When crowds packed an understaffed Hilton Head dessert bar, unlikely heroes stepped in
It was already a busy Saturday night at The Purple Cow dessert and cocktail bar on Hilton Head Island when 20 more people walked in the door. Owner Lisa “Bernie” Bernstein couldn’t even look up from the cappuccino machine when they all filed in.
Bernstein had two people working at the eight-table shop on Saturday besides herself — half the staff she would want “in a perfect world.”
Things were going south fast, and she was giving customers wait times reaching 30 minutes when a young man at the bar turned to her and said, “You know, I wait tables. Want me to take some orders?”
“People just started getting up to help,” Bernstein said. “I was just so grateful ... so thankful.”
Before she knew it, The Purple Cow’s staff was being assisted by two off-duty servers from other restaurants, three people from Street Meet across the parking lot and a kid from Fiesta Fresh she recruited when she ran out to her car to grab more toilet paper for the restaurant.
“There was no thinking and, when people started getting up and helping,” Bernstein said, “I almost started crying. I was so grateful.”
But beyond the tears of joy, she was feeling something else: Frustrated.
“When you have customers get up and start helping, you feel so blessed and so fortunate,” Bernstein said. “But it makes me so sad. I think I know maybe two restaurants that aren’t short-staffed. I probably lost 20 customers last Monday because I just couldn’t get to them.”
“It’s hell”: Workforce housing on Hilton Head
The scene at The Purple Cow before customers started to hop in isn’t new territory for some Hilton Head businesses. Staff shortages can bring an otherwise successful restaurant to a grinding halt — even in the off-season.
To address that shortage, many look to developing affordable housing. If Hilton Head can house more workers, fewer will go off-island for work or commute over the bridge every morning.
“There’s no place for everybody to live,” Bernstein said of her own hiring woes and understaffed, busy nights. “It happens all the time, and it’s hell.”
Leaders on Hilton Head invested over $49,000 in an affordable workforce housing consultant team in 2018, and that report is scheduled to be complete in April.
“Hilton Head is extremely short-staffed,” Bernstein wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday morning. “Even more so this time of year because kids are still in school.”
In the weeks proceeding March 1, island employers expect to double their staff and their volume, Lucky Rooster Kitchen + Bar owner Clayton Rollison told The Island Packet in December.
Bernstein said she’ll have to hire more people too, and although she likes to hire high school students for their work ethic, she can’t wait for the five people she needs.
“I need to employ more folks from now until Labor Day,” she said. “I can’t wait till school gets out at the end of May.”
A night like Saturday night is frustrating for a small business owner, but Bernstein said it also gave her hope.
“I am so incredibly fortunate to work in a town where this happens,” Bernstein wrote.
This story was originally published March 18, 2019 at 3:54 PM.
