TYLER, Texas — After a year of quarantining at home, a sense of normalcy is making its way back to East Texas. Vaccine numbers are promising. Daily infections are down, both in Texas and across the nation. People are able to shop and eat out again without capacity restrictions.
Lance McWhorter, owner of Culture ETX, says despite the improvements...restaurants are still struggling with a number of pandemic-related issues.
"We are still...as in the restaurant industry, we are still operating at full blown crisis mode right now," he said.
One issue is increased costs across the board, from food to the equipment needed for daily service. McWhorter says that a pack of 1,000 gloves needed for preparing food has increased from $42 to around $250.
Ultimately, that means customers are ending the evening with a more expensive bill than before the pandemic, and the restaurant has taken to social media to explain the reasons behind the increase.
"When we have to make adjustments to menu pricing and things like that, we'll let people know on social media," McWhorter said.
The staffing shortfalls are another problem, as restaurants try to find qualified people to fill the roles. "It's super difficult to find the caliber of people that we need to work in restaurants like ours, and offer competitive pay with, you know, like a giant corporate place that doesn't necessarily have to."
After a year of testing and experimenting with delivery services, menu modifications and changes to the restaurant's hours, McWhorter says there was one consistent key to success.
"I think just the the recipe for success in these times is just to be really fluid to really try and take care of the crew that you have, and just make sure that they're, you know, super happy and that everybody is performing at their best," he said.
Pandemic challenges aside, they are moving forward and working to get back to business.
"We're happy to still be on the square in Tyler, we are happy that you know, we still have all our people [and] everybody's healthy."