MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Memphis restaurant owners say they want to bring workers who are essential to their business back, but worry that some workers may get paid more if they stay home.
Life in the restaurant business was good. Chef Tam’s Underground Café had just expanded and hired 38 new employees.
“Business was booming. It was so phenomenal,” owner Tamra Patterson said. “We opened our new location in January, and the sales were remarkable. Like larger than most people make in a year, we made in a month.”
Then the pandemic hit.
“Come March, it was like a screeching halt,” Patterson said.
Ernie Mellor is the President of the Memphis Restaurant Association. He says the economy was “full steam ahead” before the pandemic hit.
“It’s like the train derailed. You know, the middle of March,” Mellor said. “That Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I literally wiped six weeks of revenue off my books, with people cancelling.”
It’s the same story everywhere.
“And then to have to lay off 38 people. It’s so devastating. I was semi-depressed,” Patterson said.
Six weeks later, talks of reopening is producing that same depressing feeling, just with a new set of problems. Business owners are trying to convince their employees to come back to work.
“They’re going to be reluctant to come back because they’re earning their unemployment, plus the bonus $600,” Patterson said. “They’re not going to receive those kinds of tips coming back to a half restaurant.”
“If someone is getting the maximum $275 from the state a week plus the $600, that’s $875,” Mellor said. “Divide that by 40, that’s $21.87 an hour on a 40-hour week.”
That’s a lot more than what many were making before they were laid off. But there are other issues for employees to consider.
“If I call you up and say, ‘Greg, I want you to come back to work Monday, I’m offering your job back right now.’ If we hang up the phone, and you tell me you don’t want it, then you don’t have your job and then your unemployment benefits go away,” Mellor said.
That little caveat now makes this a difficult decision for both Mid-South employers and employees.
Laid-off workers might also want to consider that unemployed stimulus relief is only guaranteed through July.