Hungry for help: Food service struggles for workers ahead of tourism season

BUFFALO — Finding the summer employees necessary to fill her staff is Bozeman Trail  Steakhouse owner Mandy Tuma’s “biggest headache.”

Around March, Tuma starts looking for summer employees to supplement her year-round staff for Buffalo’s tourism season. Without 20 to 25 additional employees hired and trained by Memorial Day, Tuma said, it makes for a “rough summer.”

Since the pandemic, however, it takes hiring over 40 employees to end up with half that number, she said.

Food and beverage employment levels for Johnson County, like the rest of Wyoming, go in waves. Food and beverage employment numbers are at their lowest during the beginning of the year, peaking in July through September.

Employment numbers in food and bar service in Johnson County have yet to return to pre-COVID levels. In 2023 for quarter three, the peak employment period, there were 312 food and beverage employees in Johnson County, according to data from the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services. That’s about 30 fewer employees than in the third quarters of 2018 and 2019.

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the leisure and hospitality industry has experienced the highest quit rates of all industries since the pandemic, with the accommodation and food services subsector experiencing a quit rate consistently above 4.5% since July 2021.

Despite this, the chamber notes that hiring rates outpace quit rates across all industries, including the leisure and hospitality industry.

Cattleguard Steakhouse has temporarily reduced its hours due in part to a lack of workers for both the front and back of the house.

It isn’t for a lack of applications, owner Dan Buckley said.

“Plenty bring in applications and don’t return,” Buckley said.

Tuma said she faces the same issues.

“You have to get applications first, and then the ones you do get are job hoppers,” Tuma said.

Job hoppers are people who go from job to job and seldom stay in one spot for long.

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, lots of people left the industry, Buckley and Tuma said. Buckley said he knows, for example, that a lot of cooks quit to enter into food distribution.

Respect for the service industry has also declined, Buckley and Tuma said.

“Society as a whole put the idea in people’s heads (that) it’s beneath them,” Tuma said.

That, in part, has translated to poor treatment of service workers. Some customers can be impatient, snap their fingers, holler or wave, Tuma said. That has made some workers leave the industry.

“The food industry should really be one you’re proud of,” Buckley said.

Buckley said the solution is more vocational training.

The Johnson County Tourism Association is working with the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation, Tourism and Hospitality Initiative to offer a hospitality and service industry training session this summer, JCTA administrative assistant Kristin de Galard said. The initiative was started in 2022 to support Wyoming’s second-largest industry, tourism. Nearby, Sheridan College offers a culinary arts and hospitality foundations certificate program designed to prepare students for immediate entry-level placement in the field of culinary arts and hospitality.

But you can’t hire the employees if you don’t get the customers, Buckley said. People are going out to eat less.

What used to be habit has now become a “treat,” he said.

While tourism season may still see good restaurant traffic, the decrease in regular restaurant dining makes winters challenging, Buckley said.

“I’m very optimistic about this tourism season,” Buckley said. “... It’s a little rough right now.”

Heading into the tourism season, de Galard said it’s hard to predict how busy this year’s tourism season will be, but hotel reservations are one of the best measures.

At the Surestay Plus, assistant manager Chelsey Sta. Maria said the numbers look good so far.

“This year, we’re looking to get a little bit more than we previously would because of bus tours,” she said.

Several tours are set to come to town, each requesting 15 to 30 rooms.

“We have 62 rooms in our hotel, so that’s definitely a good deal,” Sta. Maria said.

While reservations are down slightly compared with previous years for Longmire Week, July 18 -21, that is likely because people are waiting to book until closer to the event since the past several years have been so up in the air, Sta. Maria said. Longmire events moved online during the pandemic, but the in-person events returned in 2022. Then, last year, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strike almost prevented the show’s visiting actors from participating in events.

There is a slight downward trend for tourism following the travel boom after the pandemic. Local lodging tax collections for Johnson County, Kaycee and Buffalo were down by 4.5% in fiscal year 2023 compared with fiscal 2022, according to data from the Wyoming Economic Analysis Division.

But while 2022 brought in a record-high number of lodging taxes for Johnson County, 2023 was still the second highest in record.

This story was published on March 21, 2024.