OCEAN CITY, Md. - Restaurants are seeing a boost in business with loosened COVID-19 restrictions. But now that restaurants can offer more dining options, some managers have another hurdle to overcome.
"People are still coming to the Dough Roller. All these restaurants are packed full, every day, especially on the boardwalk," Keith Melvin, general manager of The Dough Roller in West OC, says.
However, meeting that demand can be a challenge for some restaurant managers. Thousands of international students typically work in Ocean City with a J-1 visa. With restrictions from the pandemic, that won't be the case this summer. Melvin says their group of restaurants usually employ several hundred J-1 students each summer.
"That's where the summer is, it's on the boardwalk, and they are getting crushed on the boardwalk with this weather. They need all the help they can get," Melvin says.
Others are also feeling the pinch, like at the 28th Street Pit & Pub restaurant. The owner says it's not just J-1 students that he's missing.
"What we really found surprising was the amount of actual college kids not coming into town because when the leases start May 15th, everything was still locked down," Steve Hoffman, owner of the Pit & Pub on 28th Street, says. "So kids that would be coming to town we're coming to town with no jobs, with no timeline as to when they would be able to find jobs, so a lot of them ended up staying home."
Hoffman says some of the Pit & Pub locations are now changing their hours and closing for a day to address staffing concerns. Hoffman also notes that his restaurant did not have much space to offer outdoor seating when that restriction was lifted, which he believes encouraged people to find jobs sooner at other restaurants that could offer outdoor seating.
Other restaurants, like the 45th Street Taphouse Bar & Grille, have also modified their hours. The managers of Guido's Burritos on 33rd Street did the same thing. This is the first week they're back open for normal hours.
"I mean we were turning people away because we weren't open yet and it's just such a hard thing to do after you've had like all this time of being closed," Gina Restivo, manager of the 33rd Street Guido's Burritos, says. "The restaurant is losing money. It's like oh my god, the last thing I want to do is turn away money right now."
The White House has extended its ban on immigration, including work visa programs like J-1, through the end of the year. Many of the restaurants managers we spoke with Tuesday say they'll keep their applications open and will likely be hiring through the summer.