In the seven years since he moved to the Verde Valley, Gabe Keaton has cooked for over a dozen of the top restaurants in Sedona and its surrounding towns.
He has moved from place to place throughout the Verde Valley, working as a chef at BombAZ, Tavern Grille and Bocce in Cottonwood, Mariposa, Dahl & DiLuca, L’Auberge and The Hudson in Sedona and Cucina Rustica in the Village of Oak Creek.
Keaton had been working at his most recent spot, Steakhouse89, for just six months when he was told to go home because of COVID-19 and social distancing restrictions. The restaurant, like many others, closed down. For more than a month, Keaton has been out of work.
“It’s the vacation I didn’t want,” Keaton said. “Not like this. I think in the last four years it’s the longest I’ve been out of work.”
The Verde Valley Regional Economic Organization has identified accommodation and food services as the largest single industry by employment in Sedona, and fourth-largest in Cottonwood and Camp Verde, representing over 4,000 jobs in the region.
With city and county either closing bars down or moving restaurants to take-out only starting on March 20, thousands of those workers are left out of work.
“At first you [think], OK, a little bit of time off — it will be over pretty fast,” said Alicia Kay, an employee at Indian Gardens in Oak Creek Canyon. “But then it keeps going and going.”
Kay said that she and other employees had been preparing to find a way to keep the restaurant open for take-out through social distancing, only to be told by their boss that the restaurant was closing down indefinitely.
“I found myself thinking, about a week ago, that I had never realized how much I actually enjoy working,” Kay said. “My life is better when I get up in the morning and have something to do. I get up in the morning. I feel home and I’m relaxed. [Now] I feel really confused about what I’m doing.”
Keaton has been ordering cookbooks online and watching instructional videos in the hopes of using this time to improve his skills as a cook, but said that without access to a full-scale kitchen like he is used to, he is frustrated to not be able to actually practice.
With the CARES Act passed by Congress last month having allocated an additional $600 per week from the federal government for those who have registered as unemployed, restaurant workers say they have not been in major financial distress. The additional $600 is not due to kick in until this week, according to the state.
With lowered expenses due to not being able to go out like normal, Keaton even says he is saving more money than normal. But they also spoke of the panic in the first few days or weeks, when backed up unemployment offices at the state meant uncertainty about whether the money would be coming in on time to pay rent or cover bills.
But beyond the immediate financial issues, workers say they are extremely worried about the future, not knowing how long their lives will be put on hold or whether they will have a job waiting when things go back to normal.
“At first it was definitely relaxing,” said Jonah Herrick, a waiter at Moscato in Camp Verde. “The longer it goes on the more difficult it gets.”
Herrick comes from a family that has long worked in food service in the area, and treats his restaurant job as a career and an identity. He worries that if restaurants stay closed long term he may have to switch to working construction, which he described as less pay for more hours.
“We have officially been taken off the payroll,” Kay said. “If the town was to open at the end of the month, I would have to find another job. That’s the hardest part, too. Everybody is going to be fighting for all the jobs. Everyone wants them. It’s going to be really hard to readjust things to find that safe zone where you’re comfortable and you’re good and you know you’re OK.”
