GREENSBORO, N.C. — It's been a long road for businesses over the course of the last year, with the most recent obstacle being finding the staff to work.
As another holiday weekend approaches, many are preparing for a surge in sales, but some business owners are still searching for employees to fill open positions.
Jody Morphis, owner of Blue Denim in Downtown Greensboro, said he has about three open positions at the front of the house, causing him to scale back on the number of reservations they take to make sure they keep quality service coming for their customers.
"We have had to limit some of our reservations because we have had some staffing issues at the front of the house that I think a lot of places are facing," Morphis said.
That, he said, has been a little painful after being closed for 15 months, but necessary.
"I didn't want to overdo it and then have people have a bad experience," he said.
Down the road at Mac's Speed Shop on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, a wait formed at lunchtime on Wednesday, a welcome sight to District Manager Shawna Infantino, who said they're fully staffed and ready for the holiday weekend.
"Big weekend. We have prepared as much as we possibly can as far as the staff goes, making sure we have all our food, the bar is ready to go," she said.
But the business had to think outside the box at the beginning of the summer, and started offering incentives for more staff to come on board to prepare for the busy season.
"Employee referral programs, bonuses, sign-on bonuses, bonuses to our employees. We're a people first organization, so we wanted to make sure we were ready to go," she said.
Infantino said they've been comparing sales this year to years past and have seen a close match, if not, an increase in sales trends from 2019.