Labor
The fallout from the Bay Area restaurant labor shortage? Complaints of slow service and ‘Karen’ Yelp reviews
San Francisco Chronicle 6/10
Restaurants are struggling to hire sufficient staff to reopen and meet increasing diner demand. In many cases, service is suffering — leaving employees and owners to manage the expectations of customers eager to dine out again. Some owners say they’re seeing more complaints about long waits and uneven service on Yelp and are spending more time responding to negative reviews.
Congress to Introduce $60 Billion Add-On to Restaurant Revitalization Fund
FSR Magazine 6/10
To ensure more restaurants get the help they deserve, the National Restaurant Association is kick-starting a grassroots campaign to support the $60 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund Replenishment Act. The bipartisan bill, set to be introduced in Congress Thursday, would add more cash to the $28.6 billion Restaurant Revitalization Fund, which already ran out of grant money.
Food Industry Policy
Regulators back down from new California workplace mask rules
Marin Independent Journal 6/9
OSHA’s decision last week drew strong opposition from a dozen business groups, including the California Business Roundtable, California Retailers Association and the California Restaurant Association, who demanded in a letter to Newsom on Monday that he overturn the OSHA rules and allow vaccinated employees to go mask-less without regard to unvaccinated co-workers.
Sonoma County to revisit ban on disposable food containers
KRCB 6/9
The proposal for a county-wide ban on products containing polystyrene foam as well as non-recyclable and non-compostable items, like Styrofoam, isn’t new. Six jurisdictions including Sebastopol, Sonoma, Windsor and Healdsburg have already adopted an earlier version of the ordinance starting in 2019, in addition to one-hundred and twenty cities across the state.
On the Side
Three new restaurants open in Fresno area with pizza, pho and Mediterranean food
The Fresno Bee 6/10
Three new restaurants have opened in Fresno and Clovis – four if you count the boba tea shop attached to one of them. Like multi-cultured Fresno, the restaurants’ cuisines are diverse, including Mediterranean, Italian pizza and pho, the Vietnamese soup that is so popular here.
Chipotle raising prices to offset its $15 minimum wage hike
FOX11 Los Angeles 6/9
Customers can expect to see higher menu prices at Chipotle going forward. The fast-casual Mexican food chain announced it would be raising menu prices by as much as 4% to offset the cost of the employee pay raises announced last month, FOX Business reported. By the end of June, the average hourly wage for Chipotle employees will be $15.
