Funny that we here all these soundbites of all these restaurant owners constantly railing against the extended unemployment benefits killing the industry however they themselves are STILL ACTIVE IN THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS!
Put aside the other reasons people are hesitant to work in this industry, you will find that many of the people currently working happen to be students, teenagers, seasonal employees, or have other jobs disqualifying them for unemployment. More importantly, many restaurants are run by people from Central America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Southern China, etc. who most likely are not eligible to even apply for unemployment. And these people comprise the spine and backbone of most restaurants - without them there can be no robust fine dining scene even if you force people that received months of unemployment plus ups to get back in the workforce to repay that money!
We have seen many great long-time dining establishment with wonderful staff and owners like Mediterrania hang on for dear life to succumb to ceasing their existence due to COVID but keep in mind last spring this country was forecasted to lose more than half of these and other types of small businesses for good if the pandemic shutdowns were to last into the summer and thanks to grants business repurposing and a little ingenuity, many of them have proved the naysayers wrong.
And if we try not to dwell on the how why or what is causing their problems and focus instead on having some patience and understanding when space and dishes are not always available services is a little slow or prices are a bit higher, many of these places will do all right and keep their doors open for us.
