Restaurant workers are coming from as far as Tacoma to put food on island tables.

In the kitchens, bars and bussing areas of island restaurants, things couldn’t be better – or harder.

With another busy summer having wound down, restaurateurs can look back and assess the increasing difficulties of serving food and drinks on Bainbridge.

“To make a long story short, it’s been difficult,” said Harbour Public House chef Jeff McClelland. “There was a time where I was beginning to wonder if we were going to have enough employees to be able to run things this summer.”

The Harbour Pub is not an anomaly; each year it gets harder for restaurants to find staff to deal with increasing volume and customer demands. Many in the industry see a dwindling local labor pool and an increasing need to rely on workers from off island.

“Over the last couple years the labor force has shrunk dramatically, especially for qualified kitchen personnel,” McClelland said. “There used to be a lot of people who wanted to work in the industry, but that’s not the case anymore.”

Moises Quintero is one employee who comes from off island to fill the demand for low-wage restaurant work. He commutes over three hours a day from Tacoma to work at the pub, biding his time in hopes of finding cheap accommodation on Bainbridge.

For some, like Katy House, the commute is just another part of the routine. On any given night, House, a manager at Doc’s Marina Grill, can be seen juggling tables, balancing food on each arm and shouting out employee schedules for the upcoming weekend.

House estimates that half of the staff at Doc’s come from off-island; a “Help Wanted” sign in the front window is a permanent fixture.

“Yeah, we generally never take it down,” House said “You never know who is going to walk through the door. The island isn’t that large, the work pool is only so big.”

The reason, she said, is easy to surmise.

“No one can afford to live here,” she said. “It’s a too expensive on island.”

Her sentiments are echoed by a swath of restaurant workers. Jocelyn Waite, owner of the Harbour Public House, said that between 60 and 70 percent of her workforce comes from the Kitsap Peninsula. The industry keeps her hands tied when it comes to giving employees a wage that will pay for a Bainbridge living standard.

“Honestly, as the housing market gets more expensive, there are fewer people living on the island who will work for the hourly wage that the restaurant industry can offer,” Waite said. “The thing about the restaurant industry is the understood standards. There is only so much you can charge for a burger, so we don’t have a lot of flexibility to raise wages drastically higher, because then we have to raise our prices.”

Most restaurants on the island pay employees somewhere between the state’s minimum wage of $7.93 an hour and $12 an hour depending on tip allotments and position.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition set $12.50 per hour as an average for low income renters. This, coupled with the trend toward off-islanders filling service industry slots, has the attention of affordable housing advocates.

Last year, the Community Housing Coalition and Chamber of Commerce surveyed the island’s workforce.

“We were trying to get an idea of where our workforce lived, and we found that over 70 percent lived off the island,” said Kat Gjovik, who heads the housing coalition. “This represents 700 employees working for six of the largest business on the island. It doesn’t tell us the whole story, but it’s a good snapshot in time.”

Gjovik said “it pretty much boils down to money” when considering why a large portion of the workforce lives off island. Some may choose to live in Poulsbo because a spouse works in Silverdale, others simply don’t have the money to rent or buy a home on Bainbridge.

“If we do nothing, what happens to our workforce, what happens to the diversity of our island, what happens to the numbers of people who want to work here and it won’t even be an option?” Gjovik said. “They’ll take one look and say, ‘I don’t want to live here.’”

Hard times

That disconnect between workers and community could mean harder times island businesses and the loss of an integral part of community life, said Chamber of Commerce executive director Kevin Dwyer.

“This is a desirable place to live and businesses can’t pay employees enough to live in the area where they work, and I don’t think it will change,” he said.

Dwyer also feels the influx of residents that want to keep Bainbridge undeveloped will destroy the “small town feel” that many residents actually move here to be a part of.

“People like the rural aspects, so subsequently you’re not going to see space available for affordable housing. It’s a difficult challenge because so much of this land is so valuable,” he said.

“I’ve been here almost 20 years, and back then you got to know the bank tellers, the waitresses and the sales clerks and they were spouses of someone you might have known,” Dwyer added. “It was that sense of community and ownership. It’s real positive, it gives you that small town feel and that sense of community that is a little lost now.”

Which isn’t to say that island businesses don’t respect their off-island staff or try their best to bring in locals.

McClelland recalled the last advertisement he placed when looking to fill a staff vacancy at the Harbour Pub.

“Usually we’ve been able to get two, three, four applications, have interviews and pick and choose from the candidates,” he said. “Several months ago we had an ad (online) and one in the paper, we didn’t get any replies. No resumes. And that advertisement was running for a month.”

Some restaurant owners have taken to hiring part-time and seasonal workers.

These workers, by and large, are high school or college students who may live rent-free with their families and have a few months to earn a quick buck.

But the youth work force can be a mixed blessing.

Cafe Nola chef Justin Coleman maintains a healthy skepticism with young employees.

“A lot are younger, just out or still in high school, they’re not worried about getting shifts because they don’t have rent to pay,” he said. “I would say 50 percent don’t make it a week. It’s a high turnover rate and it makes it hard on everyone.

“Then again some of my best employees were in high school. It’s a real mixed bag.”

Miguel Rojas, co-owner of Casa Rojas Express in the Village, is another restaurant worker who lives off island.

He admits the commute to his Bainbridge business is the longest he’s had since arriving in the United States from Mexico.

As one of the newer additions to the island’s restaurant circle, Casa Rojas Express has had its share of difficulties with the island labor pool that usually comes in the form of high school students.

“I’ve tried to take on high schoolers,” Rojas said. “I have two right now, but they have other stuff to do. We try to accommodate what they need but sometimes it’s not possible.

“Restaurant schedules are tough sometimes, you work weekends and holidays and you have to be there when business demands it and it makes it tougher.”

With school back in session, it will be that much harder for restaurants to maintain part-time employees.

“It always shortchanges us at the end of the summer,” House said. “They all go back to school and we still got a bunch of summer left, it puts a strain on the year-round people who have to work more.”

Just last week, House clocked over 70 hours to pick up where part-time workers left off. She also commutes from across the Agate Passage Bridge to fill in when needed.

Although the hours are trying, she has a positive outlook for the future of the island’s restaurant industry despite the increasing hardships.

“I’ve come to rely on the fact that when we think we’re really in trouble someone walks through the door,” House said. “There’s always someone out there that wants to wait tables or wants to bartend or work in a kitchen. The people who are between jobs or are looking for that special job and can’t quite find it so, ‘oh, I’ll just go wait tables…’

“So things are going to get better, real soon.”