Restaurants overcome staff shortages to handle Mother’s Day crowds

Restaurants offering specials stay busy as people go out and eat on Mother's Day.

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — A day to honor a special lady in our lives as people go out and eat to celebrate Mother’s Day.

Restaurants have to prep days and sometimes weeks in advance to deal with hundreds of families coming out to celebrate moms.

“It is our busiest day of the year hands down. Most of us were here at 5 a.m. this morning to be ready to go by 9. Crowds start right at 9:00 and they stay all the way until we’re done with the brunch till 2:30,” said Eric Rinehart, General Manager at Crave Fargo.

Lucky’s 13 Pub in Fargo offers a special buffet for the holiday.

“A lot of prep, a lot of preparation, we have a full buffet with a carving station, we have peel and eat shrimp, walleye, our famous teriyaki green beans, mash potatoes, a lot of good stuff on there. I think we will continue to do them in the future; they’ve been a great success for us and the comments are wonderful as well,” said Tonya Barbeau, General Manager at Lucky’s 13 Pub Fargo.

They see meeting the demand of a crowd this size can be challenging especially while many in the restaurant industry are still dealing with staff shortages.

Crave is one place that hasn’t been affected by that since they opened three years ago.

“We’ve been blessed. We’ve got a full front house and back house staff for today. Hiring has gone really well for us. It gave us the confidence to book at complete capacity for mothers day today which we are from open until 2:30,” said Rinehart.

They will see about 700 to 800 people.

“Well on this most beautiful day of the year is Mother’s Day, everyone of us has one. This is why we do it and this year, we couldn’t think of a better way to do it,” said Rinehart.