Chattanooga area restaurants are seeing sales receipts climbing to near-record levels in some cases, which is proving to be both good and bad news as staffing remains a struggle.
The increased numbers of people wanting to get out and have a good time have stressed staff and customers alike to the point of physical altercations in some cases.
In others, it has meant hospitality workers pulling double and even triple shifts, which increases the stress levels and adds to delays in service as workers are simply tired, area restaurateurs say.
Scottie Bowman said her Scottie’s on the River restaurant is “killing it.” And her Big Chill on Cherokee Boulevard is doing very well after she implemented some policy changes put into place to give her staff some time off and to make the restaurant a safe place for them to work after things got anything but chill as people began venturing out into the world.
For example, she started closing at 11 p.m. instead of 1 or 2 a.m., and she started scanning IDs to keep them on record because people were walking out on tabs or otherwise causing trouble. And she started enforcing a long-held but rarely utilized policy of not seating a large party until everyone in the group has arrived.