Restaurant Workers Contend With Changing Protocols As Tourists Return to Maine

Bartender Hayley Wilson mixes a drink at the Portland Hunt & Alpine Club in Portland, Maine. (Robbie Feinberg/Maine Public)

For months now, Maine’s coastal towns have been packed with visitors — a welcome bounce-back for a hospitality industry that was reeling last year. But the return of tourists hasn’t been all good for restaurant workers, who say they’ve had to deal with contentious customers, some challenging health protocols such as mask and vaccine mandates.

The pressures of the pandemic have stressed many workers, and has others thinking about leaving the industry altogether.

Pouring a few drinks inside the Portland Hunt & Alpine Club — a Scandinavian-influenced bar a few blocks from the Portland waterfront — bartender Hayley Wilson says the job is great. She makes around $15 an hour, plus tips, and she likes making people happy.

“And that’s what we do every day, is tiny individual parties for people,” Wilson says. “I love the aspect of taking care of people.”

But while Wilson may love her job, she says the past 18 months have left her and other restaurant staff feeling exhausted.

Like many restaurants, the Hunt & Alpine Club was forced to shut down last year. And Wilson says after it reopened, she had to take on new responsibilities, as a makeshift bouncer enforcing mask mandates.

“We would have to stand in the doorway, and kind of use our bodies to block people from coming in who aren’t wearing masks,” she says. “And repeating the same thing over and over. And getting eye rolls, or frustration or aggression from it. It takes a toll on someone.”