Restaurants Grasping at Straws

“We’re just trying to survive through the pandemic, give everyone who’s here jobs, and be here for the community,” said Nick, a restaurant manager at Noble’s Kitchen and Beer Hall in East Nashville. Survival is the goal for this local watering hole. Burgers, brisket, wings, and fries: with a menu that could make almost any Southerner feel at home—and an impressive 60-beer tap to boot— it's the perfect hang for football season. But what’s really going on behind the scenes of an average Tennessee restaurant just trying to keep the doors open?

We can start by looking at the hiring situation: though Tennessee continues to see a decrease in unemployment rates, things aren’t quite as cut and dry in the service industry. “Twenty-five percent of our industry in Nashville, when the pandemic hit, moved back home," explained Nick. "They moved out of Nashville, so when we re-opened we were already twenty-five percent [short-staffed].” He went on to paint me a picture of the current state of hiring. “Over the last four months it’s been really, really hard to hire front of house, back of house, support staff.”

Nick could only guess at the lack of applications. “I don’t know if it’s fear of the pandemic..., people were getting unemployment so long they have some [money] left over, or not having to pay rent,” he told me. Regardless of the reasons, he's been dealing with no-shows, falsified applications, and a general lack of experience while struggling to staff up.

Beyond hiring, supply chain interruptions have also created new obstacles for both the restaurant and bar business at Noble’s. Nick has had to tap into some creative problem-solving to manage the curve balls the pandemic has thrown his way. Just take a look at the at-cost price increases:

Interruptions in supply chains, new demand for certain materials, new allocations of other materials, and locked-in business promises preventing suppliers from ordering certain supplies have taken their toll. “So, for food supply, we used to only have two [suppliers]," said Nick. "One we get produce from, and somebody we get everything else from. The way we sit today, we now have to have six just to be able to keep our [doors open].”

Nick explained that he's happy enough to break even on food sales. "Hopefully, that person that’s eating those items are also drinking liquor or beer… we’ll make our profit off of that, or pay our electric, or our labor, or whatever it is off of that,” he trailed off, iterating every small business's pandemic mantra: “Let’s just survive.”

Though Noble's strategy has leaned heavily on alcohol sales, that’s also posed new problems for the beer hall. “There’s been supply issues,” said Nick. Glass shortages, cargo container shipment delays, and corn-based liquor shortages are just a few of the hoops he's had to jump through.

Noble’s day-to-day reality consists of unpredictability and inconsistency. Not quite the recipe they would willingly put on the menu, but Nick says that relationships, hard work, and a never-say-die attitude seem to be what’s keeping them afloat. “A little bit of new and old relationships,” he said. “It depends on what the future’s going to look like. We’re staring down, apparently, the Delta variant that’s coming on strong. You see other cities shutting down and taking way more precautions. It could hurt us, or it could help us.”

As the circumstances continue to shift, suppliers are relying heavily on healthy, dynamic business relationships with restaurants like Noble’s. “They’re looking for business," said Nick. "Just like we are.”

As the economy continues to reopen, Americans are emerging from their hobbit holes to a new, vacant world. Favorite restaurants of yesteryear have vanished. When asked about the possibility of Noble’s shutting down, Nick answered the way we hope every one of our favorite haunts will echo: “We’re planning on staying open unless they literally tell us to shut it down.”