The restaurant and food service industry are facing a reckoning— Adapt or Die

Pre-pandemic, despite the total number of restaurants nationwide increasing +16% (‘07’-’18), new entrants joining the labor pool were drying up or flat (leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic). The teen labor force participation rate has been stagnant for 4 yrs and counting— In 2007 there were 1.7M teens working in restaurants; and in 2018 there were still only…