It’s not clear when, or even if, the labor pool for restaurants will grow. Order ahead, double lanes and artificial intelligence That’s partially due to price hikes, but also because people placed larger orders for families or groups eating together at home. Some restaurant chains said although traffic may have slowed during the crisis, the average check size went up. Larger orders, another pandemic trend, only exacerbate the situation, Saleh noted. “If you have an employee who has been with you for a year, they’re much more efficient … than the person who you hired three weeks ago,” said Peter Saleh, restaurant analyst with BTIG. Turmoil in the industry means more turnover, which means less experienced workers.
Meanwhile, there’s even a challenge with the staff restaurants have managed to maintain. “One of the big keys for us is to get our dining rooms open to really support taking pressure off the drive-thru and support our digital business moving forward.” (WEN), for example, staffing challenges meant “we had more dining rooms closed during the third quarter on average than we did during the second quarter,” CEO Todd Penegor said in a recent analyst call. The drive-thru line at a Wendy's restaurant in Pinole, California, on Monday, Aug. But even if they add more employees to the drive-thru staff, there’s tremendous pressure on that channel. Some staff-strapped restaurants are opting to keep dining rooms closed entirely. For a lot of quick-service-restaurants, that’s the drive-thru.” Until the labor situation eases, restaurants are “diverting their resources where they’re going to be most effectively used. “You’re sitting there waiting in line, and meanwhile all the drive-thru orders are getting filled, the takeout orders are getting filled,” Henkes said. Workers have been leaving in droves, with the quit rate for accommodation and food services hitting 6.6% in September, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics - more than double the overall 3% average.Īnd the pandemic-fueled push to drive-thru, delivery and pickup has created a cycle: With workers scrambling to fill those off-premise orders, customers inside the restaurants may become frustrated - and turn to the drive-thru instead. Restaurants and bars were short about 800,000 jobs as of October compared to February 2020, before the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association. “Labor is at the heart of a lot of the big challenges that … restaurants are facing right now,” said David Henkes, senior principal at Technomic. Restaurant staffing is the main cause for drive-thru delays. To solve that problem, fast food chains are chasing multiple solutions, many of which are about more: more lanes, more pickup options and more technology. Restaurants don’t want to lose ground by giving up any potential drive-thru sales, yet they also can’t overwhelm their systems and risk losing customers. In the highly competitive fast food space, increased demand through any channel is a win. A Technomic consumer survey found about 52% of quick-service restaurant orders were placed in drive-thrus in August 2021, compared to about 42% in January 2020. Cars line up at a McDonald's drive-thru on Apin Mill Valley, California.
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