How Wilmington beach businesses are coping with labor shortages, supply chain gaps, more

As beach towns across Southeastern North Carolina enter the height of summer, many business owners are still grappling with the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reflective of national trends, labor shortages, gaps in the supply chain and rising gas prices abound.

Many local business owners have been forced to adapt to the less-than-ideal conditions, preparing as best as they can to weather a summer with more tourists than ever before.

Labor woes

President and CEO of Wilmington and Beaches Conventions & Visitors Bureau, Kim Hufham, said that labor shortages have been challenging for some businesses.

“One of the things that we’re saying, especially during the summer months, when we know we have our regular residents here as well as the influx of tourists, is just be patient,” she said.

In Surf City, Jeff Peterson has faced difficulties staffing his restaurant, Surf City Line. He said that while current labor shortages aren’t as bad as those in prior summers, it is still challenging to find employees.

“We’re very fortunate right now to have enough staff to handle it, but it’s still tight.”

General manager of the Blockade Runner Beach Resort, Nicolas Montoya, said that the resort has also had trouble finding help.

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“Southeastern North Carolina has always been a challenge in terms of having enough service personnel, so it hasn’t been that foreign to us, it’s just been a little more marked the last couple of years for different reasons,” he said.

Montoya said that staff is skewing younger, with high school students and recent high school graduates taking on positions traditionally held by college students during the summer. Teaching has become central to the hiring process.

“We have had to bring a lot more people in and teach them skills, as opposed to trying to hire somebody that already comes with a particular set of skills in any sort of hospitality background,” he said.

Supply chain struggles

Owner of Surf City’s unWINEd Wine Bar and Beer and the Daily Grind coffee shop, Jeremy Shugarts, says that supply chain disruptions have forced him to order cases of supplies in order to guarantee that he will have enough to operate.

“As a business, we have to do a lot more stocking of inventories, and that means a lot of us businesses around here have our own little warehouses and stuff, to stay ahead of the curve,” Shugarts said.

Co-owner of Jimmy’s at Wrightsville Beach, Jimmy Gilleece, is facing the same struggle, getting storage space wherever he can.

“Literally we have people’s garages we’re borrowing, we rented a place across the street, we have two storage places off-site and you know, when we get the call that we got cups in, we get them all.”

He says that some items are still hard to get, with tropical Red Bull being one of the most difficult to come by. He recently bought one hundred cases of the energy drink on Amazon, because it was the only way he could find it.

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Rising gas prices

Owner of Island Dan’s Rentals, Dan Lyons, runs his business from his home, using his truck and trailer to deliver equipment to customers.

Rising fuel and equipment costs have forced him to raise rental prices, but in spite of this, his business is doing better than ever.

He attributes some of his success to travelers choosing vacations close to home climbing airfare and gas prices.

In Wrightsville Beach, Gilleece is optimistic that vacationers will keep coming, despite growing gas prices.

“Hope the fuel prices don’t deter anybody from coming, but so far they haven’t,” he said.

Peterson, who owns numerous rental properties on Topsail Island, in addition to Surf City Line, believes that fuel costs are having little to no impact on summer travel this year.

“I truly believe that as it happened during COVID, people are going to go on vacation regardless, they’re gonna get out,” he said.

Peterson said that online bookings for his rental properties have already surpassed what they were at this time last year, and that he is well on the way to having another record year for business.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Wilmington businesses coping with supply chain issues, labor shortages