Month: January 2022

Zumbrota restaurants do more than just survive pandemic – Post Bulletin

Robert C. Williams 5 months ago

ZUMBROTA — While restaurants have faced challenges during the past two years because of COVID-19, one town’s eateries have not just survived but thrived.

That town is Zumbrota.

And while restaurants there have faced the same issues as others — increased supply costs, labor shortages, and fallout over COVID — the city’s restaurants are still there, finding ways to keep the doors open for customers looking for a meal.

“Our hours are different,” said Shari Kothenbeutel, owner and manager of Covered Bridge Family Restaurant, the restaurant that was opened by her parents in 1976. “We’re closed two days a week, Monday and Tuesday, which we never used to do. But now that we’ve started the Monday-Tuesday thing, we like it.”

Kothenbeutel said when the pandemic began, and the first shutdown happened in March 2020, the family restaurant relied on, well, family to keep things going.

02 Zumbrota Restaurants - Covered Bridge Restaurant
A golf simulator occupies a
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As New York Revisits To-Go Drink, Liquor Stores Prepare for Battle

Robert C. Williams 5 months ago

It has also been a reliable donor to elected officials, even if it is far from one of the largest moneyed interests in the Capitol.

The political action committee, or PAC, controlled by the Metropolitan Package Store Association has given over $140,000 to elected officials since last year, mostly Democratic lawmakers, who control the Legislature. Over the same time period, two PACs associated with the restaurant industry gave just over $20,000.

Indeed, over the past two decades, the Metropolitan Package Store Association has established “longstanding relationships” in the Capitol through a steady stream of political contributions. That has included nearly $200,000 to Mr. Cuomo; $14,500 to Carl E. Heastie, the Assembly speaker; and $31,100 to Michael Gianaris, the Democratic deputy majority leader in the Senate, whom the association honored during its 87th annual dinner last October.

Mr. Gianaris, who has also received contributions from the restaurant industry, said

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Quebec restaurants are reopening, but some former workers don’t plan to go back

Robert C. Williams 5 months ago

MONTREAL — Restaurants in Quebec will be allowed to reopen Monday for the first time in more than a month, but some former workers say they won’t be looking for new jobs in the industry.






© Provided by The Canadian Press


Milovan Danielou said he decided to start looking for a new job during the province’s second closure of restaurant dining rooms in the fall of 2020, when his then-employer, taco restaurant Grumman ’78, closed its main location permanently.

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With dining rooms closed and no tourists in the city, there was little work to go around. “Everybody was fighting to find even part-time jobs,” he said in a recent interview. 

Danielou, who now does data entry, said his new job is less interesting, but the $30-an-hour pay is better, and he’s not worried about losing his job if the COVID-19 situation worsens. 

“Nothing compares to restaurant work, the

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Restaurant workers are quitting in droves. This is how they are being lured back.

Robert C. Williams 5 months ago


National

The Great Resignation is upgrading restaurant industry benefits and perks.

A hiring sign offers a $500 bonus outside a restaurant in Pennsylvania.
Keith Srakocic/Associated Press/File

By Laura Reiley, Washington Post

Just a few years ago, snazzy restaurant perks included a shift drink at the evening’s end and maybe a crack at the rib-eye declared “definitely not medium-rare” by a diner. No retirement benefits, health plans, or team-building retreats.

The Great Resignation is upgrading restaurant industry benefits and perks.

Restaurant owners are offering shorter workweeks, life insurance, mental health services, college tuition, and more paths to career advancement. They are giving out free Spotify subscriptions, adding nursing stations for lactating employees, and promising signing bonuses and free food to anyone off the street who fills out an application.

Sandy Cheek has worked as a server and trainer for Crabby Bill’s in Pinellas County, Fla.,

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