Foodies in Winnipeg have been exploring new restaurants as local chefs' creations are featured in national culinary publications, but behind the scenes, a major challenge is cooking, some say.

Some longtime restaurant owners say staff come and go faster than seasonal menu changes, creating a problem for mid-sized locally owned businesses.

Kristjan Kristjansson (left) and Alfonso Maury run restaurants in Winnipeg. (Marcy Markusa/CBC) Alfonso Maury, chef and owner of Corrientes Argentine Pizzeria, wrote his frustrations on Facebook in a post that's being shared by restaurateurs in the city.

"I see new restaurants opening and after two or three weeks, you see these restaurants are looking for the whole staff again," Maury said.

"We have a lot of restaurants and we don't have enough cooks to cover all of these places, that is for sure," he added.

One of the large issues is that people who come out of culinary programs are shocked when their expectations clash with the reality of working in a kitchen.

"When you are in a kitchen and you work 12 hours on your feet and you see the wages and the payments, it doesn't matter how much you study and what you did, you say 'Oh, this is not what I wanted,' " he said.

Kristjan Kristjansson's family has been in the restaurant business for decades running the Round Table Steakhouse and Pub and he is set to open a new establishment in the fall.

"I think it's important as an industry that we address the issue of staffing," he said. "We do see a lot of little restaurants that are popping up, surviving a short time, not doing well — it has changed our food scene."

Restaurants struggle to "develop their own people," he said, spending the resources to train and keep them in a fluid industry.

"At the end of the day, consumers will pay for it, and they will pay for it either through less interesting, less developed menus, or they will pay for it in dollars to get it," he said.