A restaurant manager in Northern Virginia was so desperate for staff that she hired people with bad attitudes who scared off customers, a report says

• A restaurant consultant told AP she's had to hire people with bad attitudes to fill job vacancies.
• But rude staff members scared away customers, the consultant said.
• US restaurants are going to extreme lengths to fill vacancies amid a hospitality worker shortage.

A restaurant manager in Northern Virginia was so desperate for staff that she had to employ rude people who scared off customers, the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

It's the latest example of US employers having to rethink their recruitment requirements amid a nationwide shortage in hospitality workers.

In response, many restaurants have raised their minimum pay, offered free food to applicants, and begun to hire young teens.

AP reported that Sarah White, a restaurant consultant who works as an area manager The Lost Dog Cafe in Northern Virginia, said she has had to hire people with bad attitudes to fill job vacancies.

But the rude employees have deterred customers, White said.

"We don't have anyone to wait on [the customers], but we are also losing them because they get service, but it's from someone that I wouldn't want serving them," she told AP.

When the pandemic struck last year, The Lost Dog Cafe lost staff, may of whom had worked there for 10 years, AP reported. By May the company its waiting staff was around 20% down, AP said.

As it struggled to fill those roles, The Lost Dog Cafe began hiring people without any restaurant experience and employing people under the age of 18 for the first time, according to AP's report. Some also turned out to be great hires.

"Now, we are getting people we wouldn't have hired before. And they have been some of the most amazing employees," White told AP. "It would have been our loss."

Insider has contacted The Lost Dog Cafe for comment.

Around one-third of former restaurant and hotel staff said they wouldn't return to the hospitality industry at all, according to a survey of around 13,000 job-seekers conducted by Joblist in July. Hospitality workers polled said they were discouraged by the low pay, bad benefits, and stressful working environment in the sector.