Fast Food and Labor Shortages

storewanderer
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Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by storewanderer »

Tonight in Reno I found McDonalds, Carl's Jr., and Jack in the Box all closed in the 8 PM hour. Posted closing times are between 10 PM and Midnight.

McDonalds still had 3-4 employees inside, but blocked off drive through and closed inside, all the lights were still on. Not sure what was going on there, maybe they just felt like being closed.

Carls and Jack in the Box were completely vacant, dark, and closed with nobody present at all. Jack in the Box had some kind of handwritten sign on the menu board, but couldn't tell what it said. Interestingly a nearby Qdoba was open and staffed with 2 employees and empty of customers (it is owned by the Jack in the Box franchisee). Raising Canes was of course open and very busy as was In N Out. Carls had four handwritten signs in the window:
1. DINE CLOSED DRIVE OPEN
2. NOW HIRING
3. HIRING COOKS CASHIERS ALL POSITIONS
4. CLOSED AT 8 PM DUE TO SHORT STAFF

The open Del Taco had about 15 cars in the drive through...
Alpha8472
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by Alpha8472 »

That is pretty awful. However, I have experienced fast food employees trying to close early before. I was at the Popeye's drive thru order speaker for 20 minutes waiting for an employee to answer. When someone finally answered they said, "Are you still there?"

Fast food workers are quitting left and right. The restaurants need to realize that they have to do something to save their business. The employees are the ones who run the restaurant and they are the ones who keep sales up. If you close early, you are losing sales and money. It is not time to be greedy and try to save money on wages. You have to provide competitive pay or people will go somewhere else.

There is a crisis right now over the shortage of low wage workers. No one wants to work for minimum wage or near minimum wage. Restaurants need to realize it takes money to make money. Raise starting wages if you want to save your business.
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by Brian Lutz »

My wife and I went to a Taco Bell in Kirkland last night for dinner (one of the more recent builds with the big windows into the kitchen) and the place was packed, both inside and outside. At one point I counted nine people behind the counter. Even with all those people we still ended up having to wait 20 minutes for our food, since it's pretty clear that even though indoor seating is open now they still heavily prioritize the drive-thru. Then again, at some of the lower volume locations we go to (like the one in Snohomish) it's rare to see more than 3 people at a time.
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by jamcool »

Hello automation and self-serve kiosks
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by Super S »

The KFC where I live appears to still have the dining room closed. The drive-thru is one of the worst I have seen as far as lines. The last two or three times I drove by I counted 15-20 vehicles and a line wrapped around the building and spilling on to the street.

The local Arby's and Burger King locations are still drive-thru only. The product at Arby's has been slipping as of late.

McDonald's and Wendy's have opened their dining rooms but to less capacity.

This is going to continue until restrictions are lifted.
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by Alpha8472 »

Sadly, those kiosks and app orders will eliminate jobs. However, if there are no workers willing to work for low wages then the kiosk and apps will help. I have noticed that app ordering makes the wait time a little bit shorter as you do not have to order via a person and pay via the window.
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by storewanderer »

Alpha8472 wrote: May 6th, 2021, 2:04 pm Sadly, those kiosks and app orders will eliminate jobs. However, if there are no workers willing to work for low wages then the kiosk and apps will help. I have noticed that app ordering makes the wait time a little bit shorter as you do not have to order via a person and pay via the window.
I think what we are really going to see is the higher volume fast food places will move to more automation and making things as self serve as possible but they will still require a pretty high number of employees to make things work. But a high volume operation will be able to pay its employees above market rates. Similar to what In N Out and Chickfila already do.

The lower volume fast food places, however, are quite screwed in my opinion. Even if they only staff with 2-3 people on shift at once, if they can't even get that many, they can't really operate. And they do too little business to afford to make the necessary automation upgrades to save labor.

Also I think the concept of early openings and late closures will need to be re-evaluated unless customer counts are quite high. Being open for an hour from, say 10 PM to 11 PM, and only getting 5-10 customers no longer is going to make sense. The early morning hours may still make some sense as if they are slow during those times they can do tasks to prep for the rest of the day (chopping vegetables, stocking supplies, and similar).
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by Bagels »

jamcool wrote: May 6th, 2021, 9:40 am Hello automation and self-serve kiosks
Give that the lion’s share of business comes through the drive through status quo (most fast food establishments’ dining room is either closed or limited in hours), how would self-service kiosks help?

Self-service kiosks started appearing over 15 years ago. In general, people don’t like them. While it takes a cashier a moment or two to take an order, it can take several minutes to order a coffee, and 5+ for a custom order, via the kiosk. Many of the clients I had that installed them, ended up removing them; they realized that if you forced people to order through them, many take their business elsewhere.

Big chains are bribing people to order via their apps with big discounts, free food and rewards points. Eventually, most orders will come via these apps. But I doubt self-service kiosks will ever make the impact they were believed to make 15 years ago.
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by bryceleinan »

storewanderer wrote: May 6th, 2021, 10:47 pm
Alpha8472 wrote: May 6th, 2021, 2:04 pm Sadly, those kiosks and app orders will eliminate jobs. However, if there are no workers willing to work for low wages then the kiosk and apps will help. I have noticed that app ordering makes the wait time a little bit shorter as you do not have to order via a person and pay via the window.
I think what we are really going to see is the higher volume fast food places will move to more automation and making things as self serve as possible but they will still require a pretty high number of employees to make things work. But a high volume operation will be able to pay its employees above market rates. Similar to what In N Out and Chickfila already do.

The lower volume fast food places, however, are quite screwed in my opinion. Even if they only staff with 2-3 people on shift at once, if they can't even get that many, they can't really operate. And they do too little business to afford to make the necessary automation upgrades to save labor.

Also I think the concept of early openings and late closures will need to be re-evaluated unless customer counts are quite high. Being open for an hour from, say 10 PM to 11 PM, and only getting 5-10 customers no longer is going to make sense. The early morning hours may still make some sense as if they are slow during those times they can do tasks to prep for the rest of the day (chopping vegetables, stocking supplies, and similar).
Chick-fil-A in Carson City was opening at 6:30 AM like the rest of the chain (at least they were on opening day) - and now they open at 8 AM. I asked Matt (the owner) about it, and he said to stay tuned to Facebook to see when they will open early again.

In other words, our Jack in the Box in Dayton is a train wreck. Lines galore, and no help. My mom was telling me they will probably have to close their inside dining and focus on the drive thru. I can say that every fast food place is pretty much doing interviews anytime now - at least the ones I have been too lately, which is basically Chick and JIB.
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Re: Fast Food and Labor Shortages

Post by storewanderer »

bryceleinan wrote: May 8th, 2021, 8:57 pm Chick-fil-A in Carson City was opening at 6:30 AM like the rest of the chain (at least they were on opening day) - and now they open at 8 AM. I asked Matt (the owner) about it, and he said to stay tuned to Facebook to see when they will open early again.

In other words, our Jack in the Box in Dayton is a train wreck. Lines galore, and no help. My mom was telling me they will probably have to close their inside dining and focus on the drive thru. I can say that every fast food place is pretty much doing interviews anytime now - at least the ones I have been too lately, which is basically Chick and JIB.
The Sparks Chickfila was opening at 8 AM for a while too but went back to earlier hours months ago. I don't know what the point is in serving breakfast for only 2.5 hours.

The Jack in the Box franchisee around Reno seems to be having serious labor problems but has tried to re-open locations for dine-in. I have gone into the one in Gardnerville a few times since they reopened inside and there are a couple employees I see every time and they are clearly struggling for labor. They are doing their best with what they have. They are doing open interviews in the mid-afternoons where the manager who is otherwise cooking food will facilitate it.

Jack in the Box really needs to be organized to keep things moving. They have to have one cook on the grill and one cook on the fryer at all times to make it work with their menu.
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