Volusia Florida restaurants, hotels struggle to fill hospitality jobs

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES — Starting this week, breakfast is no longer being served at Crabby Joe’s Deck & Grill, but not because the popular restaurant on Sunglow Pier is lacking customers.

Instead, the restaurant is having a hard time hiring cooks and dishwashers to fully staff its kitchen, said Luke Zona, general manager.

“We’ve been really, really busy; it’s been packed,” Zona said, “but if you don’t have the staff, you can’t handle them all. In the kitchen, we’re probably 20-25% short.”

The same story is unfolding throughout the hospitality and service industries in Volusia County and statewide. As hotel guests and restaurant customers start to return, the workers who toil to serve them in kitchens and hotel laundry rooms are not.

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Businesses that scaled back on employees during the height of the coronavirus pandemic are now struggling to rebuild staffing levels.

It’s a challenge tied to a combination of factors that include extended unemployment benefits and federal stimulus payments tied to the pandemic’s impact as well as wages that face increasing competition from new employers in the market.

“There’s a tremendous labor shortage going on in Volusia County, in Daytona Beach and in other areas,” said Bob Davis, president and CEO of the Lodging & Hospitality Association of Volusia County. “Everybody’s calling me, begging for people.”

For many restaurant and hospitality workers receiving unemployment and stimulus support, the prospect of spending time with family at home is preferable to returning to work during the pandemic, Davis said.

“Stop and think about it,” he said. “If a family, a husband, wife and three children, just got a check for $1,400 each person. That’s like an average family. You have the choice to go back and make $12 or $13 an hour, whatever they pay for room attendants. You’d stay home ‘til the money runs out and go back to work.”

On March 11, President Biden signed Congress’ latest pandemic-fueled economic stimulus package, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. The new act extends federal unemployment programs through Sept. 6 and adds new relief for laid-off workers and employers in the form of tax waivers, credits and new subsidies.

In Florida, those eligible can receive $275 in weekly state unemployment benefits coupled with $300 in federal assistance.

That offers no motivation to apply for work, said Zona, of Crabby Joe’s.

“All the restaurants are having a hard time getting employees because of this COVID relief thing,” said Zona, who hopes to open breakfast service again within two months. “A lot of young people want to sit at home and collect the unemployment.”

Davis also points to attractive wages and other benefits being offered by new employers arriving in the market, such as the Amazon distribution center along Interstate 4 in Deltona and the newly opened Buc-ee’s mega gas station/convenience store at LPGA Boulevard and I-95 in Daytona Beach.Buc-ee’s has advertised jobs that offer $15-$17 an hour for cashiers and food service workers; $16-$18 an hour for maintenance or car wash employees; as well as supervisory and management positions from $17-$26 an hour.

At the 91-room Sun Viking Lodge in Daytona Beach Shores, owner Gary Brown said that one of his employees recently departed for a job at Buc-ee’s.

“They are starting at $15 an hour with lots of benefits I can’t compete with,” said Brown, who said he starts housekeeping workers at $10 to $13 an hour. “If I could afford to pay my starting wage at $20 an hour, I would do it. When you go through a year like 2020, without PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) and SBA disaster loans, people like me wouldn’t be here. I can’t automatically raise my salaries.”

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Average salaries in Volusia County lagged behind state and national averages for the third quarter of 2020, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The average weekly wage in Volusia was $824, compared with $1,029 for the state and $1,173 nationally.

By comparison, the weekly average in neighboring counties was $715 in Flagler; $1,017 in Brevard; and $1,056 in Orange.

Full-time workers earning Florida’s minimum wage of $8.56 per hour make less than $1,400 per month — or $17,600 per year.

A livable wage for a household with two working adults and two children would be $19.94 per hour in Volusia County, $20.11 for Flagler County, $21.10 for St. Johns County and $20.79 for Florida as a whole, according to the Living Wage Calculator by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A livable wage is the minimum to pay for food, transportation, health care, child care and other essentials.

‘A decision to make’

At the 212-room Shores Resort & Spa in Daytona Beach Shores, staffing is at about 70% of the roughly 100 employees typically at work at this time of year, said Rob Burnetti, general manager.

“We’re still getting the rooms done,” Burnetti said. “We’re paying overtime and our managers are involved. It’s basically all hands on deck, doing what it takes to get things done. We’re having similar struggles in the kitchen, with managers working overtime, the chefs rolling up their sleeves.

Although the situation is under control for the short-term, Burnetti acknowledges that there will be pressure on wages eventually.

“If Buc-ee’s pays $15 an hour to do similar work, I have a decision to make,” he said. “If a competitor pays more, I have a decision to make.”

With so many jobs open at various businesses, it’s time for the existing waiver of the job-seeking requirement as part of the unemployment process to be ended, Burnetti said.

“My personal opinion is that the time for that has passed,” he said. “It (the job seeking requirement) would inspire people to go back to work.”

Robin King, CEO of CareerSource Flagler Volusia, also questioned the effect of the waiver at a time when statistics show that a little over 7,000 workers have dropped out of the labor force.

“When people hear that the job search waiver is extended what message do they hear?” King said. “That it’s not safe to go out and look for work? I imagine the waiver does contribute to that. I’m not aware of any industry that’s not struggling to find employees.”

‘Everybody is hiring’

The pandemic also has made it tougher to hire and retain workers at hotels owned and operated by Ormond Beach-based Premier Resorts & Management, said Domien Takx, the company’s vice president of operations.

“The extended and expanded unemployment assistance, paid leaves and stimulus payments created another barrier in reengaging the workforce,” Takx said. “Additionally, with local colleges transitioning to remote classes, many of our student-workers were required to leave campus and the area.”

Premier properties include Hilton Garden Inn; Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites; Best Western Daytona Inn Seabreeze; and Ocean Breeze Club Hotel, all in Daytona Beach; as well as the Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Daytona Beach Shores.

At the newly opened SoNapa Grille in Ormond Beach, owner Adam Barringer has been working shifts at the grill as the search continues for workers to staff the kitchen, he said.

“It has been very difficult to fully staff the restaurant,” he said. “When it comes to front-of-house servers, bartenders, we’re doing fine, but we’ve been open just over two weeks and we still have not been able to fully staff our kitchen.”

It’s a similar story at the Charlie Horse restaurant, a family owned fixture across the street from Andy Romano Park on State Road A1A in Ormond Beach.

The restaurant has kept its kitchen staffed with part-time help from some high-school students, but recently managed to hire two new cooks, said Lori Dupree, the restaurant’s general manager.

“We’re doing OK now,” Dupree said. “But during race week and Bike Week, the kitchen staff was working six and seven days a week because we simply didn’t have enough coverage.”

Although kitchen workers can reach wages of $15 an hour, they start at a lower rate, said Dupree, adding that the restaurant has adjusted its starting pay to attract new employees.

“This may be a record year for us, if we continue at this pace,” she said. “It has been very busy. People are spending and everybody is hiring, at least in the hospitality industry.”

In Flagler County, there also are open positions that haven’t been filled at the Golden Lion Café in Flagler Beach, said owner Christopher Marlow.

“I’d say we’re down 20% from where we need to be,” Marlow said. “I’m sure the extended unemployment benefits have something to do with it. If you are getting paid to stay home, why would you go to work?”

The need to ramp up staffing is a positive sign, said Tyler Williams, president and chief operating officer of Daytona Beach-based Stonewood Holdings, parent company for the Stonewood Grill and Peach Valley Cafe chains as well as the newer Coastal Grill & Raw Bar.

“I see it directly related to fact that our restaurants are getting busier and busier, and as you get busier and busier certainly there’s staffing that needs to happen with that,” Williams said. “We are hiring and have open positions available across the board. We have had a fairly good stream of applicants.”

In the wake of layoffs tied to the pandemic, many hotel and restaurant workers likely have moved into other types of jobs, said University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith.

He also pointed to the impact of the extended unemployment benefits and stimulus payments, but added that wages are likely to improve due to the implementation of state constitutional Amendment 2 that will gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.

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Amendment 2 would raise the minimum wage gradually, starting with an increase to $10 (about a 16% boost) on Sept. 30. That will be followed by $1-an-hour increases year-by-year, until it reaches $15 on Sep. 30, 2026.

“Markets are very self-healing mechanisms and adjustments will be made,” Snaith said. “If you were a server, bartender or prep cook, there was no work to be found in your particular trade for months.

“So whether it’s a Buc-ee’s or driving for Uber Eats or working at a distribution center or a grocery store, some of that labor force likely migrated to other sectors,” he said. “That will put the squeeze on as tourism continues its recovery this year.”