I don't miss the job. I miss the wine.
Five years after the pandemic silenced dining rooms across America, the five million hospitality workers who lost their livelihoods have not simply recovered — they have transformed. Forced by circumstance into a pause that became a reckoning, many discovered that the instability they had long accepted as the price of a vocation was, in fact, a choice they no longer needed to make. What the industry mourns as a staffing crisis, these workers quietly understand as an awakening.
- Over five million restaurant workers lost their jobs in the first six months of 2020, triggering one of the largest involuntary career migrations in modern American history.
- The disruption cracked open long-suppressed questions about dignity, stability, and worth — exposing how deeply hospitality workers had normalized exhaustion, volatility, and mistreatment.
- Former bartenders, sommeliers, and line cooks have reinvented themselves as postal carriers, government technicians, and corporate sales trainers, reporting salary increases of 20 to 100 percent alongside healthcare and retirement benefits they never had.
- The restaurant industry now faces a structural labor shortage, with 65 percent of operators calling the hiring market tight — not because workers are unavailable, but because most who left have consciously chosen not to return.
- What began as economic survival has settled into something more lasting: a generation of hospitality workers who found, on the other side of crisis, a life that felt more like living.
Five years ago this month, a predawn phone call ended more than two decades of fine dining for one longtime Manhattan server — and quietly marked the beginning of a mass departure that would permanently alter an entire industry. When pandemic closures swept through American restaurants in March 2020, over 100,000 establishments shuttered and more than five million workers lost their jobs. The enforced stillness gave people something the industry rarely had: time to ask whether they wanted to go back at all.
For Chas Williams, a craft bartender in Detroit who had landed what felt like a dream role at the Shinola Hotel, the answer came through a mail carrier's uniform. At USPS, he earns more than he ever did behind the bar, with predictable hours, healthcare, and a pension — and has discovered that the community connection he loved in bartending translates just as naturally to a postal route. He now serves as his station's union steward.
Mary Goodhew left Cincinnati's restaurant world after sixteen years and, following a brief return that the pandemic erased within weeks, found her footing as a printer technician for the Ohio state government. The pay is twenty percent higher, the hours are fewer, and the paycheck never surprises her. For Forrest Seamons, a sommelier at Carbone and the Standard Grill, a layoff in March 2020 — with a four-month-old daughter at home — became the opening to a new life in Portland, where his talent for reading people now closes home renovation deals. His commissions doubled his restaurant income, and he wakes up in the morning instead of arriving home at closing time.
Kiera Baker's path was the longest. Laid off as a line cook in New York, she spent five years crossing four states, hiking the entire Appalachian Trail, and working as a ski-lift operator and substitute teacher. Distance from professional kitchens revealed how much dysfunction she had absorbed as normal — the aggression, the belittling, the relentless pressure. She has returned to restaurants, now as head chef of a brewpub in Hawaii near her family, but frames it as a final chapter rather than a homecoming.
The industry, meanwhile, is still waiting for workers who are not coming back. Nearly two-thirds of restaurant operators report tight labor markets, and the workers who departed have largely made their peace with the decision. What they found beyond the dining room — stability, predictability, a life that belonged to them — proved more sustaining than the adrenaline they left behind.
Five years ago this month, a phone call arrived before dawn. The general manager of a midtown Manhattan steakhouse, his voice heavy with something between apology and finality, told me I was being laid off. After more than two decades waiting tables in fine dining, I had no way of knowing that call would be my last day in a restaurant. Like millions of others in hospitality, I was about to become part of a mass exodus that would reshape the industry itself.
When the pandemic shuttered restaurants across America in March 2020, the numbers were staggering. Over 100,000 restaurants closed—many permanently—and more than five million workers lost their jobs in the first six months alone. Government mandates didn't just empty dining rooms; they forced a reckoning. People who had spent years, sometimes decades, in the grind of service work suddenly had time to ask questions they'd never had space to consider. Was this work fulfilling? Could life be different? According to Alice Cheng, founder of Culinary Agents, a hospitality recruiting firm, the pandemic gave workers permission to breathe. Some started families. Some relocated and discovered that life felt better somewhere else. Some simply never came back.
Chas Williams had spent over a decade as a craft bartender in Detroit, building a resume that included stints at Bad Luck Bar and The Oakland. In late 2018, he landed what felt like a dream position: lead bartender at the Shinola Hotel, a swanky property in the Woodward district. Less than eighteen months later, the pandemic closed the hotel and erased his job. Today, Williams delivers mail for the US Postal Service. The shift from mixing cocktails to carrying packages might seem like a step backward, but the math tells a different story. As a bartender, his income fluctuated between $50,000 and $60,000 annually, always uncertain. At USPS, he now earns $65,000 to $75,000 with predictable hours, healthcare, and a retirement plan. The financial security alone has been transformative, but Williams has discovered something else: the service work he loved in bars translates directly to his postal route. He helps disabled residents, delivers packages to small business owners, and feels a genuine connection to his community. He's even been elected union steward at his local station.
Mary Goodhew had worked at a gourmet pizza restaurant in Cincinnati for sixteen years before finally deciding to leave. She lasted less than a month at her new job as a server in an upscale restaurant before the pandemic eliminated it. After working as a personal shopper and landscaper, she found steady work as a printer technician for the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services. She now earns about twenty percent more than she made in restaurants, works fewer hours, and knows exactly what her paycheck will be. "The security factor is really what I wanted," she said. For workers accustomed to the unpredictability of tips and variable shifts, this certainty felt like liberation.
Forrest Seamons was a sommelier at some of New York's most prestigious restaurants—the Standard Grill, Carbone—when he was laid off in March 2020. He had a four-month-old daughter and a wife who wanted to move closer to her family. Today, he works as a corporate sales trainer for a home remodeling company in Portland, Oregon. The skills that once sold rare Burgundies and single-batch bourbons now convince homeowners to undertake major renovations. "Sales is all about reading people," Seamons explained. "Whether you're describing the specials or presenting a two-hour remodeling proposal, if you're good at it, you can sense where you're connecting." He expected to take a pay cut. Instead, commissions doubled his former restaurant earnings, and the lower cost of living in Portland made the gain even more substantial. His new daytime schedule means he wakes when he used to arrive home from closing shifts. He has time with his two young children. "I don't really see myself going back to restaurants," he said. "I don't miss the job. I miss the wine."
Kiera Baker's journey was more circuitous. Laid off as a line cook in New York City, she spent five years living in four different states, hiking the entire 2,198-mile Appalachian Trail, and working as a ski-lift operator and substitute teacher. These detours outside the restaurant world revealed something she hadn't fully recognized while immersed in it: professional kitchens had conditioned her to accept dysfunction. "Working in the industry made me a worse person," she said. "I was angry all the time. Nothing was ever enough." In other workplaces, she noticed an absence of the aggression and intimidation that had become normalized in her previous career. "After the pandemic, I think I realized what life could be like," Baker reflected. "I didn't want to deal with all the things about the industry that frustrated me anymore: the belittling, the work hours, always having to be perfect." She recently returned to restaurants as head chef of a brewpub in Oahu, where her parents live, but she views it as a final chapter rather than a return. "I feel like I've come to the end of my journey," she said. "If I get out of the industry forever, at least I can say I became a head chef."
Five years later, the restaurant industry is still struggling to fill positions. A recent survey found that sixty-five percent of restaurant operators describe the labor market as tight or very tight, with recruiting cited as the top concern by thirty percent of respondents. Overall hiring has rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, but the workers themselves have not. Most of the people who left have no intention of returning. They don't miss the Saturday night adrenaline rush enough to tolerate the anxiety that came with it. They don't miss drunk customers or the physical threats or the bathroom emergencies that became their responsibility. What they've discovered instead is that life—stable, predictable, dignified life—was waiting for them on the other side of that phone call.
Notable Quotes
When you're in the grind, you don't have a moment to think about whether it's fulfilling.— Alice Cheng, founder of Culinary Agents
After the pandemic, I think I realized what life could be like. I didn't want to deal with all the things about the industry that frustrated me anymore.— Kiera Baker, former line cook
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
What strikes you most about these stories—is it the money, or something else?
The money matters, absolutely. But what keeps coming up is permission. The pandemic forced a pause that let people ask questions they'd been too busy to ask. Whether it's Seamons realizing he could have more time with his kids, or Baker understanding that the anger she carried wasn't inevitable—they all describe a kind of awakening.
But some of these people clearly loved hospitality work. Williams still talks about the community connection. Why didn't that pull them back?
Because the work itself had become inseparable from precarity and stress. Williams loved serving people, but he hated not knowing his paycheck. Baker loved the craft of cooking, but the environment had made her someone she didn't recognize. The pandemic didn't kill their passion for service—it just showed them they could serve people without the toxicity.
Do you think the restaurant industry will ever recover its workforce?
Not to pre-pandemic levels, I don't think. These aren't people who were forced out temporarily. They've built new lives, earned more money, seen their kids grow up. The industry would need to fundamentally change—better pay, predictable schedules, respect—to compete. Right now, it's still operating on the old model.
What about the people who stayed? Or who went back, like Baker?
That's the harder question. Baker went back as a head chef—a position of authority—but she's explicit that it's temporary, a way to close a chapter. The people who stayed were probably already committed to the work in a way that the disruption couldn't shake. But even then, the industry's staffing crisis suggests there aren't enough of them.
Is there anything these workers miss?
Seamons said it perfectly: "I don't miss the job. I miss the wine." They miss specific things—the craft, the regulars, the rush—but not the whole package. And that distinction matters. It means they're not nostalgic for a return. They're mourning a part of something they've moved beyond.