailey said. “If you can’t find somebody, that’s a signal to raise your wages. If there’s a shortage of peanut butter, the price is going to go up.”