It’s been a trying year for the restaurant industry, and throughout the pandemic we had to temporarily close some of our stores in Downtown Phoenix and quickly adapt to the unexpected challenges that COVID-19 presented. As things finally start to turn around for Arizona restaurant owners, with restrictions being lifted and more people feeling comfortable to eat out again, we have been presented with a new challenge of a worker shortage. This problem is not unique to Fired Pie; our friends across the industry are facing this hardship as well. We worry about our reputation with loyal customers who will now be facing longer than usual wait times and feel for our hardworking employees who are being stretched thin from having to service too many customers at once without enough help.
Fired Pie is currently looking to hire 60-plus employees in all positions across our 20 stores, including managers. We have boosted ads out across all hiring platforms and are offering wages starting around $15 per hour. Still, we are unable to find employees and my business partner, Doug Doyle, and I have been overseeing all our restaurants while also having to step in to help with food prep and delivery orders. Many have cited the fact that stimulus checks and extended unemployment could be causing part of this problem. Plus, during the pandemic when we were facing severe hardship, many of our employees went to work for big corporations like Amazon. They have found other industries to enter which has left the restaurant industry with a shortage as we open back up.
We are not the only industry facing this issue. Our distributors are also unable to fulfill orders because they don’t have enough drivers and they have become overwhelmed with orders from restaurants now being able to operate at full capacity. We recently launched a ghost kitchen, Wow Bao, out of two of our Fired Pie locations and have plans to rapidly expand to 12 locations in the next few months. Wow Bao is currently being offered only through third- party delivery services, including Postmates, DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub, but last weekend we had to shut down deliveries because we did not have enough product due to distributor issues.
As we navigate finding amazing team members to join our Fired Pie family, we have been so grateful for our community and loyal customers. We are optimistic about the future and have loved seeing more people enjoying our outdoor patios and eating in our dining rooms again as Arizona continues to recover from the past year. We encourage Arizonans to continue to support local as much as possible and have patience for their favorite restaurants as we navigate a return to normalcy.
Fred Morgan is a co-owner of Fired Pie.
