After a busy start to 2021, Portland’s TIQA Mediterranean restaurant closed in April for three weeks due to a staffing shortage reflecting an industry-wide hiring crunch brought on by the pandemic.
“The options were really horrible,” says Deen Haleem, who owns and operates the restaurant inside the Courtyard by Marriott with his wife, Carol Mitchell. “We could have kept our restaurant open, which would have led to really overworking the existing kitchen staff as well as bad service and long wait times.”
Instead, they’re using the time to deep clean and update menus.
Two weeks into the closure, the kitchen staff was up to eight, including two senior chefs as the search for a sous chef, baker and a third line cook continued. Frustrated about filling vacancies, Haleem says that interview no-shows are common and even received a message from one applicant who responded to a job ad with upfront demands about starting salary, scheduling and paid leave.
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