NEW ORLEANS — COVID-19, Hurricane Ida, and inflation were not kind to most businesses in New Orleans. But the crises of the past few years have had a unique and devastating impact on the city’s hospitality industry. Even now, owners are still playing catch-up, and many employees are watching their pay stagnate.
Conrad Chura, owner of Wakin Bakin in the French Quarter and Mid-City, says his restaurants were “doing six figures a month, and it dropped to less than five” in the past few years. He told WWL Louisiana he applied for all the federal relief he could but most of it did not materialize.
“If we can't exist in this space, if the government and the city and everyone can’t create an ecosystem for us good, successful, honest, hardworking people to exist, then who's going to have the space when we're gone?” he said.
Today, his business is once again booming, and he has implemented a 3% “culinary gratuity” to help boost his back-of-house workers’ pay. But the business is still recovering financially, something he says deeply affects his ability to give his employees the wages he would like. “I can't afford to pay people more,” he said, “When I'm struggling to come back from last three years, I can't provide the quality of life that I could before.”
Many of his employees work second jobs, something Chura knows is unsustainable. “Eventually they quit one or there's a burnout,” he said.
A back-of-house employee of a different restaurant told WWL Louisiana he works 80 hours a week. “It’s hard to take care of myself,” he said, “I have to make sure my momma’s straight, make sure my little brother’s straight, make sure my little sister’s straight.”
His pay was recently bumped to $14 an hour. The New Orleans Office of Workforce Development considers $15 an hour a living wage. He said he has many friends who work in other restaurants around the city that face similar financial struggles. “We’re all saying the same thing,” he said.
Pay for hospitality workers is a critical matter in New Orleans. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 15% of the city’s workers are in hospitality and leisure, compared to about 10% nationwide. As of November 2023, the industry employs more than 80,000 people in the greater New Orleans area.
If wages continue to stagnate, there may end up being fewer people to fill those jobs. The worker WWL Louisiana spoke to is planning to move to Texas in a few months to find better-paying opportunities. “There’s only so much a person can do,” he said.
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