When the air conditioning first went out in June at the Daily coffee shop in Inman Park, shift lead Lauren Leeder said temperatures in the front of house would climb into the 80s. Co-owners Michael Shemtov and Jacob Hunter struggled for weeks to get contractors to help them pinpoint and resolve the issue. Countless emails and meetings resulted in little action from repair teams.
Meanwhile, Leeder’s managers tried to keep the staff cool with frozen pops, Gatorade and fans, but the temperature was “so beyond anyone’s control at that point,” she said.
Between the doors constantly opening throughout the day, the Daily’s open kitchen design and “playing Whac-A-Mole with HVAC systems,” Shemtov said, “I think there’s a lot of what I would call structural issues working against restaurants.”
Limited labor protections
During one shift in June, feeling woozy and nauseous from the heat, Leeder burned herself while making coffee. After the incident, she decided to go home and research labor laws, thinking there had to be some way to improve the situation. She found that there are virtually no enforceable standards to protect indoor or outdoor workers from extreme heat.
But that could change. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor proposed the first ever federal labor protections for preventing heat injury and illness. The rule would apply to indoor workspaces that reach a heat index of at least 80 degrees. It would require employers to develop a heat injury and illness prevention plan; create requirements around drinking water, taking breaks and acclimatizing new and returning employees; and provide annual heat training for supervisors and employees.
Most deaths and injuries from heat occur in labor-intensive outdoor settings like farms and construction sites. But experts say people who work indoors, even in workplaces that are nominally climate-controlled, can also be vulnerable, especially when cooling systems fail to keep up with rising temperatures in a changing climate.
Daniel Smith, co-director of research for the Farm Worker Family Health Program at Emory University, said the impacts of heat on indoor workers are “historically understudied” but a growing concern.
“Climate change is already impacting our indoor workers, we’re just not recognizing it,” he said. “The whole range of conditions that we associate with outdoor workers, we’re also going to see with our indoor workers.”
Long-term impacts from working in high heat conditions can include chronic dehydration, Smith said, which may lead to kidney disease and problems with the cardiovascular systems. Another concern for workers is that symptoms of heat illness, like confusion, dizziness and extreme sweating, can cause secondary injuries in the workplace — like the one Leeder says she sustained making coffee.
Jeffery Stawowy, the area director for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Atlanta West office, declined to comment on specifics of how OSHA would enforce the rule since it’s still in the proposed stage. He said the goal is to allow OSHA regulators to “narrow our focus and be more specific in the areas that we address and also give employers and employees a better sense of what the responsibilities are.”
In the meantime, employees and restaurant owners are working to protect themselves and their businesses against the sweltering summer. Last year was earth’s hottest on record, and according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, 2024 is shaping up to be just as bad or worse.
Credit: Ziyu Julian Zhu/AJC
Credit: Ziyu Julian Zhu/AJC
On July 15, amid flashes of lightning and a steady drizzle, a group of about 15 people gathered beneath a pavilion at Esther Peachy Park in Cabbagetown. Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a nonprofit that advocates for restaurant workers’ rights, in partnership with the Democratic Socialists of Atlanta, taught the group about heat stroke symptoms and how to respond to heat emergencies.
Matthew Nursey, one of the workshop trainers, spent more than a decade working in the food service industry. He said he’s held positions in various restaurants around metro Atlanta, and it wasn’t uncommon for workers to go six hours or more without taking a break or drinking water, Nursey said.
“When those tickets are coming in, you don’t want to let people down by stepping off the line to cool down for a couple minutes, because things are just constantly coming in and happening so you gotta stay put,” he said.
Credit: Ziyu Julian Zhu/AJC
Credit: Ziyu Julian Zhu/AJC
When Nursey started working in management roles, he said it was tough to get ownership to fix anything quickly, including broken air conditioning, and he suspects that many people operating restaurants aren’t aware of OSHA’s heat recommendations.
He believes OSHA’s proposed rule could give employees more protection and managers more incentive to pay attention to the guidelines and disseminate safety information to staff.
Hot kitchens have always been a reality in the restaurant industry, but with “the increasing temperatures in the summer that we’re seeing, we’re going to have to start rethinking how we are reacting,” Smith said.
Adjusting to the heat
Cornoy Watkins and Talia Jones have been operating their vegan eatery, Good As Burgers, out of a food truck since temporarily closing their container restaurant along the Beltline earlier this year.
According to Watkins, the food truck can get up to 10-15 degrees hotter than the outside temperature when they start grilling. There’s air conditioning inside the truck, but it gets so hot at times they might as well not turn it on.
When one of their employees experienced symptoms of heat illness, Jones and Watkins changed their hours of operation. Now they open in the evenings from 5-10 p.m., although there are some days where they push those hours back even later.
Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC
Credit: Seeger Gray / AJC
Hudson Rouse, chef and owner of Rising Son, Whoopsie’s and Pure Quill Superette has been struggling to keep all three restaurants cool. While it’s common for a restaurant’s kitchen to reach high temperatures, the dining room has also been difficult to moderate this summer, even with two air conditioning units at each restaurant, Rouse said.
He tries to keep the shades drawn with fans running in the corners, and he’s started leaving the AC on all night to keep the dining room manageable, but customers “still aren’t comfortable,” he said. It’s also left him with a hefty electricity bill.
“I got my bill for Rising Sun for last month, and I about fell out of my seat,” he said. “It’s about 70% higher than what it normally is.”
Restaurants are already some of the most energy-intensive businesses on a square-foot basis, and longer, hotter summers and rising electricity costs are making it even more expensive to keep restaurants cool.
For bakers like Sarah Dodge of Colette Bread and Bakery, rising temperatures can mean losing hundreds of dollars in product. Baking is a science that requires meticulous timing, she explained. Bread thrives in 78 degrees, but as the temperature climbs, it begins to proof faster, which puts a strain on Dodge and her team of bakers to work quickly lest they miss the window where they can bake.
She tries to keep the thermostat in the mid-to-low 70s, but when it gets into the 90s outside and doesn’t cool down much at night, the HVAC has problems keeping up. Dodge said she has already lost four to five days of product this summer. One morning, they came in to find that most of the dough for a wholesale account had over-proofed, and they were forced to toss out around $300 of brioche, she said.
She’s found herself retooling recipes every few weeks to keep up with the temperature.
“We’re in a battle with nature basically,” Dodge said. “A lot of stuff that’s happening right now is temperature-related, and the fact (is) we just can’t control temperature right now.”
AJC reporter Meris Lutz contributed to this report.
How to protect yourself in the heat:
Smith recommends that workers primarily hydrate with water and keep it to a maximum of one to two Gatorades per day since large amounts of sugar can be dehydrating. He suggests workers wear sweat-wicking clothes, which help cool the body. He also suggests using personal cooling fans that can go around necks or belt loops.
Find OSHA’s heat recommendations and precautions for workers and employers at osha.gov/heat.
Online resources:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offers a heat risk tool at wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heatrisk that can make it easier for people to understand the heat forecast, Smith said.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has a disaster response portal at tools.niehs.nih.gov/dr2. Type “heat” or other similar keywords in the search bar, and it will compile a range of resources surrounding that term.
Workers or employers can contact OSHA at 1-800-321-6742. The local Georgia office contacts can be found at osha.gov/contactus/bystate/GA/areaoffice.
OSHA also offers on-site consultations for employers who want to identify potential safety hazards at osha.gov/consultation.
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