Three things:
1- We were in Cocoa Beach in July- we have condos there. Most of the signs on the restaurant read, “Closed Tuesday.” We went to one of our favorite restaurants and asked the hostess why the restaurants were closed on Tuesday. Her reply- “People don’t want to work. Its more beneficial for them to stay home and collect covid and unemployment payments rather than get a job. We can’t staff the way we need too.
2- A week later we were in Disney World. They opened up the California Grill for breakfast- a great restaurant on top of the Contemporary with magnificent views. It was near impossible to get a reservation but I was able to pull one off. We get to the restaurant only to find out 60% of the tables are empty. I asked the waiter why is it so difficult to get a reservation with so many empty tables? His response? “We only take reservations based on the amount of waiters we are able to get here to work.”
3- Last week i was in Columbus, Ohio for the Ohio State game. Ny wife and i get to a restaurant called First Watch just off campus around 8:15 for breakfast. Kick-off was noon. There are about ten people in front of us waiting. There were two waiters for the whole restaurant and one was working the cash register. Half the tables were empty and a quarter had dirty dishes on them. We left after 20 minutes. 45 minutes later they sent us a text letting us know our table was ready. Sunday we went to breakfast at a place called Scrambles. Same thing- there was a 15 minute wait despite the fact 60% of the tables were empty.
No one wants to work when they are getting freebies.
No freebies anymore. And Florida unemployment is 235 a week. There are different reasons people are not working in poorly paid businesses.
We were in St. Augustine a few weeks ago.
Help wanted signs in virtually every business there and all the way down and back.
How does you NY wife feel about your Florida wife?
It’s every where. Here in the Permian Basin most of the restaurants are cutting back hours and the smaller ones are shutting the doors. There’s a lot of little small restaurants out in the counties that have been catering to the farming, ranching and the oil field crowd for decades that have shut down or almost shutdown.