FLOWER MOUND, Texas — Things are certainly getting better for workers at Texas restaurants and throughout the service industry, but they’re not out of the woods yet when it comes to dealing with the effects of the pandemic.

At Mi Dia from Scratch in Flower Mound, general manager Tyler Lee walked the dining room this week with a smile on his face as, yet again, residents of his hometown were seated in their booths and enjoying lunch in person, with few COVID restrictions remaining in the experience. This is certainly a drastic change from what Lee and his staff were looking at just one year ago.

“During the pandemic I’d come sit at the bar for like eight hours, just like, ‘I don’t know what to do today, I’m by myself in here,’” said Lee.

Throughout those dark months of little in-person business, Lee and his staff found new ways to keep things going and keep offering their unique menu to their customers. He said their catering program became a saving grace and they even developed an entire new to-go program so people could get their food in smaller orders and eat it from a safe distance.

“It’s like a whole different model we’ve kind of had to adjust to and create on the fly during this pandemic,” Lee said. 

That on-the-fly approach continued as restrictions changed one by one and they had to keep offering up new takes on what they do: QR codes for menus, distanced seating that slowly got closer and closer, and of course dealing with masks in their workflow.

Now, with restrictions seemingly a thing of the past, there’s still little "going back to normal" - not yet, anyway. 

The Texas Restaurant Association reports that rising food costs and staffing shortages are currently some of the biggest issues facing restaurants in the state. Additionally, debts from the pandemic continue to weigh on many restaurant owners and operators as they try to normalize business again.

Lee and his chefs say those challenges have them continuing to adapt. They’ve taken the higher food costs as an opportunity to shop around with their vendors and see if they can find better, more efficient paths forward.

Lee said the staffing is a bit tougher, as leaders throughout the service industry are struggling to find willing workers post-pandemic.

“It’s hard to get people in here that want to stay who aren’t collecting that unemployment check or, ya know, that are gonna be here for a standard amount of time,” said Lee.

He says they’ll just continue to adjust and come up with new twists on how they do things as long as the challenges keep coming their way. At least, he says, the customer shortage is no longer an issue as crowds, stir-crazy from all of these months of social distancing, seem ready to finally come get a bite to eat again.