Restaurant life is hard, thankless and can very much a toxic lifestyle. I worked at 5 restaurants in the city and all of them had their unique workplace culture than ranged from fairly nice to down right exploitation and abuse [1].
Drug use, alcoholism, and often times undercutting your peers so you are scheduled shifts during prime hours just drives morale down. There is high turnover because of these things. Now that you have trouble hiring is more indicative of not wanting to be treated like crap than "restaurant staff won't come back because lazy". It's baffling to me how out of touch these restaurant owners can be when it comes to the question of not being able to retain staff.
This comment comes across as resentful; but it's important to highlight the less understood aspects of restaurant culture. Generally, it was fulfilling and left me with valuable skills. But, I'd never dare to go back to that lifestyle.
[1]: https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2017/07/14/wat...