In the grand spectacle of post-pandemic labor market woes, Thunderdome Restaurant Group’s tale is almost cliché. Imagine, once upon a time, 100 hopefuls signing up for interviews and a mere 15 bothering to show up. An epic recruitment success story, isn’t it? Fast forward to today, and the labor market has supposedly “cooled,” yet Joe Lanni, the brain behind this Cincinnati-based culinary empire, now grapples with the Herculean task of growing a 50-plus location business amidst economic murmurings that would make even the most seasoned economist’s head spin.
Faced with the reality of spiraling costs, Lanni is ditching freshly made tortillas—which apparently require the dedication of a full-time employee. The horror! Instead, the strategy is to shutter underperforming spots and churn out more fast-casual joints, feeding the public’s insatiable appetite for quick bites. All this while the economy teeters under President Trump’s tariff-tightening, immigration-squeezing, regulation-redefining dance. Consumers, the lifeblood of this capitalist machine, are clutching their wallets a tad tighter, while surveys suggest a sluggishness in both the services and manufacturing sectors. But who needs surveys when you’ve got a front-row seat to this economic circus?
Yet, with the economy supposedly not yet plummeting off the proverbial cliff, cautious optimism abounds. Lanni, ever the optimist—or perhaps simply resigned—plans to swell his workforce by 200 souls for the summer surge, before trimming the fat come fall. It’s a high-stakes game, but what better time to gamble than when uncertainty looms large? After all, the show must go on, until it doesn’t.
