Asheville restaurants face labor shortage

ASHEVILLE – Duane Fernandes used to take it personally when job candidates failed to show for their stage — a working interview, in restaurant parlance.

Then the Isa's Bistro executive chef discovered he wasn't alone.

Some of the chefs of the most popular restaurants in Asheville, including Katie Button of Cúrate and Nightbell, also were struggling to find ready and available line cooks.

"She said it's been a revolving door all summer," Fernandes recalled.

Button said the issue isn't new — nor is it limited to Asheville.

"But I do think it's part of a changing environment, and I think major changes are going to have to happen in the restaurant industry to reverse that," she said.

In Buncombe County, one in seven jobs belong to the tourism industry, with an estimated 25 percent of those in the food-and-beverage sector. Many chefs say the growth in that industry is outpacing available labor.

Fernandes, who said Isa's pays starting cooks $11-13 depending on experience, faced the struggle head-on when he had to replace two longtime employees who left Asheville for bigger markets.

"I was lucky enough to have two really talented people with me for that long," he said. "That doesn't happen that much in the food and beverage industry."

Fernandes said he thinks a systemic work-ethic issue is partly to blame for the labor shortage. Some culinary schools lead students to believe that they'll walk out of class on the final day with a diploma and the title of chef. But the reality of the restaurant business is often hot and harsh.

Restaurants can't run with chefs alone, also requiring dishwashers to function. But many coming out of culinary school often aren't willing to do the grunt work, leaving some chefs high and dry with a shallow labor pool.

"I hate to trash talk the new generation of chefs, but a lot of them don't want to put in the time," Fernandes said. That's a sentiment echoed by many local chefs and restaurant owners.

Brian Good, former owner of the Asheville Sandwich Company and Jack Rabbits in Marshall, worked to put himself through the Culinary Institute of America, and still had to take an $8-an-hour job upon graduation.

"I had to work for everything and put in the hours and late nights and holidays," he said. "A lot of these students just coming out grew up on the Food Network. I really feel it's just a glamorized version of what is really going on."

A shallow labor pool

But Sheila Tillman, associate dean of hospitality education at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, said demand for culinary students is high. Local restaurant owners show up at the culinary program's final exam dinner, attempting to snap up students straight out of school.

"For them, it's a permanent employee pool," she said.

But A-B Tech's graduating culinary class is only 30-35 students a year, though more study briefly to learn specific skills without earning degrees. "We're not big in number, but we put out a good labor force," Tillman said.

Tillman said the school's outgoing students are workforce ready. "And if they're not going to come in they know to call, not just be absent," she said.

But some face barriers to staying in Asheville after graduating, including the high cost of living in the city versus standard pay rates. Though some return to the area, she said, others decamp for other opportunities.

At Isa's Bistro, one of Fernandes' cooks is couch-surfing because he's having trouble finding affordable housing for himself and his brother.

He's not alone. According to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition, renters need to earn $16.48 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent in Buncombe County.

But data from The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the mean wage for cooks in full-service restaurants in Asheville is $10.47 an hour. The mean wage for dishwashers is $8.99 an hour.

"Housing has skyrocketed here," Tillman agreed. "That hasn't helped. But I feel like the owners and the chefs are trying to figure out a system to help people."

Helping people is the mission of Green Opportunities' Kitchen Ready Training program, which started as an Asheville Independent Restaurants-driven program to train low-income adults to help supplement the restaurant labor force.

It also helps chip away at another local issue — a lack of greater diversity in restaurants.

Though restaurant owners aren't going out of their way to create a less-diverse workforce, their choices can often be limited, said Good, who volunteers with the program.

"Due to the nature of restaurant work, people of low income who have transportation issues or child care issues have a hard time getting those jobs," he said.

While GO can't solve those problems completely, it can equip up to 45 workers annually with workforce skills, workers who have been hired by Bouchon, Green Sage, Tupelo Honey and the newly opened Blue Dream Curry House, among others.

Getting employees in the door — and keeping them

Hiring workers is half the battle; retaining them also takes effort. "We've got to not only think about how to capture that dollar, but how to make our employees stay," Good said.

Turnover is low at 12 Bones Smokehouse, where co-owner Bryan King offers his employees everything from birthday cakes to deals for free work shoes, plus a paid three-week vacation all employees get when the restaurant closes each winter.

"People see that we are invested in not just the success of 12 Bones, but also the success of the great folks who work there," King said.

Though incentives for employees are a good thing, Button still thinks major changes need to happen industrywide to reverse the labor-shortage trend.

"I don't think we live in a place with a lacking pool of talented people, cooks, servers or anyone in restaurant labor in this town," she said. But most restaurants are lucky if they can keep employees for more than a year, a nationwide issue.

That's in part due to the traditional American restaurant structure, which offers little room for advancement, she said. That's particularly the case for servers, whose pay primarily depends on customer tips.

"The guy who's been working with us for four years is probably going to make the same money on a Friday night as the guy who started with us a month ago," Button explained.

That leaves weak incentive to stick with any restaurant — or the restaurant business in general. "It's not structured like a typical company where there's an entry-level position and you move up, based on your dedication to the company," Button said.

Button pays her kitchen staff a living wage, but she'd like to do more. Still, low margins and resistance to menu price raises prevent a major overhaul. "If the system stays the way it is, I'd have to charge more," she said.

The restaurant will, by law, have to start offering health insurance benefits next year, but voluntarily offers other benefits to some employees, including paid time off.

Restaurants may need to start offering similar real incentives to stay competitive in the labor market, she said.

"I want to have cooks working for us that see growth, a future, benefits and want to stay with us for 5-10 years, like any business," she said. "And right now, what restaurants are able to offer is not enough to keep people in that capacity."

With city growth bringing a higher cost of living, more customers and a greater need for restaurant workers, an overhaul in the way restaurants function may be necessary. As for what that might look like, Button can't say.

"Sometimes it means re-evaluating the way the system is set up," she said. "I don't know how we got in this mode. Restaurants have been set up this way for years — but it doesn't mean it's the best way."