The Looming Crisis In Restaurant Costs

It’s not only food prices and rents. It’s wages.

During the pandemic, restaurant staffing levels plummeted. Owners everywhere from fast food to elegant restaurants hung out Help Wanted signs. To entice employees to come back, they raised pay and offered benefits like health care that hadn’t routinely been available.

Now, after nearly five years, employment levels in hospitality are back to pre-Covid fi…