La Crosse restaurants facing a shortage of workers
4 Sisters Wine Bar & Tapas Restaurant staff working up to 12-hour shifts, and are being offered $100 if they find somebody who works for six months
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) – The job market around the country is on the rise in most areas, but the service industry is having a tough time finding workers, including restaurants.
That impact is being felt right here at home.
You couldn’t tell behind 4 Sisters Wine Bar & Tapas Restaurant server Marissa Guldan’s smile the amount of work she puts in at 4 Sisters.
“It’s really challenging some days,” Marissa said. “Some days are very long. Especially if we’re super busy, we will go anywhere from like a 10, 12-hour day.”
Marissa has just three other co-workers and her general manager to get through Friday’s lunch hour.
“It really makes a difference when we have a full team or not,” she said.
They are so short-handed, they can barely find people.
“We can’t get anybody to apply,” 4 Sisters general manager Tanner Happe said.
Happe says COVID could be making people hesitate to apply, but he doesn’t for sure know why.
“I wish I had an answer for you because then, we could find a solution,” Happe said.
Social media isn’t the restaurant’s only way of recruiting possible applicants.
“Offering the staff $100 if they find somebody is the most creative we’ve gotten so far,” Happe said. “And I know everywhere is struggling with this. It’s not just us.”
Trying to run a restaurant short-staffed is never ideal.
“What staff we do have is very great,” Happe said. “They work hard. They all work together.”
Because there’s no I in team to keep a restaurant going.
“I love it and I wouldn’t change it for the world,” Marissa said.
News 8 Now contacted about a dozen restaurants, but most of them couldn’t even talk to us because they were so short-staffed.
Indeed.com has dozens of restaurant worker positions available in the La Crosse area.
Some restaurants in Florida are even offering signing bonuses worth up to $400.
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