My husband is a chef. Things have been a mess in the last year(due to the pandemic). At first, everyone was laid off due to the shut downs. And then things started opening, and things started to return to normal. And then everyone and their brothers charged head first out of the house and back into the restaurants. And then the labor shortages started. Some restaurants started shutting down early, or closing certain days, and all the customers started crashing into whatever restaurant was open. The restaurant my husband works at is one that hasn't cut hours. Suddenly, the old staff roster wasn't enough to deal with the wave of customers, which my husband has never in his life seen. Restaurant workers spend all year dreading Mother's Day because of how bad it gets; he says every weekend is like Mother's Day now. And hiring new staff is hard; there are few applicants right now, and a lot of the hirees quit when they realize they have to work nights and weekends(hello, folks, its a restaurant).
Packed in like sardines in a can, the customers seem to forget that it is a priveldge to eat in a restaurant. They're ruder than before, come in bigger groups than before, are louder than before, and seem to be more entitled. Really, that's what it all comes down to, is entitlement. Many seem to forget that their chefs and servers are human beings, who have things to do and don't want to sit hours waiting on you to order(my husband missed his lunch break yesterday and got stuck doing an 11 hour shift because a huge party came in and refused to order until they'd been sitting there for over an hour).
There's always been problem customers, but the dam seemed to break after Covid.