The past month and a half without any Covid-19 restrictions has been a welcome return to normal life for most people. But for many small businesses throughout the City of Falls Church, they’re struggling to meet this revived demand the way they’d like due to so few qualified new employees — if they even get any at all, that is.

“I’ve been in the business for 25 years, and I’ve never seen this,” said Kevin Scally, the manager of Ireland’s Four Provinces on West Broad Street. “As it stands right now, this level of service is not what we’re known for.”

Ever since the lockdowns were completely lifted roughly five weeks ago, it’s exposed how severely short-staffed the popular Irish pub is in the heart of the Little City’s downtown.

A dearth of bartenders has forced the Four P’s, as it’s colloquially known, to keep its outdoor bar closed during times it normally wouldn’t, and a lack of servers has also affected the pace of food orders, according to Scally.

The longtime manager has said he’s had to lower his bar for new hires just to get candidates in the door. While his preferred level of experience is two to three years, he’s been meeting people who have anywhere from six months to a year in a food service job.

A lot of them have been students either returning home from college or finding a job to fill their non-school months. Scally did say that, once September rolls around, it’s “back to square one.” It’s a similar situation for Stevie Houck, a partner in the new pizza franchise, Baddpizza.

The local chain with its Buffalo, New York-style pies has had its “Now Hiring” sign outside of its storefront in the Broaddale Shopping Center for weeks now — as have its corporate neighbors in the FedEx Office Print & Ship Center and Palm Beach Tan. Fortunately, college students have been able to fill some of the store’s part-time roles both in Falls Church, as well as its other branches in McLean and South Riding in Loudoun County.

Still, Houck said they’re looking for full-timers, particularly in management. He believes they can get through the summer with the staff they have now, though he’s also bracing for the uncertainty of what happens after school starts back up.

That’s on top of the struggle it’s been for the pizzeria to purchase wings (a case of wings jumped from $45 a year ago to $150 today, for example) to gain some name recognition around town. While there have been some spikes due to getting help from prideful Buffalo transplants in the Washington, D.C. area (as well as a remarkable NFL season from the Buffalo Bills), the ebbs and flows have been tough for the business that opened just weeks before the pandemic set in last March.

“It’s been very challenging. I know people say, ‘Well, you do pizza, you’ve got the best thing going.’ Yes, but only if you’re known,” Houck said. “Are you going to order from this place called ‘Baddpizza’ that you’ve never had before, or are you going to go for the sure thing, especially with the mentality of everyday people who go with what’s comfortable?”

Hiring challenges haven’t been consolidated to the food service industry alone, even though they are more pronounced there.

Gwynn Hegyi, the Chief Operating Officer at Body Dynamics, Inc., said that the physical therapy clinic is currently looking for additional intake coordinators, administrative staff, a massage therapist and an exercise scientist/fitness trainer.

Changing priorities from the staff have been something the clinic has had to adapt to due to the pandemic. Hegyi said that many of its staff have cut back from full-time to part-time while they tend to personal matters — with a good chunk of them having to be home with young kids who were going through virtual school.

But that also meant that the full timers have been seeing more clients than they normally would, hence the need to hire more people. The unskilled positions such as being an intake coordinator and administrative staffer, on the other hand, have seen an unusual number of flakes.

“We’ve gotten more people responding to any ads that we might have been running or places that we might have been posting,” Hegyi said. “But when we follow back up and say, ‘Hey, can we do a phone interview? Can we schedule a time to talk?’ I don’t hear anything back.”

Her hypothesis: People are using the applications as proof that they are looking for jobs in order to qualify for unemployment, and then bailing on following through on interviews. Virginia is one of the 24 states that hasn’t ended the additional $300 a week of federal unemployment benefits which is set to expire on Sept. 6, according to USA Today.

Gary Henry, co-owner of Dominion Camera along West Broad, has inferred the same thing.

The five-decade-strong camera and photo development shop is currently looking to fill a sales associate position in the front of the house, but has found it difficult to find qualified candidates since most of those coming in believe taking pictures on their phone qualifies as photography experience.

Henry has said that some qualified candidates have come in looking for more money than he’s able to offer at the time since the shop is still in recovery mode from the past year-plus. Job posts on career-finding site Indeed, meanwhile, are often dead ends that are costing Dominion in what he thinks is an effort to secure unemployment benefits.

“I’m having to spend more time going through all these posts saying ‘Please contact me,’ and no one contacts me,” Henry said. “So I’m spending a lot of time going through it and paying Indeed every time they [submit an application], I have to pay Indeed. It’s kind of a Catch-22. It’s not been a very positive experience that way.”

Back at the Four P’s, manager Kevin Scally doesn’t fault people for taking advantage of the more generous benefits. He understands the appeal in making comparable pay without having to leave the house, undergo training and endure the usual bumps that come from learning a new job.

At the same time, there’s an effort to get the restaurant to where it was before Covid. Unfortunately, he thinks that can only be done by demanding an unfair amount of effort from his current staff.

“I can’t ask the staff to work seven days a week. And I can’t ask the kitchen to suffer with them. They didn’t put us in the situation that we’re in,” Scally said.