Zoe Olson, Executive Director of the Nebraska Hospitality Association spoke to Lincoln East Rotary about what has happened to the restaurant and hotel/motel business since COVID-19. Since January 1, 2022 the Restaurant and Hotel/Motel Associations has merged to create the Nebraska Hospitality Association. There are two governing boards. When Zoe started this job in 2019, the board told her it was an easy job and a good cushioned job, it has turned out that it is not that way because of COVID. The restaurant business is the second largest industry in Nebraska. You might wonder about the wages the employees in the restaurant business are below minimum, but they are above the minimum wage. Many of the restaurants are locally owned, so if you go to your favorite restaurant in a small town or even in Lincoln or Omaha you might find that they are owned by a local individual or family. On March 16, 2020, the restaurants, some bars, and hotels/motels had to think about their guests and staff because of the spread of COVID virus. They had to start re-thinking what do we need to do to keep our employees and guests safe. One of the things in the restaurant business was to shut down all the sit-down eating. There was no Federal money going to restaurants to help with keeping things clean or pay employees. It was not profitable for them to stay open. At the time, this was the best decision to make.
It was better to shut down and many restaurants got innovative and starting doing "carry-out" and ordering online for "pick up." Nebraska became #2 per capita in the "carry-out" or "pick-up" business. The fast food restaurants did an excellent job and for them it was very profitable. When the hotels had to shut down they asked restaurant owners to come and get their food for use in their "carry-out."
Zoe said that when the Federal government rolled out the Payroll Protection Plan for keeping people employed it had a lot of problems, once those problems got fixed it did help keep people employed. One of Lincoln's own restaurant's "Fireworks" did a lot of "take out" and just recently reopened to the public. Zoe said many questions arose such as masks, no masks, PPE, etc. Daycare's closed and so many employees had to stop work and stay home with their children. Some employees did not return to work because of a compromised immune system that they have and was afraid to go back to work.
During the shut down, the Nebraska Hospitality Association visited with the USDA about allowing restaurants, hotels/motels to sell their paper towels, bathroom paper, etc. to grocery stores because many of their supplies were running out. When they were allowed to open again the question was the capacity because some restaurants held only 25 and some up to 300. Another question during the pandemic was could they do an "Alcohol to go." The Governor said NO! But on March 26th the executive order was signed and approved that they could go "Alcohol to go" sales.
Today, hotels/motels and restaurants are looking for full-time and part-time workers. Even with Daycares back open, it is difficult to hire back because some employees still have a compromised immune system and don't want to go back for fear of still getting the virus. It is quite difficult to run a restaurant or hotel/motel when you have a shortage of staff.
Zoe told us that there are 22 schools in Nebraska who offer culinary or management classes to those who might like to get into the culinary food preparations or manage a restaurant or hotel/motel. There is a state competition and national competition for those students who do compete in these competitions each year. The Nebraska Hospitality Association also has $50,000 in scholarships for students are are interested in studying culinary arts or management in college. One thing, Zoe said, is that things are slowly getting back to some type of normalcy.